Undergraduate students across a variety of faculties, including business, computer science, interactive arts and technology, and engineering recently got a chance to showcase their solutions for sustainable transit, thanks to TransLink.

In February this year, CaseIT presented PIVOT, a local undergraduate ideathon proudly supported by TransLink. Beginning as a spark to an idea, PIVOT was conceptualized in 2018 to celebrate CaseIT’s 15 year anniversary within the Vancouver business community. TransLink proudly supported PIVOT as a theme sponsor, providing powerful insights to this year’s theme of traffic congestion.

PIVOT by CaseIT is an interactive ideathon in which undergraduate students from local universities leverage digital and information technology to solve a community-wide issue that impacts our everyday lives. Throughout the event, students were assembled into teams to collaborate and connect with industry innovation specialists, as they learn how to apply themselves to spark life-changing ideas.

This year, PIVOT partnered with the David Suzuki Foundation and TransLink to present students with the theme of designing solutions to tackle traffic congestion in Metro Vancouver and beyond. Though sessions focused on team ideation, collaboration, and problem-solving, PIVOT aimed to equip students with a better vision for implementation as they build thoughtful solutions that are applicable on a global scale.

To start the day off, PIVOT welcomed three insightful panelists, Daniel Firth (Director of Mobility Pricing, TransLink), Tom Green (Climate Solutions Policy Analyst, David Suzuki Foundation), and Jeff Leigh (Chair, Vancouver UBC Local Committee, and VP, Board of Directors, HUB Cycling).

Each panelist provided a diverse and intriguing perspective on PIVOT 2019’s theme, which triggered fascinating conversations among the audience. Questions that were asked by students during the panel included the benefits and implications of mobility pricing, the rise of active transportation, and effects of traffic pollution on the climate.

Students then participated in a creative workshop lead by PIVOT’s 2019 Workshop Sponsor, Traction on Demand, which focused on the importance of building trust and customer understanding to assist students in identifying a variety of stakeholders as they dove into the PIVOT case challenge.

With this new plethora of information, students continued the day with guided ideation sessions, preliminary presentations and wrapped it up with the long-awaited final presentations.

PIVOT welcomed five teams to the final presentations and was proud to award Kirsten Hinlopen, Sophie Dodd, and Hao Ran Wei as the PIVOT 2019 Champions!

As the transit and transportation authority in the Metro Vancouver region, TransLink is always looking for innovative ways to partner with students, academia, and researchers.

TransLink’s New Mobility Program is an opportunity for you to be part of our future and of TransLink Tomorrow, so together, we can explore, test, and implement ways to improve mobility in Metro Vancouver.

Excited about what the future of mobility means? So are we! Stay tuned as we will announce the winners of our New Mobility Research Grant Program in the coming weeks!

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(CaseIT is the premier international management information systems (MIS) business case competition hosted each year in collaboration with the Beedie School of Business in Vancouver, Canada. CaseIT brings together top undergraduate business students, distinguished faculty members, experienced industry professionals, and a dedicated student-run organizing committee to challenge conventional thinking and build global connections. The competition provides a rigorous platform to test students’ critical business case analysis capabilities and empower students to present with confidence in front of esteemed industry professionals on an international stage.)

Author: Dasha Vdovina, Project Manager, PIVOT