The future of mobility is just around the corner, and we are asking for you to help co-create it with us.
We foresee the next generation of mobility solutions encompassing autonomous operations, propulsion systems that are not-reliant on fossil fuels, and platforms that are accessible to all.
Base 11, Dassault Systèmes, and their partners invite undergraduate and graduate students, aged 18 and older, to share their vision for how future mobility solutions can inclusively anticipate the needs of future users.
Why should you participate?
This challenge is an opportunity to develop and express your vision about mobility for an evolving environment that encompasses different users and different situations. By participating you can propose new mobility solutions for the future.
Also, participating in experiential learning activities, like this challenge, better prepares you to enter the workforce. See how academic knowledge is applied on the job and develop additional skills needed to successfully transition into the professional world - all of which will help you to be part of the stronger next generation of designers, engineers, scientists, and thinkers.
Finally, through your participation you can gain access to internship/employment opportunities, build out your digital portfolio, extend your network with some professionals from the industry, and win prizes. Does this sound interesting to you? Then join the Future of Mobility for All challenge!
What will you do?
This challenge asks you to share your vision for the future of mobility. By using the provided tools and tailoring your ideas to fit within the challenge parameters, you will see how creativity has to be balanced with real-world constraints. If you decide to form a team with up to two other students, you will learn about collaboration and how to create a stronger submission through the use of complementary skill sets and viewpoints. If you are selected as a finalist, you (and your team) will gain experience in learning how to present your design and make your case. Wonderful ideas are only as good as your ability to communicate them. In addition to these experiences, your submission can become part of your digital portfolio that will support you as you prepare to enter the workforce.
Designs may be submitted to one or both of these two different categories:
Society - How can we ensure that the future of mobility includes everyone?
Environment - How can we design mobility solutions that will be well-adapted to our future environs while also sustaining our earth for future generations?
For each of these categories, up to 10 finalists will be selected during the evaluation phase. Those finalists will then be invited to pitch their submissions before a panel of judges. Finally, up to 3 winners per category will be announced at the Next Frontier Initiative Conference & Expo in October, 2021.
Participants in this challenge will have free access to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, which includes Solidworks, ICEM Surf and CATIA software solutions, and to informational webinars with challenge sponsors. They will also have access to internship/employment opportunities and be able to network and share their work with challenge sponsors. Additionally, winners will be recognized with unique opportunities, sponsor merchandise, and cash awards.
Intrigued? Then hop on over to the Guidelines tab to learn more about participating!
Guidelines
If you are interested in design, engineering, and/or the future of transportation, then this challenge is your jam. Share your passion, creativity, and engineering chops with Dassault Systèmes, leading automotive companies, like original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers. Your submission(s) to this challenge will get your talent and voice in front of key individuals at all these organizations, and you may even win an internship for summer 2022!
What is your vision for the future of mobility? We are asking you to create a design that fits within the model shown below that will help enable your vision. Whatever you propose can’t break the laws of physics, but it also doesn’t have to be technically feasible right now (after all, the necessary technology breakthrough might happen in the next 5-10 years).
Dassault Systèmes will provide free access and training for all challenge participants to their 3DEXPERIENCE platform, which includes Solidworks, CATIA and ICEM Surf solutions. Click here to get access, select single user and then select The Future of Mobility for All challenge. If the correct challenge does not display, select "Other" and then "Not in the list" and enter the name "Mobility for All". Once you receive a confirmation email, you’ll be able to access your own personal dashboard within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. There, you’ll have access to a number of resources and support, including the base vehicle model to build your design upon.
Additionally, Dassault Systèmes has provided two excellent resources to help individuals and teams get started: an ebook that provides an overview of how to use the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and a slide deck that illustrates how to set up your dashboard. This content and other resources are available at the Resources tab (Be sure to give the Judging Account viewership access to your dashboard, as described in the slide deck, as this will be required for your submission to be evaluated).
If you already have a freestanding instance of SOLIDWORKS, you may design using this solution. But you will have to make your design available on your 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
There are two different challenge categories, and you can submit designs to either or both. The categories are described in the sections below. You will use the same provided model (shown above) as the base upon which to build your proposed solution (design, concept, or mode), regardless of the category selected. All design work must be available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. As you will see, the complete interior of the vehicle is fair game for your design. However, the outer dimensions of the vehicle are fixed, and anything shaded grey is also fixed and not open to modifications.
We are excited to see all the creative, out-of-the-box designs and the displays of engineering prowess. We also want to see your critical thinking skills, as exemplified by your identification of emerging trends, your vision of the future, and how your design addresses them. So in addition to your design, you will be asked to provide a description of your vision and discuss how your design will be impactful.
