trafficO2 - Start Up Initiative, 17.06.13

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good afternoon, my name is Domenico Schillaci, I’m founder and Project Manager at PUSH, civic startup based in Palermo, and I’m here to present to you trafficO2. a social innoviation project about communities urban moility.
• #3: Our objective is easy, to understand not to achieve unfortunately, and it’s this one: Decrease traffic and pollution in urban centers in order to make cites more livable and citizens happier. How? By encouraging the diffusion of an environmental sustainability culture, for both individuals and companies, and driving the development of smart communities. Because we need well organized and conscious citizens to get smart cities
• #4: When we started thinking to a different idea of mobility, that could be sustainable, we started asking a question: Why do people move? We move mainly to get money (going to work or going to university in order the get a great job one day) or to spend money (going out) by doing that we produce traffic but we also waste time, money, health and resources. That happens for one reason: cities are not designed for cars. So, how we solve this problem? One solution might be: ok, let ’ s try to change the city. But actually that ’ s not a reasonable option, because it ’ s a very difficult process, it ’ s extremely expensive, and it degrades our environmental heritage.
• #5: So we came out with this alternative solution: Our idea, in fact, is to change people ’ s habit about mobility by offering a fair deal, Gift in exchange of sustainable behaviours. So we started mixng together mobile technologies, environmental awareness, geomarketing and gaming and we designed a platform that, acting as a social network, would allow to Build new responsible communities and improve urban liveability.
• #6: trafficO2 targets 3 different entities: Organizational communities, such as Company or public body employees, University students, other kind of pre-ordered groups Local Businesses, which means every single business on the urban area Sponsors, mainly Companies, but also Foundations or Organizations Through our smartphone app we simply allow this 3 actors to interact and, by doing that, we address their specific needs: Organize their trip and get to work easily Get exposure to new potential customers Communicate their CSR We turn problems into opportunities.
• #7: Ok, now you’re probably thinking: oh, that’s great! But how it precisely work? It’s really easy. Public bodies and companies give employees the opportunity to join the platform. Users use it while moving within the city, earning points if they made it in a sustainable way and winning gifts offered by LB. LBs and Sponsors become stations on the map: starting or ending points for any route. So, to get points, users need to switch between stations, doing check-ins in front of LB or in Squares or other Public places named after sponsors. At the end sponsors can proudly show the results obtained thanks to their support.
• #8: The best way to enter the market is looking for those realities that embodies (contains) all the 3 entities we want to rearch. We found them and they are Universities. Universities, in fact, looks like small cities populed by students, they got local businesses but they can act as sponsor at the same time. trafficO2 is going to be developed in Palermo, and we’re going to start from the Palermo University, whiich conatins about 60.000 potential users.
• #9: Beyond Universities, we can offer our service to other communities and, in particular, those which, according to the italian law, require a Mobility Manager: Right now, we got two partners: the university and the municipality of Palermo. We’re also building the local business network, and we’re looking for CSR ad marketing managers as future customers and partners.
• #10: That ’ s my favourite because we ’ ve got a lot of competitive advantages: We designed an original and quite complex platform, which combines transport information, geomarketing and gaming. We ’ ve got the funding provided by Italian Ministry of education and research: 1.2 M€. We ’ ve got quite big a user base who ’ s going to test the app. We ’ ve got a challenging environment in which run our test: Palermo, 5 th most traffic congested city not in Italy, in the world. Of course the team, 12 people group, but I ’ m going to present it later. At least, we ’ ve got time, cause the project is financed untile 2015, so we can work without stress trying to extend our project from Palermo to the whole world. So, we ’ ve got apparently all we need to acquire and maintain a leading position.
• #11: Let’s talk about the team. As mentioned before, trafficO2 is developed by PUSH, the first italian non profit civic startup; based in Palermo. Me and my friend, Salvatore Dio, starting this adventure by designing trafficO2 and founding PUSH. We are two atypical engineers, but we’re not alone anymore because now we are a great team of 12 people, consisting of sw dev, graphic designers, communication and marketing experts, urban designers and engineers. And we’ve got also an important advisory board including Unipa, ISMB, MIT and particularly the senansible city lab, Polimi.
• #12: A quick overview on our financials: trafficO2 is a non profit project, based on a self-sustaining mechanism, our fixed costs are about 400k € per year and they’re coverd at 90% by SPs and LBs, and in the remaining part by active communities. In addition to the platform balance, we’re also interested in driving the platform expansion, to new cities. The plan is to always enter through universities and raise the funding needed for the setup, about 200 k € per city, through CSR programs.
• #13: At the moment our project raised 1.56 M€ and we have clear ideas about how to spend it: Here’s a quick view on Areas and Costs. The most important cost item is represented by Employees, cause we want to develop and manage our own know how.
• #14: Let’s talk about the business impact of the project: From one hand, trafficO2 produces social ROI, in the form of: environmental awareness, personal awarness and local economic developement; But from another hand, it creates value because we know where users go, what they like most and what they think about brands and sponsors.
• #15: So, what we ’ re seeking for? Companies interested in being sponsors; Donations: feel free to make one, if you want to; CSR programs to join, as mentioned before; and, in the end, Communities who want to use the service: for example your company employees community.
• #16: Here’s a quote provided by former italian minister Francesco Profumo on trafficO2. For every question, please feel free to ask, that’s why I’m here today. Thank you for your attention.