The Toyota Mobility Foundation Accepts Applications for the Make a Move Project, a Contest of Ideas to Build an Ever-Better Mobility Society

Jul 19, 2022 16:20 JST

Source: Toyota Motor Corporation

TOKYO, Jul 19, 2022 - (JCN Newswire) - The Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) has launched the Make a Move Project, an idea contest aimed at both drawing on the vision and know-how of various people to realize an ever-better mobility society, and establishing social implementations of their ideas and solutions. The contest opens to applications today.

Under the theme of Fun & Safety--Safely Experience Peak Excitement, ideas and solutions that draw on the know-how of motor sports to achieve traffic safety and regional revitalization will be accepted from July 19 to August 1. The Ebisu Circuit (Nihonmatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture) is planned as the venue for the idea assessment to project implementation phases. That circuit features many courses carefully designed to enhance the driving skills of a broad range of drivers. At the same time, Fukushima is known as the Mecca of extreme sports, and offers opportunities to pursue initiatives linked to distinctive local tourist attractions such as an air racing facility for aircraft speed competitions. We are aiming for entire novel ideas that make use of such facilities.

After the submission deadline, applications and solutions that pass document screening will be invited to Ebisu Circuit on August 24 and 25 to participate in idea refinement meetings intended to root ideas and solutions in local communities. The meetings will take place with mentors who have extensive experience in achieving rapid commercialization. Following that process, the top teams in the final selection that will take place sometime around October will receive a project grant of up to 50 million yen (up to a maximum total grant amount of 200 million yen).

From July 19 to August 18, we will also accept submissions initiatives aimed at saving the Earth from the crisis brought about by factors such as climate change from high school and university students who are passionate about tackling that challenge under the theme of Good Life on Earth--Coexistence for All Life on Our Planet.

This program is co-sponsored by TMF, the One Earth Guardians Educational Program of the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and HLAB. Selected applicants will receive advice from leading researchers, have opportunities to network with other people of their generation who share the same ambition, and also receive the grants necessary for the social implementation of their ideas and solutions. In the context of running this program, a University of Tokyo research administrators (URAs) will act as a liaison between applicants, the university, and communities. The URAs will help applicants refine their ideas during the present fiscal years and provide assistance with R&D as well as prototyping over the course of fiscal 2023. We hope that this program will lead to the birth of a community consisting of young leaders of tomorrow who continuously pursue creative solutions to global issues. We also expect the program to help broaden opportunities for the URAs promoting industry--academia cooperation to shine.

For more information, visit https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/37577470.html.

Sectors: Automotive