Siemens has uncovered engineering, technology and business talent from two North East universities through a competition to design the smart and sustainable transport system of the future.
SustainaCity Racer challenged 50 bright sparks from 15 universities across the UK, including the University of Sunderland and Newcastle University, to design an intelligent, sustainable and interconnected network for a fictional city region, using a variety of transport types for citizens living in different environments.
At the end of the two-day hackathon-style event 22 students and graduates were offered access to early career opportunities with Siemens’ Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, and Mobility businesses.
They included Warren Hayes, studying an Msc in Digital Technology Solutions with Software Engineering at Newcastle University, and Hasith Jayawardana, who recently graduated with a BEng (Hons) in Automotive Engineering degree from the University of Sunderland.
Warren, 28, said: “As a career changer from business and marketing to software engineering the opportunity to collaborate in a team with a focus on digitisation, sustainability and innovation was an extremely valuable experience.”
Hasith, 23, said: “I am very passionate about sustainable transport modes so the competition and working with a great team was a fantastic experience.”
For the second year running SustainaCity Racer participants were put into hybrid, multidisciplinary teams and challenged to apply engineering, digital and commercial elements to their designs.
The winning group, Eco Made Easy, proposed using a hyperloop tunnel and hydrofoil water vessel as the main transport, an app using real-time transport data and AI to map fastest, cheapest and most sustainable journeys, and an innovative POD transport which combines rail and bus.
Judges for competition included Thomas Edwards from Siemens Digital Industries, Nikhil Patel from Siemens Smart Infrastructure, and Sophie Marshall-Unit, Charbel Khalil, Hannah Surguy, Miles Moran and Ewan Bradley from Siemens Mobility.
Commenting on the event, Thomas Edwards, Graduate Engineer for Siemens Digital Industries, said: “SustainaCity Racer was launched in 2020 as a way of bringing multi-disciplinary minds together to collaborate to come up with innovative solutions to real-life problems and give students the opportunity to experience things that they may encounter if they worked at Siemens.
“We were extremely impressed with all 50 of the participants and the outstanding ideas they came up with to respond to the task of innovating in a new age of connected mobility that allows people to move more intelligently and sustainably.”
“All the contestants showed exemplary collegiate behaviour and cooperated with their team members in the race to win the top spot. The winners clearly demonstrated superb teamwork and we were particularly impressed with the creation of user stories which meant the needs of passengers were always at the forefront of decision making, leading them to an innovative yet realistic solution that worked for everyone. Their wildcard proposition of a train/pod solution captivated all of the judges.”