Public transport is the backbone of the cities. However, there is a need to shift focus on customer experience owing to the emergence of multiple mobility options. Using AI and machine learning through leveraging a variety of data sources, public transport operators can understand the real historical and current passenger demand of urban transportation systems. The city authorities should try to adopt SUMP (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan) which aims to build 15-minute cities that allows people to ditch their car. To achieve this goal, new emerging modes including micromobility, on-demand buses, and car sharing systems need to work in tandem with the public transport system. European cities have some good examples of multi-modal integration. Cities should continue to experiment with futuristic ideas including Urban Air Mobility, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Autonomy, etc. and encourage startups to share fresh perspectives.

Scott Shepard (Asistobe CCO / CPO) leverages his professional training as an urban planner & designer to deliver value in mobility innovation, startup advisory, entrepreneurship, and thought leadership. Scott is an advocate for #CitiesFirst and an expert in the intersection of cities, movement, and technology. He is a digital mobility expert, entrepreneur, startup advisor, and thought leader who understands and is passionate about the intersection of cities, movement, and technology. He works for more than 15 years in the USA in different roles helping cities to plan mobility and transport infrastructure. Later he moved to Europe and worked with multiple startups in an Operation and Business role. In this podcast, we discussed various topics including the future of mobility, the public transport sector in Europe, the idea of 15 minutes cities, the evolution of micro-mobility, and the growing startup ecosystem in Europe.

Venture capitalists are pouring money into the mobility sector. In 2021, mobility startups have raised $97.7 billion. It is important to note that venture capital firms are investing in a variety of mobility technologies such as autonomous vehicles, on-demand, e-scooters, electric vehicles, battery technologies, cybersecurity, data management, fleet subscription, urban logistics, urban air mobility, and many others.

Innovation is happening all around the world. However, Israel will play an important role in the future mobility industry, with more than 600 mobility startups founded over the last decade here in Israel. Furthermore, many venture capital firms are focusing on investing in mobility and logistics startups. We invited one of the first investors in the mobile technology sector to share his knowledge.

Michael Granoff is the founder and Managing Director of Maniv Mobility, a Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm that invests in startups that aim at revolutionizing the mobility and technology industries. Maniv Mobility has raised around $160 million so far and has invested in more than 37 startups. Some of the notable investments include Otonomo, bipi, Aurora labs, Revel, Turo, Upstream Security, Ridecell etc. Mike is also a founding board member of Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE), a Washington, DC-based policy and advocacy organization. He also serves on the boards of many mobility start-ups.

Public Transport is going through a transformation phase. There is increasing competition from other modes of transport. On the other hand, the ridership has not fully recovered. Public transport operators should provide safe and reliable. The role of transport is much more than just moving people from A to B. There is a need to adopt innovation culture and cooperation and co-innovation with external stakeholders are important to solve some of the challenges faced by the transport authority. Open Innovation can help organizations to define their problem, co-developing solutions by providing subject matter expertise and data, and then trialing some of the solutions

Rikesh Shah is Head of Commercial Innovation at Transport for London (TfL). Rikesh is accountable for TfL’s engagement with market innovators that include start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises, academics, R&D institutes, accelerators, venture capitalists, and large corporates. TfL’s Commercial Innovation function is able to set out clear challenges, engage with the most innovative companies from across the world, curate and incubate the best ideas and then scale them to support the delivery of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

Rikesh was previously responsible for TfL’s open data strategy and set up a digital and data partnerships function. As a result of TfL’s open data, there are nearly 700 apps used by 42% of Londoners with over 14,000 registered users, mainly developers. He truly believes that “Any innovation is about saving real-life problems".

Angel investment is important to the achievement of startups. Angel investors are early backers who not only provide funding to small startups or entrepreneurs, but also support product development and discovering early customers. As the private funding market is facing slow down, it will be important for the entrepreneurs to build their ventures strategically. Startups in mobility spaces are no exception and should focus on building distribution and finding product-market fit. This episode will feature firsthand knowledge from an Angel Investor who has invested in over 280 startups globally. Some of the key questions in this podcast are:

· Angel investment strategy – Indexing approach?

· Angel Investor due-diligence checklist?

· Difference between Angel Investors vs Venture Capitalists?

· Due diligence process followed by Angel Investors for Mobility Startups?

· How to raise venture capital as a first-time founder?

· How to build a pitch deck for Investors?

· How do angel/venture capitalists add value?

· Potential uses cases of Web3 and blockchain?

· Future of Startup ecosystem in emerging markets?

· Funding winter implication and key advice for founders

· How to become an Angel Investor?

Ashley Flucas is the founder and general partner of Flucas Ventures. Based in West Palm Beach, Florida, the syndicate of around 2,000 angel investors has invested in more than 200 startups. Ashley, a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School, also serves as a partner at Jupiter, a Florida-based real estate finance fund with $3 billion in assets under management.

Digital technologies are currently remodeling the public transport ecosystem. Blockchain is emerging as new technology to facilitate seamless urban mobility through delivering future-oriented Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions. Other new emerging technologies like Web3 and Metaverse have the potential to offer door-to-door journey experiences to users. Iomob is building the Internet of Mobility and has the vision to empower enterprise organizations to offer seamlessly interoperable, global mobility roaming to their users. The company also launched the first NFTs collection with Brightline train operator in Miami and the first-ever transportation layer in metaverse in partnership with Next Earth and Vueling Airlines.

