Urban Mobility

During the first challenge process of imeceLAB, we organized an open innovation process on the theme of ‘Smart and Sustainable Urban Mobility’ with young people and our main partner, the Dutch Consulate.

Even though the mobility levels have increased in every area, from travels for business, education, health, socialization to journeys for asylum around the world, the increasing “inactivity” has become a social problem. At imeceLAB, we brought together different people and organizations around the same challenge, focusing on the needs of individuals from different economic, social, and cultural groups who are greatly exposed to the changing climate of the daily mobility in cities.

Today’s cities face a major challenge due to the rapid growth of urban population, the increased demand for transportation services, the rise of automobile ownership worldwide, and the sectoral transformations expanding the mobility share of services. The urban population is increasingly looking for ways to “get smarter,” even if it does not have the social, economic, physical, or political tools to carry out its daily mobility.

Through the 10-week curriculum and training, we prepared with a human-centered design perspective and the creative outlook of young people, we created solutions aimed for the topics of low-carbon urban mobility, innovations in mobility and inclusive mobility under the theme of “Smart and Sustainable Urban Mobility”.

Over the course of 10 weeks, 188 students from 11 different high schools and 33 different universities divided into 40 teams focused on the topics of Low Carbon Urban Mobility, Innovations in Mobility, and Inclusive Mobility. In this period, 118 mentorship meetings took place with 85 mentors.

The ASAP team focused on maritime transport in Istanbul within the context of innovations in mobility won first place at the end of the program, and spent a week at ALab, Netherlands. In the area of low carbon urban mobility, YAYA team won first place and one of the team members, Müge Yaylacık, participated in the summer program “Planning the Cycling City” which was opened within the Urban Cycling Institute of the University of Amsterdam. In the area of inclusive mobility, the Kunduz team, which focused on accessibility opportunities for individuals with disabilities, won the prototyping award first in place. In addition to these winning 3 teams, 17 students obtained internship experience in social initiatives, municipalities and corporate companies.