Imagine a new city environment that uses technology to guarantee us safe and congestion free transportation, creates efficiencies, smarter energy infrastructure, improves sustainability, protects the environment, and enhances the quality of life for its citizens.

According to the UN, 50% of the world lives in urban areas and is projected to be 70% by 2050. That’s an increase of two billion people in the next three decades. Building additional infrastructure to accommodate city peak demand like rush hour or concert traffic is incredibly expensive and not practical. Sustainable urbanization and quality of life increasingly depends on the successful management of existing infrastructure. 

The MOBI Grand Challenge (MGC), launched October 2018, and is loosely modeled on the DARPA grand challenge for autonomous driving which captured the public imagination and launched the autonomous driving revolution. The MGC runs in bi-annual phases over a three-year-long tournament.

By the end of the third year, winning teams will be expected to demonstrate how blockchains and related technologies – distributed ledgers, cryptography, tokens, and consensus mechanisms can leverage the connections and computing power of smart cities. The ultimate goal of the challenge is to create the first viable, decentralized, ad-hoc network of blockchain connected IoT and smart infrastructure that can reliably share data, participate in transactions, coordinate behavior, and thereby improve human mobility.

Building on the success of Phase I, Phase II – Citopia – explores new solutions for human mobility to create smarter and greener cities while improving quality of life. MGC envisions a tokenized Citopia ecosystem where city governments work with employers, schools, universities, and local businesses to create incentives for changing behavior to build smarter cities.

Tokens earned for participating in the ecosystem can be exchanged for goods or services donated by a local business or government agencies, or donated to a charity of choice. Congestion pricing can easily be incorporated into token reward structures to reduce peak demand for mobility, or even electricity and water.

All can be done with a phone app built with a blockchain backbone. This can be used to calculate carbon footprint reduction, percent of citizens using greener commute, gas & maintenance cost reduction, it will also keep track of benefits to local businesses through increased commerce from Citopia incentive program.

In Citopia, gamification, tokenization, and fun competitions create powerful individual and collective incentives for socially responsible behavior.

Available Toolkits

Developers will be provided with mobility data within major cities, such as Los Angeles and Singapore, to utilize for their smart city creation. With help from the Intelligent IoT Integrator, or I3, and Ocean Protocol, developers will have access to a number of city data sandboxes to support their Citopia application. Learn more about each contributor in the Resources section. 

 

Eligibility

  • Participants: Companies, Universities, NGOs, Startups, or any Independent Developers
    • Current Members and Non-Members of MOBI
    • Any team or individual looking to create a solution to help solve current urban problems with incentives in a tokenized environment.

Requirements

Solutions include, but are not limited to: usage-based payment for infrastructure, congestion pricing, carbon footprint management, parking, multi-modal transit, data exchange, and micro payments. 

Submit a DAPP* (built with functioning blockchain software) that will plug into Citopia via API's. To review Citopia's API requirements, please reference the "Resources" tab.

*The use of the Citopia API provided is not required, but recommended. 

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

First Place

Amazon Web Services - 5,000 AWS credit, $2,500 in cash, and the winning app will be considered for a feature on AWS marketplace.

IOTA - $3000 of IOTA tokens

BitGreen - 15,000 BITG tokens

Tribe Accelerator - The MGC winner will be offered placement in a future class of the Tribe Accelerator, Singapore. Tribe Accelerator runs a structured, product-focused development program, providing startups with top tier resources, and a global network of mentors and technical partners. They strive to provide a neutral platform to drive collaboration and growth of the blockchain ecosystem and is officially partnered with the Singapore Government and global leaders in the blockchain ecosystem like BMW, ConsenSys, Intel, R3 and more.

Second Place

IOTA - $2,000 worth of IOTA tokens

BitGreen - 10,000 BITG tokens

Third Place (2)

Amazon Web Services - 2,000 AWS creditsm $500 in cash, and the winning app will be considered for a feature on AWS marketplace. 1 AWS credit is equivalent to 1 USD.

IOTA - $1,000 worth of IOTA tokens

BitGreen - 5,000 BITG tokens

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

How to enter

  1. Register for the hackathon on Devpost.
  2. Create a team or find teammates. Join our dedicated Slack channel to help with team formation and receive updates.
  3. Build functioning blockchain software using the developer tools and platforms of your choice. Ideally, choose a category or problem you want to solve.
  4. Create a demo video of you working app, with an explanation of how it works
  5. Submit your application on Devpost

Judges

Francisco Contreras

Francisco Contreras
Innovation Manager at the City of West Hollywood

Mark Dowd

Mark Dowd
Executive Director at Smart Cities Innovation Lab

John Ellis

John Ellis
Consultant CTT of LADOT and Founder at Ellis & Associates

Sanshiro Fukao

Sanshiro Fukao
Lead Research Associate at ITOCHU Research Institute Inc.

Kit Ker

Kit Ker
Deputy Director at Enterprise Singapore

Ryan Klem

Ryan Klem
Global Executive at Toyota Mobility Foundation

Bhaskar Krishnamachari

Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Director and Engineering Professor at USC Viterbi Center

Joe C. Lee

Joe C. Lee
Founder at Kuaidi Group

Zaki Manian

Zaki Manian
Advisor at Trusted IoT Alliance

Trent McConaghy

Trent McConaghy
Founder at Ocean Protocol

Faris Oweis

Faris Oweis
Smart City Commissioner at United Nations' Blockchain for Impact

Nick Pudar

Nick Pudar
Managing Director at Stackview Advisory LLC

Michael Schutzler

Michael Schutzler
CEO at Washington Technology Industry Association

Shailesh Sharda

Shailesh Sharda
Head of World Economic Forum in India

Manojit Bose

Manojit Bose
Chief Knowledge Officer at Pune Smart City Development Corporation

Alisa DiCaprio

Alisa DiCaprio
Head of Trade and Supply Chain at R3

Georgios Fontaras

Georgios Fontaras
Researcher at European Commission, Joint Research Centre

Judging Criteria

  • Technical
    How well has the idea been coded? (Category limited to judges with technical experience)
  • Creativity
    How creative and original is the idea?
  • Feasibility
    Can the idea be implemented today?
  • Impact
    How many people can the solution help & how big are the implications?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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