Challenge Categories
Society
Even in our current times, we are becoming a more inclusive society, recognizing and adapting to the broader needs of those with different physical and cognitive capabilities. In the future, how will we maintain this trend, and how will this influence the future of mobility for all? In addition to accommodating individuals with a range of physical abilities, we also need to address the needs of the elderly and the underserved communities. As the current population ages, more and more people will experience reduced mobility (requiring the use of walkers and/or wheelchairs), lower cognitive functions, and loss of sensory perceptions (such as deafness or impaired vision). Additionally, society demonstrates wide economic stratification, meaning many communities will remain underserved with regard to mobility options. How can future vehicles be designed to ensure that mobility is inclusive for everyone, regardless of age, ability, or economic status?
Your vision for how the future of mobility will help society can be broad or narrow. Your design might address one aspect of your vision, or encompass all of it. It might be impactful on its own, or it might need interaction with other objects, technologies, or infrastructure, for its impact to be fully realized.
Submissions to this category must provide at least one positive societal impact. Examples could include designs that accommodate users with diminished cognitive abilities, ones with new connectivity capabilities that integrate passenger devices with infrastructure or other mobility solutions, or ones that promote easy adoption and use in underserved communities. In addition to sharing your design, your submission will also need to articulate how your design will enable your vision of the future of mobility and what kind of impact you anticipate as a result.
Environment
Technology and industrial practices are evolving as we recognize that our planet is at a tipping point. Mobility platforms won’t be the only intelligent, sensor-driven devices in the new environment. How will transportation technology adapt to this new smart-city (and rural) infrastructure? The future of transport and mobility must also address this issue. How can future vehicles be designed to optimally exploit their new environment while also helping to sustain the planet both in the short term and the longer future ahead?
What do you think our future environment will be and what will the supporting infrastructure look like? What emerging trends are guiding your vision? If your vision is of the near future, your design might reflect a way to reduce the immediate environmental impacts of existing technology - for example, through the use of sustainably sourced raw materials, or through a design that minimizes manufacturing waste and reduces a vehicle’s overall carbon footprint. If your vision looks to a more distant future, then your design might include features and functions needed to operate in a world recovering from or succumbing to climate change, or features that interact with a novel mobility infrastructure. Your design could also allow for easy dismantling so that the materials can be readily recycled back into new vehicles, or it might be based on a different propulsion system that uses renewable fuels.
Submissions to this category can address anything related to changes in the future environment, either in terms of the future’s mobility infrastructure or benefiting the future’s natural environment itself. Examples mentioned above - such as the use of sustainable materials, solutions that reduce a vehicle’s carbon footprint, or designs that improve the overall recyclability of a vehicle - are just the tip of the iceberg. We’re interested in learning about your vision of the future of our planet and how you see the future of transport and mobility coexisting in a mutually beneficial manner. Regardless of how your design harmonizes with the environment, be sure to support it with a clear description of what that future environment looks like and how your design will interact with it.
Remember, this is the opportunity for you and your team to share your vision and to strut your stuff! In addition to providing a killer design, be sure to fully set the context for your design in the communication part of your submission - this includes discussing how and why the design will be impactful, describing how it might need to interact with other things or systems, and explaining how it fits into your larger vision of the future of mobility. This discussion can be presented either as a storyboard (10 scenes maximum), or as a written narrative (2 pages maximum). Teams are limited to 3 people total. All team members must be students over the age of 18, but teams can contain any variation of undergraduate and graduate students.
Your submission will be evaluated, using the judging criteria shown below, by a panel of industry experts drawn by Dassault Systèmes and its partners. Up to 10 finalists from each category will be selected by September 7, 2021. These finalists will have approximately 2.5 weeks to prepare a presentation. They will then pitch their presentations to a judging panel at a virtual event to be held during the week of September 27. The panel will select up to 3 winners per category. Winners will be announced at the Next Frontier Initiative Conference and Expo, October 6-7, 2021.
To help everyone be successful, three informational webinars will be held on the following topics:
Use of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
Emerging engineering trends in Transportation and Mobility
Careers within Dassault Systèmes
These webinars are a great way to learn more about the challenge topic, about Dassault Systèmes and its partners, and to ask questions. So keep an eye out for update notifications that share the date and registration information for each upcoming webinar. Additionally, there will be one webinar for the finalists that will be held during the week of September 7. This webinar will provide general information about the virtual pitch event, such as individual pitch length and format, and will answer any questions from the finalists. Additionally, all challenge participants will receive early notification of internship/employment opportunities.
Prize
Winners will receive the following:
First place winners will each present their winning designs at the Base 11 Next Frontier Initiative Conference and Expo in October 2021.
First place winners will also present to a select group of Dassault executive leadership at a separate event.
