IRF Young Professional Leaders join the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum 2021
Members of the International Road Federation Young Professionals Programme (IRF-YPP) leadership team recently joined the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, held virtually on April 7-8, 2021.
Mr Shashank Misra (India), YPP Lead for Asia Mainland and Mr Tendekayi Marapara (Zimbabwe), YPP Secretary and Point Person for Africa, joined the two-day forum guided by the overall theme of the 2021 ECOSOC and High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on sustainable development.
With the ECOSOC forum’s focus on sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, they postulate that the mobility sector needs to be highly driven by innovation and data.
“I observed that more people had appreciated the importance of numbers during this COVID-19 era. It is important that as we build better, we should strengthen our data systems,” Mr Marapara, who works as a civil engineer and a consultant, emphasized.
Mr Misra, on the other hand, stressed several challenges in the supply chain for the business sector and growth opportunities among the youth. “New business models and unique user experiences incorporating the youth as a stakeholder [have become an opportunity] in the mobility sector recovery… autonomous mobility and electric mobility have seen a push with major players increasing their investment [supported by] legislative processes increasingly aligning [towards it],” he shared.
Both young professionals believed that the forum provided a chance to create synergistic relations and learn from their peers and decision-makers who are tackling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally.
“For any individual and organization, it is crucial to continue innovating to survive and grow during [the period of pandemic]. Innovation is not limited to technology alone but business model, collaborations and strategies for the long-haul,” Mr Misra, currently a social entrepreneur tacking SDGs 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13, elaborated.
Meanwhile, Mr Marapara focuses on road safety, particularly for SDGs 3 and 11, the 50 by 30 and safe and sustainable road infrastructure.
“The future belongs to us, but it does not end with us. There are more generations to come [and] basically, [we need] capacity development. Getting involved in online meetings, youth forums and webinars, [we] tend to learn more; thus, improving [ourselves],” he shared.
The ECOSOC Youth Forum, also commemorating its first decade, provides a global platform for a straightforward dialogue among United Nations member states and young leaders worldwide on solutions to challenges affecting youth well-being. It also serves as a unique space for young people to share their vision and actions and provide youth perspectives on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
Mr Misra and Mr Marapara were appointed last January as part of the IRF-YPP Leadership Team for 2021-2022. Together with the other members, they are also set to meet in the 2021 IRF Young Professionals Summit toward the end of the third quarter of 2021.
IRF launches a new Start-up Label
The International Road Federation (IRF) is proud to announce the launch of a Start-up Label to support innovation within the mobility sector. This initiative reflects one of IRF's core principles of fostering innovation and progress by providing access to cutting-edge knowledge and expertise.
The IRF Start-up Label is designed to support mobility start-ups with high impact potential by helping them showcase their credibility and sustain trust with their clients, investors and employees.
To obtain the label, start-ups will go through an in-depth assessment process. An IRF expert panel will assess each start-up application to determine whether the company can create a significant impact in terms of innovation, safety, efficiency, sustainability and evaluate the viability of their business model. Start-ups must be involved in at least one of the following areas of action:
- road safety, road efficiency and sustainability.
- intelligent transportation systems (ITS),
- cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM),
- road financing and economics,
Laureates of the IRF Start-up Label will benefit from IRF’s official endorsement for three consecutive years. During the 1st year, they will gain professional mentoring on a topic of their choice provided by IRF experts. Start-ups will also be invited to participate in IRF networking events, providing them exposure to their relevant audiences. During the 2nd and 3rd year, IRF will assist with bespoke actions aligned with start-ups' priorities.
We are excited about this initiative that brings IRF closer to the needs of the start-up community. Innovation is a key aspect in the mobility sector, and we want to help start-ups to exploit their value proposition to the maximum and achieve the best possible market fit.
IRF President - Bill M. Halkias
Are you interested in getting IRF's seal of quality?