Boyd Cohen is the CEO and Co-founder of Iomob, a decentralized Internet of Mobility network. Since obtaining his Ph.D. in strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado in 2001, he spent the past two decades focused on accelerating the path to a low-carbon sustainable economy. This included publishing 3 books, multiple peer-reviewed articles, and starting a handful of ventures in the smart cities and sustainability arena.

Innovation is playing an important role in improving the customer experience for public transportation users. Transit agencies should create a strong innovation culture within their organization to define what innovation means to them, generate new ideas by involving front-line staff, learn best practices from other agencies, and conduct pilots to test new ideas. On-demand buses, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), and blockchain are all new emerging opportunities for transit agencies. There are also new challenges such as cybersecurity. DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) has implemented many innovative projects, such as passenger fare restructuring, on-demand mobility, integration with first and last-mile connectivity, and the establishment of a mobility sandbox.

Tina Mörch-Pierre is the Sr. Director, Innovation and Technology Services at First Transit. Her experience and depth of knowledge span over twenty-five years in varying industries including transportation, healthcare, technology, and finance. Previously, she was working as AVP – Innovation at DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit). Tina has spent the last decade leading various transit initiatives including fare collection programs, launching mobile applications, strategizing, and deploying MaaS programs as well as exploring innovative approaches to solving transportation needs. She shared her experience on various key topics and her personal journey.

Technology will be crucial in improving public transportation networks in emerging markets. Deep tech can assist in rationalizing a large volume of data in order to build inference. However, many emerging markets lack data because it is fragmented and non-standardized. The public transit agencies in emerging markets should follow open data and open-source principles. This will help the entrepreneurs to build various applications.

Devin shared his personal experience of building a bootstrap business and how he raised funding from notable investors. He shared some valuable entrepreneurial lessons and his journey from bootstrapped startup to venture-capital-backed business. He highlighted in this part that Ideas are a dime and it takes a lot of grit and determination for founders to run with an idea, turn it into a business, and then scale it.

Devin de Vries is CEO and co-founder of WhereIsMyTransport. The company is building the largest source of mobility and location data for emerging markets, producing, and maintaining public transport network information from every mode of transport. The company has collected data from various cities across Southeastern Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

Public Transport is the backbone of cities and provides access to people for both economic and leisure activities. It plays a more essential role in emerging markets. According to the UN and other sources, around 3 billion people rely on Public Transport in the emerging markets. The people in emerging markets are reliant on public transport mainly for commuting to and from work. These markets are option-rich but information poor. People do not have access to information about the available public transport options.

WhereIsMyTransport is building the largest source of mobility and location data for emerging markets, producing, and maintaining public transport network information from every mode of transport. The company has collected data from various cities across Southeastern Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. WhereIsMyTransport is a venture-backed company that has raised $28 million in funding from notable investors.

Devin de Vries is CEO and co-founder of WhereIsMyTransport. An entrepreneur dedicated to fostering technological innovation to overcome social challenges, Devin leads a team inspired by a shared vision to bring the benefits of high-quality data and technological innovation to people living and working in emerging markets. He has built 3 ventures and all his ventures have been tech-related: in high school, university, and now with WhereIsMyTransport. Devin shared some valuable entrepreneurial lessons and his journey from bootstrapped startup to venture-capital-backed business.

The city of Madrid is committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and has launched A new sustainable strategy for Madrid: Madrid 360 in September 2019. Sustainable Mobility is a key component of the strategy, focusing on the creation of low-emission zones, the construction of infrastructure, the promotion of public transportation, electromobility, and personal mobility. EMT Madrid is in charge of operating buses and a bicycle-sharing system in the city of Madrid, operating a fleet of 2,082 buses and carrying 1.6 million every weekday. The agency has always been at the forefront of introducing and testing new technologies, such as launching an open-loop payment system in 2019, a MaaS application in 2019, micro-transit services in 2020, and numerous other digitization initiatives.

Juan Corro Beseler is the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at EMT Madrid, the leading mobility surface, since then has been in charge of rolling out EMT innovative solutions like the Smart Bus Madrid and pushing the MaaS development in Madrid. Juan has developed his professional career in the field of innovation and digital transformation in both the public and private sectors. Before joining the municipal company, he held the position of vice president of Strategy and Business Development at SAYME, academic director of the Engineering Area of U-tad (University Center for Technology and Digital Art), and director of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State of Telecommunications and for the Information Society, leading the deployment of the first Digital Agenda for Spain and representing the Ministry of Industry in the National Cybersecurity Council.

Public transport sector is undergoing major transformation owing to the availability of various mobility options in the cities, as well as, changing riders' behavior. Public transit operators need to adapt to these new technology and market trends. The riders are looking for more personalized information in real-time, including any change or disruption of service. Further, there is an expectation of incentives and rewards in the event of such an inconvenience. The podcast will touch on various key issues including predicting users' behavior using smartphone data, data privacy issues, customer satisfaction and loyalty in public transport, and how to win back riders.

Roman Oberli is Chief Executive Officer of Axon Vibe, a location-based contextual platform that detects and predicts real-world human behavior. Roman leads a team of more than 100 engineers and data scientists from multiple disciplines, located at five centers around the globe – every day evolving the future of mobility. As the chief of Axon Vibe’s product vision and development process, Roman has become a thought leader in spatial analysis and a true visionary in tackling the urban challenges of congestion, pollution, and the “new normal” through behavioral change. As a serial entrepreneur by nature, Roman has extensive experience in building and scaling startup ventures.