Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport finalists announced
Dubai will host the World Congress for Unmanned Transport on 26-27 September 2023. As part of this event, the 3rd Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport competition is being organised. This year’s theme is “Unmanned Buses”.
According to Mattar Al Tayer, CEO and Chairman of RTA, the main objective of the competition is to drive the widespread adoption of self-driving modes of transport and encourage industry leaders to address road challenges. Unmanned buses have become a key element of the RTA’s strategy to help make Dubai’s vision of self-driven public transport a reality.
In the Industry Leaders category, the winner will receive US$ 1 million, with US$ 750 thousand for second place. In the Local Academic Institutions category, the winner will receive US$ 200,000 and the runner-up will receive US$ 100,000.
Following the results of the preliminary voting, the names of the finalist companies became known. According to the jury headed by Dr Stephen Schladover, an international expert in the field of unmanned technologies, the best companies in the category “Industry Leaders” are Alexander Dennis (UK), BrightDrive (Egypt), Xiamen King Long (China), Quadribot (France) and iAuto Technology (Taiwan).
In the Local Academic Institutions category, five universities made it to the finals: Heriot-Watt University, Khalifa University, University of Dubai, Bolton University Ras Al Khaimah and American University of Sharjah.
Mr Al Tayer also said that the third series of the competition had attracted huge interest from companies from all over the world. Twenty-seven applications were received. This exceeded the planned number by 130 per cent in the ‘Industry Leaders’ category and 175 per cent in the ‘Local Academic Institutions’ category.
The choice of theme for the third competition, Self-Driving Buses, is in line with the RTA’s efforts to implement its Smart Unmanned Transport strategy, which aims to make 25 per cent of journeys in Dubai smart by 2030.
Source: Gulf News
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