First, Second, and Third place winners will receive interviews with Dassault Systèmes or one or more of their partners, which may result in internship offers
All winners will receive sponsor merchandise (jackets, sweatshirts, etc) and a cash prize (see table below)
Winners will also receive a variety of unique opportunities, depending on the category. Examples of such opportunities include:
Invitations to present at a future sponsor event, such as 3DEXPERIENCE World
Career exploration opportunities with Dassault engineers
Certificate of accomplishment
Cash prizes will be awarded as follows:
Category
Prize
Prize purse total
Category 1
First place $3000
Second place $1500
Third place $500
$5000
Category 2
First place $3000
Second place $1500
Third place $500
$5000
Total Prize Purse
$10,000
How do I win?
To be eligible for an award, you must be 18 years of age or older and an actively enrolled undergraduate or graduate student at a college or university located in the United States, Canada, or Mexico.
Additionally, your submission must contain, at minimum:
A design created with SOLIDWORKS or CATIA solutions and available to view on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
A description of how your design supports your vision for the future of mobility, your design’s likely impact, and a pdf image of your design. This description can be either a storyboard or a written narrative.
All of your submission materials must be available on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
Timeline
Challenge Launch April 20, 2021
Open Submission April 20 - July 20, 2021
Challenge Closure August 12, 2021
(Closure Due to No Eligible Submissions)
Judging Criteria for Submissions
Section
Description
Overall Weight
Proposal Definition
How well and how clearly communicated is the underlying vision of the future of mobility and the design that supports it? Is the writing compelling and demonstrative of critical thinking? Is the proposal complete and thoughtfully composed? To what extent were the design tools used to demonstrate the concept?
15
Creativity
How creative is the design? Does it represent an incremental advancement or a significant leap? Does the design tie into a clear vision of a future? Does it respond to emerging trends?
30
Impact
What is the potential of this design and how innovative could it be if it were deployed? How broad or narrow of an impact would be had?
30
Engineering Prowess and Design Feasibility
Is this something that could be built or created? If not, is this because the technology doesn’t yet exist? Were software tools used with facility? Does the design demonstrate an understanding of basic engineering or technological principles?
25
Rules
Participation Eligibility:
The challenge is open to all individuals that are 18 years of age or older and currently enrolled as graduate or undergraduate students at a university or college in the United States, Canada, or Mexico. Proof of student status is required with any individual’s submission. This proof can be a letter from the registrar’s office, or a similar official document from the university or college. Submissions must be made in English. All challenge-related communication will be in English.
No specific qualifications or expertise in the field of engineering or automotive design is required. Prize organizers encourage outside individuals and non-experts to compete and propose new solutions.
To be eligible to compete, you must comply with all the terms of the challenge as defined in the Challenge-Specific Agreement
Registration and Submissions:
Submissions must be made online (only), via upload to the HeroX.com website, on or before 8pm EDT on 20 July 2021. No late submissions will be accepted.
Intellectual Property Rights:
As detailed in the Challenge-Specific Agreement – Competitors will retain all intellectual property rights to their technology.
Selection of Winners:
Based on the winning criteria, prizes will be awarded per the Judging Criteria section above. In the case of a tie, the winner(s) will be selected based on the highest votes from the Judges.
Awarding of the Prize:
The Individual Submitter or Team Captain is automatically designated as the Recipient of the prize monies. The Individual’s or Captain’s name must also match the Authorized Person on the receiving Bank Account. No changes are permitted to the prize Recipient after the Submission Deadline date. If you wish to change who would receive the prize monies, those changes must be completed prior to the Submission Deadline. View our Knowledge Base article here for how to change Team Captains.
Judging Panel:
The determination of the winners will be made by a group of people including judges from relevant partner organizations and industries.
Additional Information
By participating in the challenge, each competitor agrees to submit only their original idea. Any indication of "copying" amongst competitors is grounds for disqualification.
All applications will go through a process of due diligence; any application found to be misrepresentative, plagiarized, or sharing an idea that is not their own will be automatically disqualified.
All ineligible applicants will be automatically removed from the competition with no recourse or reimbursement.
No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the competition.
Upon completing a full review of the entries submitted to this challenge, HeroX and the Challenge Sponsor, Dassault Systèmes, have determined that no eligible entries were submitted to the Future of Mobility for All Challenge by the submission deadline.
This challenge was only open to students currently enrolled in a North American university or college, and submissions had to be submitted using Dassault’s 3DExperience platform. None of the entries received met both of these eligibility criteria.
Consequently, the Challenge Sponsor is unable to award any prizes for this challenge. Unfortunately, the Future of Mobility for All Challenge is closed without winners.
HeroX and Dassault Systèmes encourage all eligible competitors to consider applying to future challenges–especially ones that target students and early career adults. Remember, the Challenge Forum is always a great place to communicate with the Challenge Sponsor with questions about a challenge’s guidelines or with the rest of the innovator community about thoughts and ideas.
If you're still assembling your submission, you have exactly 8 hours left to complete it!
Here's a Tip: HeroX recommends innovators plan to submit with at least a 3-hour window of time before the true deadline. Last-minute technical problems and unforeseen roadblocks have been the cause of many headaches. Don't let that be you!
