Partners' Day 2024 welcomed more than 200 participants in Prague

The 2024 edition of our Partners' Day welcomed 214 participants from 30 different countries to the historical city of Prague, to connect with our ever-growing and vibrant community and learn about the latest insights and opportunities available within the EIT Urban Mobility network. 

 Here below you can find some highlights from our packed two-day agenda. 

Creating impact as the EIT Urban Mobility community 

Tuesday 12 March kicked off with a welcome by Maria Tsavachidis, CEO of EIT Urban Mobility, who looked back over five years of EIT Urban Mobility, from 49 founding partners in 2019 to a community of over 250 partners in more than 80 cities and regions across 35 European countries. 

 She highlighted that as no single organisation can innovate alone, given the enormous speed and scale that is required to transition to sustainable urban mobility, ecosystems are crucial to allow us to break silos and create synergies to successfully deploy new solutions. The EIT Urban Mobility extended community of more than 950 stakeholders provides a unique opportunity to connect, implement change and to truly make impact in transforming the way we live and move in cities. 

 After her intervention, Ondřej Profant, Vice Prime Minister for Digitalisation in the Czech Republic, delivered a keynote speech emphasising the importance of knowledge transfer to achieve sustainable transport alternatives in Prague. 

 This was followed by a roundtable discussion titled “5 years of EIT Urban Mobility: how has the community created impact?” Moderator Bernadette Bergsma, Director of Communications and EU Affairs at EIT Urban Mobility, was joined by Veronika Erós of Zone Cluster, Eduardo Illueca of Libelium, Szonja Ran of Wolt, and Sayalee Pendharkar of the City of Munich. 

After a networking lunch, there was an interactive workshop with partners from different sectors including public authorities, industry and research, to help shape the agenda for EIT Urban Mobility's Special Interest Groups (SIGs). The SIGs are an initiative of EIT Urban Mobility designed to shape the future mobility landscape by fostering public-private collaboration, addressing key urban mobility trends: urban logistics; public transport; electrification of transport and alternative fuels; and mobility data management. 

 To round off the day, there was a presentation of EIT Urban Mobility's Calls Programme 2024, and an exploration of the opportunities to engage with activities, followed by a speed networking session to enable different parts of the community to get to know one another and explore more deeply the opportunities discussed. 

 The opportunity was also taken to host a small Demo Corner showcasing some of our startups from the Czech Republic: Pealock, demonstrating their smart electroniclock for sports equipment like bicycles and e-scooters, with the possibility of arranging insurance directly in the Pealock application, and eCafeBike, showcasing their original easy-control city e-bikes in the spirit of legendary classic motorcycles.

 The first day concluded with a networking dinner at Manes Art Restaurant. 

Scaling success for future mobility

Melanie Grötsch, Chair of EIT Urban Mobility's City Club, welcomed participants to the second day, followed by a keynote speech by Rikesh Shah of Innovation Today discussing how to drive more innovation value through procurement. In his speech he touched on open innovation, de-risking and testing innovations, and emerging trends for urban mobility innovation. 

 The keynote was followed by a roundtable focusing on pathways to scale up innovative solutions, moderated by Jorgina Cuixart, Innovation Lifecycle Manager at EIT Urban Mobility. Philippe Rapin of Urban Radar and Jean Melounou of the City of Strasbourg presented their project Flexcurb, and were joined for a panel discussion by Rikesh Shah. Rikesh mentioned that one of the key challenges of using public funding to support innovation is the move from an idea being tested to secure investment and be able to scale. He advised that experimentation can start small, but always with an eye on how to move forward in the long run. 

 Then there was a discussion of best practices and lessons learned based on the experiences of projects co-funded by EIT Urban Mobility developing and testing solutions and delivering professional training programmes. Topics included inclusive mobility, electrification, low emissions zones and logistics, and shared micromobility. 

The afternoon was split into parallel sessions. Some participants took a deeper dive into some of the concepts touched upon in the morning keynote in a capacity building workshop with Rikesh Shah. The session focused on how public authorities can use open innovation to drive better, more relevant solutions and deliver value to their constituents. Participants engaged in hands-on exercises ranging from how to define the right problem to solicit solutions for; how to engage different suppliers; and how to create the right internal conditions for change. 

 At the same time, 30 participants took a tram tour with the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, going on a private audiovisual journey through Prague and discussing the challenges and plans for development of urban mobility in the city. Starting in the Karlin neighbourhood, through the developing areas of Palmovka and Zizkov, and on to the heart of the city, to one of the busiest tram intersections in Europe. 

 Some 45 participants instead took a walking tour across the neighborhood of Karlin. The tour connected a number of points of interest, including some iconic industrial buildings brought into life through interventions of modern architecture, and residential streets built up in the art nouveau style. 

 Finally, the RAPTOR 2024 programme was officially launched with an event that included a knowledge-sharing session with cities and startups from previous editions, and a workshop with cities focusing on citizen engagement methods that could be used for agile piloting. 

It was then time to say goodbye, after two intense days, with new useful insights and connections. Attendees’ feedback was very positive.

 You can find photos from the two days on the Partners' Day page. We will work to put the bar even higher for next year to keep building a solid and thriving European innovation community for urban mobility.