ITS Students Earn Golden Idea Award

September 26, 2018

Congratulations to the team of UC Berkeley ITS students who travelled to Shenzhen, China to participate in the BMW Next Mobility Youth Camp and won the Golden Idea Award. Current students Jeremy Halpern (MS TE/MCP), Andrea Medina (MUD/MRED+D) and alumni Siqing Yi (MS TE ’18) and Courtney Ferris (MUD ’18) attended the themed camp City NEXT: Iteration of China’s Emerging Cities in New Era during the last week of August.

The camp was launched to explore innovative mobility conceptual designs on emerging cities with young talents, to provide inspiration and reference for the urban regeneration and transformation towards future mobility with the “South District of Shenzhen High-tech Industry Park (SHIP)” as the background site.

Submissions were sent in during phase one with preliminary proposals in July. The team submitted a preliminary proposal for admission to the camp.  During phase two, the team flew to Shenzhen, China for a five-day onsite youth camp and attended a combination of lectures from industry leaders, government officials and researchers addressing Shenzhen’s mobility initiatives, observed the conditions of the Site, and further developed their proposal for presentation. The Berkeley team’s proposal “Sharing in Shenzhen” earned the Golden Idea Award.

“It was a very rewarding experience!” says Halpern. “I enjoyed learning about how the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau) is trying to address transportation issues at the regional level, particularly with the volume of data they have available. An exciting challenge for this competition was that in terms of sustainable mobility, the Shenzhen district we were working in is already pretty advanced with green space, dock-less bikeshare parking, 100% electric bus fleet and connectivity to an extensive metro.”