Los Angeles, California, USA (November 16, 2017)―The Toyota Mobility Foundation, in partnership with Nesta's Challenge Prize Centre, has launched a $4 million dollar global challenge to change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis, culminating in the unveiling of the winners in Tokyo in 2020.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge is seeking teams around the world to create game-changing technology that will help radically improve the mobility and independence of people with paralysis. toyotamobilityfoundation, stated
"This is the beginning of our challenge, a three-year journey concluding in Tokyo in 2020. A journey where the greatest minds in technology, design and engineering, from every corner of the world, will compete to make the environment and society more accessible for people with lower-limb paralysis. We know we don't have solutions yet: this Challenge is about working with the people who can help develop them."
Charlotte Macken of Nesta's Challenge Prize Centre, commented
"Challenge Prizes are a way to make innovation happen. The Mobility Unlimited Challenge is about the freedom to move. It will support innovators, creating cutting-edge personal mobility devices incorporating smart technology and intelligent systems that will transform people's lives."
A panel of expert judges will pick five finalists who will each receive $500,000 to take their concepts from an intelligent insight to a prototype. The Challenge winner will receive $1,000,000 to make the device available to users―with the winning concept unveiled in Tokyo in 2020.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge aims to attract and support smaller innovators who might otherwise struggle to break into the assistive technology market. The Discovery Awards will provide seed funding of $50,000 for 10 groups with promising concepts, but who might otherwise lack the resources to enter the Challenge. Interested innovators can apply online at mobilityunlimited.org.
Building on universal design principles to create a more equitable environment, entries for the Mobility Unlimited Challenge will be user-centered. The Challenge will be a catalyst for innovation through co-creation with the people around the world who will benefit most from the solutions discovered by our entrants.
At the end of the Mobility Unlimited Challenge, the #toyotamobilityfoundation and Nesta's Challenge Prize Centre will have supported teams of innovators in creating leading edge technological solutions, opening a new chapter in personal mobility for people with lower-limb paralysis.
For more information please visit mobilityunlimited.org.About #toyota Mobility FoundationNesta is a global innovation foundation, and its Challenge Prize Centre is an internationally renowned center of expertise in the design and development of challenge prizes for societal impact.
The Challenge Prize Centre uses prizes to stimulate innovative solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face, including:
This has included projects such as
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