Blockchain grand challenge enters smart cities phase

The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (Mobi), a non-profit consortium whose membership comprises most of the world’s large automakers, has announced, ‘Citopia’, the second phase of the three-year Mobi grand challenge (MGC) tournament.

With more than $1m worth of prizes expected over three-years, the MGC is calling on developers around the world to explore blockchain solutions for smart city applications to improve urban environments.

Connecting vehicles and infrastructure

The ultimate goal of the MGC is to create the first viable, decentralised, ad-hoc network of blockchain connected vehicles, IoT, and smart infrastructure that can reliably share data, participate in transactions, coordinate behaviour, and thereby improve urban living.

First and second prize-winners of the initial phase of the challenge – Chorus Mobility and Oaken Innovations – demonstrated entries highlighting coordinated vehicle behaviour and usage-based payment for infrastructure.

The second phase of MGC uses tokenised incentives to reduce congestion, pollution, carbon footprint through usage-based payment for infrastructure and resources.

Citopia submissions will seek to promote the creation of greener and smarter cities through congestion pricing, carbon footprint management, parking, usage-based payments for infrastructure, multi-model transit, data exchange and micro-payments.

“Innovators made incredible strides in the first phase of the MGC. In the next phase, we imagine a community being called to the task, supported by targeted incentives, including all key stakeholders and constituencies of citywide programmes seeking to drive positive behavioral change in urban ecosystems,” said Tram Vo, chief creative officer, Mobi.

"In the next phase, we imagine a community being called to the task and all key stakeholders and constituencies of citywide programmes seeking to drive positive behavioural change in urban ecosystems”

The second phase of the MGC involves global judges who play mission-critical roles across public and private sectors and municipalities, including the city of Seattle, Los Angeles, Singapore, and EU representatives as well as architects from the US Department of Transportation’s 2015 Smart Cities Challenge.

“I’m privileged to be on the judging panel of Citopia, because I believe that a better tomorrow includes fresh eyes looking at and identifying innovative solutions derived from blockchain technology,” said Mark Dowd CEO of Smart Cities Labs.

“There is no more ideal opportunity to marry my interest in smart cities and green and sustainable transportation.”

The MGC is loosely modelled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) grand challenge for autonomous driving. However, according to Mobi, MGC focuses on improving the capabilities of autonomous cars by sharing data and coordinating movement using blockchains.

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