SAE 2018 connected cars challenge winners- a recap by Joe Barkai

By Joe Barkai at: http://joebarkai.com/connected-car-challenge-winners-where-are-they-now/

2018 Challenge Winners – Where Are They Now?As we are preparing for the 2019 Connected Car Challenge, I reached out to the winners of this year’s Challenge.

The first-place winner was Ido Levy from the Israeli startup company SafeMode. The proposed solution is a cloud-based data modeling and predictive analysis of risky driver behavior. The vision Levy presented to the Challenge judges was of a platform that enables smart cities, fleet owners, and autonomous vehicles to make real-time proactive decisions by identifying and predicting risky behavior, thereby reducing casualties and property damage, and optimizing traffic flow.

According to Levy, his participation in the Connected Car Challenge helped him hone the company’s message and value proposition, and winning the competition at an event at the heart of the automotive industry added important exposure and credibility.

Indeed, since winning the Challenge’s first place (and a host of other competitions), SafeMode landed its first smart city customer. SafeMode’s technology will be integrated into Ashdod’s Living Lab Smart Mobility: an open smart autonomous public transportation initiative based on a global collaborative innovation model developed at MIT’s Living Lab.