Sustainable transport competition uncovers engineering talent
Aaron Blutstein 19 January 2022 
A competition to design the smart and sustainable transport system of the future has uncovered engineering, technology and business talent.
SustainaCity Racer challenged 50 students and graduates from 15 universities across the UK to design an intelligent, sustainable and interconnected network for a fictional city region, using a variety of transport types for citizens living in different environments.
At the end of the two-day hackathon-style event 22 students and graduates were offered access to early career opportunities with Siemens’ Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, and Mobility businesses.
For the second year running SustainaCity Racer participants were put into hybrid, multidisciplinary teams and challenged to apply engineering, digital and commercial elements to their designs.
The winning group, Eco Made Easy, proposed using a hyperloop tunnel and hydrofoil water vessel as the main transport, an app using real-time transport data and AI to map fastest, cheapest and most sustainable journeys, and an innovative POD transport which combines rail and bus.
The team included: Bagha Charuduth (Bsc in Computer Science at the University of Sheffield); Sarah Kelly (Mechanical Engineering and MSc in Automotive at the University of Bath); Hannah Pope (Computer Science at the University of York); Jake Sawyer (Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University); Boon Kean Teo (Msc in Electronics and Computer Engineering at the University of Sheffield); Thisura Wijayananda (Electronic Engineering with Management at King’s College London); Daniel Wilcox (Automotive Engineering at the University of Bath); and Tom Woodburn (MEng in Design Engineering at Imperial College London).
They scooped opportunities to interview for internship and graduate roles, as well as a £250 Amazon voucher and a trophy.
Hannah Pope, 20, studying Computer Science at the University of York, said “I believe sustainability is an important consideration for ensuring the quality of our future. Using aspects of my degree to explore and develop solutions with regard to transport appealed to me.
“I enjoyed every moment from the brainstorming to presenting our final solution.
“Before this competition, I was very focused on software engineering and pure computer science, but this competition has really opened my eyes to how other engineering disciplines fit together.”
Judges for competition included Thomas Edwards from Siemens Digital Industries, Nikhil Patel from Siemens Smart Infrastructure, and Sophie Marshall-Unit, Charbel Khalil, Hannah Surguy, Miles Moran and Ewan Bradley from Siemens Mobility.
Commenting on the event, Thomas Edwards, Graduate Engineer for Siemens Digital Industries, said: “SustainaCity Racer was launched in 2020 as a way of bringing multi-disciplinary minds together to collaborate to come up with innovative solutions to real-life problems and give students the opportunity to experience things that they may encounter if they worked at Siemens.
“We were extremely impressed with all 50 of the participants and the outstanding ideas they came up with to respond to the task of innovating in a new age of connected mobility that allows people to move more intelligently and sustainably.”
There were two runners-up groups, who also won opportunities to apply for internships and graduate roles at Siemens.
