Tech Team Wins Toyota Next Generation Mobility Challenge

Posted May 8, 2017

A team of Georgia Tech students won the Toyota Next Generation Mobility Challenge last week. Team members won summer internships at Toyota and the chance for funding to bring their design to life.

The team’s project, Para Pickup, is a service that gives individuals with disabilities safe, affordable, and flexible ways to get home. The team includes Sally Xia, digital media; Riley Keen and Pranav Nair, industrial design graduate students; and Kris Weng, undergraduate mechanical engineering student.

The Next Generation Mobility Challenge, a national competition organized by Toyota and Net Impact, offers students an opportunity to use design thinking to devise solutions to mobility issues, such as transportation challenges impacting low-income workers and people with disabilities.

“The Toyota Mobility Design Challenge focused on bringing people the mobility they deserve,” said Xia. “As for our project, we focused on designing for people who travel with a wheelchair as we realize the current solutions are insufficient.” 

The team members were offered internships on social innovation teams at Toyota’s North America headquarters in Plano, Texas.