SWARCO launches MyCity 1.0
SWARCO developed its MyCity urban mobility management software in order to tackle cities’ frequent challenges associated with the rapid urbanization and related impacts on the environment as well as the rapid changes in the types of urban mobility and the IT landscape needed to support it.
“We have conducted hundreds of interviews with officials from small, medium and large cities to find out more about their real pain points in urban mobility and environmental protection”, says SWARCO’s speaker of the Executive Board and COO Michael Schuch. “We finetuned MyCity accordingly to offer the city managers a scalable, future-proof, modular and user-friendly software platform to handle their daily traffic challenges and to support upcoming forms of mobility”.
Cities that want to remain livable and become cleaner, safer and more attractive places to live and work need to address topics like improving traffic flows, lowering the risk of congestion, reducing air pollution, making better use of existing infrastructure, and shortening travel times. The promotion of alternative forms of transportation, e.g. by bicycle, on foot, or by car sharing, will also contribute to improving the quality of life in the urban environment.
“The urban mobility professionals would like to have a clear overview on what is actually happening in their road network and with their road infrastructure. They also want to be able to introduce flexible strategies whenever the performance of the entire mobility ecosystem is not working as smoothly as desired”, underlines Niko Stieldorf, Global Business Development Manager for Software Platforms based with SWARCO in Berlin. This is where MyCity with its available solutions for infrastructure monitoring, adaptive traffic management, CCAM, air quality monitoring, sign management and parking guidance comes into play. Hence, cities are enabled to manage their mobility landscape via a central tool rather than a range of siloed applications for each domain.
MyCity, with the 1.0 version hosted in SWARCO’s secure cloud, has been built to evolve as mobility evolves, allowing city managers to proactively respond to changes in urban mobility trends and the technology used to support them. A single sign-on system gives access to important data and reports via a user-friendly and intuitive dashboard, independent of location or device. MyCity shares and processes information with different data sources and acts as the aggregator of mobility-relevant data sources. It then offers added value by fusing this information, building out further applications and by serving as a single point of control to a city. Thanks to its scalability, MyCity allows traffic managers to add new solutions any time or accommodate project-specific requirements. Prevent incidents before they happen, reduce the likelihood of accidents, create a green wave and prioritize specific types of vehicles such as buses or emergency vehicles, and make traffic flow smoother with less emissions. MyCity will allow making better use of existing infrastructure, avoiding the costly alternative of building more roads.
In building MyCity, SWARCO follows a true approach of customer centricity. Thus, aside from a customer-driven and agile development approach, SWARCO offers its customers the possibility to co-create the future of smart urban mobility management by making them part of the development process. “We invite interested cities to become a member of the Lighthouse Program in which they help further shape MyCity as an innovation partner of SWARCO”, says Stieldorf. Such early adopters of MyCity 1.0 will have a say in the roadmap creation and enjoy early access to prototypes and unreleased features. They will gain opportunities to interact with a community of like-minded customers to bring their urban mobility management to the next level. “This ensures that we truly execute our vision of solving the most critical customer needs in the world of urban mobility management”, summarized Michael Schuch this novel approach.
More information on the solutions of MyCity can be found under www.swarco.com.
Email: mycity@swarco.com
ABOUT SWARCO
SWARCO’s leading idea is to improve quality of life by making the travel experience safer, quicker, more convenient and environmentally sound. With more than five decades of experience in the industry, the Austrian traffic technology corporation produces and provides a large range of products, systems, services, and turnkey solutions for road marking, urban and interurban traffic management, parking, and public transport. Cooperative systems, infrastructure-to-vehicle communication, e-mobility, and integrated software solutions for the Livable City complement the group’s future-oriented portfolio. 4000 traffic experts are keen to shape together with all stakeholders in the traffic industry the transition from conventional traffic management to value-added services fit for the traveller in the digital age.
SWARCO’s products, systems and solutions contribute to greater road safety and intelligent traffic management in 80 countries and generate revenues of three quarters of a billion euros.
