EMPI Institutions, New Delhi and it’s Atal Incubation Centre, supported by Niti Aayog, Govt. of India; conducted India’s first Mobility Mission Festival (MoMi) on Mobility Design, Technology and Business for Vehicles of the Future – Electric, Connected, Autonomous and Shared. This initiative was structured under EMPI iFutures, India’s first Futurization platform -†A platform to carry forward EMPI’s credo of Innovating Futures philosophy across different sectors. The Festival was organized in association with Ricardo as Knowledge Partner and Nissan as Mission Partner. The event took place at the EMPI residential campus in Chattarpur, New Delhi.
During the festival the Atal Incubation Centre – EMPI was inaugurated and blessed by Mr. Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog, Govt. of India. AIC-†EMPI is the only AIC focused on Renewables, Smart Energy and New Mobility.
It was heartening to see about 300 Engineering and Management students and start-†ups from pan India and internationally from countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Philippines, Fiji, Afganistan and Taiwan enthusiastically registering and participating in the various competitions, Masterclasses, Workshops and Panel Discussions.
President, EMPI Institutions, Pankaj Saran welcomed the gathering and spelt out the unique thematic concept of the festival, an ideas festival, that has brought together a large number of students, start-†ups, MSMEs and eminent experts from the industry to address real life problems being faced by the industry in facing the disruption taking place in new mobility space. The keynote session was conducted by two eminent thought leaders, Srihari Mulgund, President, Ricardo Asia and Sirish Batchu, VP, Software & Intelligence, Ather Energy who gave a broad perspective on the changing paradigm of mobility. Following these two plenary sessions were conducted. One on Design Thinking by Manish Vashisht, Design Director – IBM and the other on Connected Vehicles by Nitin Nair, General Manager, Connected Cars -†Africa, Middle-†East & India of Nissan Motor Corporation.
In the evening a panel discussion was held by another array of stellar speakers on Innovations in the Future of Mobility. The speakers were Atul Arya, Head – Energy Division, Panasonic; Gaurav Talwar, Sr. Management Consultant, IBM Business Consulting Services; Sriram Padmanabhan, VP-†Marketing Nissan, India and Soumya Bhattacharya, AGM – Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transport System (DIMTS – A JV of Delhi Govt.) and Prasad Mane, Vice-†President (Asia), Ricardo. The panel was moderated by Deepangshu Dev Sarmah, Editor-†in-†Chief, Auto Tech Review, a Springer publication.
The festival consisted of different track events spread over 30 hours like Hackathon, Designathon, Brandathon, Pitchathon, Makeathon Expo, Quizility etc. The Hackathon had multiple real life problem tracks identified by the industry and a large mentor team from the auto eco-†system. In the Designathon, Brandathon and Pitchathon leading experts conducted masterclasses and gave problems for the teams to solve. In Pitchathon teams with Business ideas underwent a masterclass on structuring Business Plans and then improve and refine them for making an actual pitch to the investors. Quzility witnessed a unique quiz format with a thematic quiz on the Mobility eco-†system. The Makeathon consisted of teams from India and abroad wherein student teams from various colleges had prepared innovative working prototypes ranging from a Retrofit motorcycle to a submarine to detect oil spills and plastic waste in oceans.
The Masterclass of the various sub-†events were conducted by the likes of Sudhir Mor, Co-†Founder, Designshift, ex Ola electric; Rahul Kumbhar, Industrial Designer and Varun Arora, Dassault Systèmes; Gagan Ghai, Director, Crest Capital / Advisor and Managing Partner -†Venture Catalysts; Rohit Kumar-†Vice President, Hansa Research Group; Punit Banga, General Manager – Nissan. Judges and Mentors included top mobility experts from Ricardo led by Mr. Srihari Mulgund, President (Asia), Anshul Punjabi, Chief Marketing Officer, Monster; Sriram Padmanabhan, Vice President, Nissan, Neeraj Tyagi, Managing Partner-†Venture Catalysts and Nemesisa Ujjain, Director -†Innovation Projects, Hunch Circle.
The Expo consisted of state-†of-†the-†art vehicles demonstrated for display and tests drives by leading companies and start-†ups like Nissan, Hyundai, Tatas, EESL Gowel, Areon Mobility, M2GO, RNA Innovations amongst others. Nissan displayed their yet to be launched Leaf 2 and their innovative power note, an E-†car with a range extender.
Sriram Padmanabhan, Vice-†President (Marketing), Nissan India said, “He was quite surprised and impressed with the creative ideas of the students. It’s a great thing that organizations like EMPI are setting up events like these.” Top Experts led by Mr. Srihari Mulgund, President, Ricardo (Asia), one of the world’s largest automotive consulting companies said, “The experience at the festival has been phenomenal. The excitement, energy, and creative ideas from the students have been unbelievable.” The college students and start-†ups who participated at the festival were highly impressed and excited about this first of its kind power packed festival. One of the participants from NTPC school of Business said he was impressed with the high level experts from top companies who had come for the event. He said the exhibition was also absolutely state-†of-†the-†art, consisting of two-†wheelers, three-†wheelers and four-†wheelers.
Further no festival could have been complete without good food and the taste buds of one and all were satisfied by a number of sumptuous food stalls serving dosas to pani puris and Pizzas to make the Festival a complete experience.
The two-†day Mobility Mission Event finally culminated with a high-†octane performance by the award winning Eka rock band concert.