We invite everyone with the best ideas to register for The Dutch Hyperloop Challenge! This challenge is part of Hyperloop One Global Challenge.
A Hyperloop is an exciting new idea for transporting goods and people at airline speeds. The race to solve the engineering challenges and to demonstrate its potential is running at breakneck speed. And the Dutch are already playing their part, as shown in the design contest for the Hyperloop Pod. Many technological options are available: just for goods, or for mixed goods and people, built above the ground, (partly) underground or even under water.
While the technology is being converted to working demonstrators, the next challenge is in the application of the system. How would a networked infrastructure based on Hyperloop technology benefit our society and our economy? What is the best way to use a Hyperloop infrastructure in our economic zone in Europa, to support sustainable growth in welfare and wellbeing, to continue to be a leading zone in the future? Some ideas go for improving existing flows, like replacing High Speed Rail or container trucking. Other ideas go for untapped potentials: what if a currently underdeveloped zone suddenly gets closely connected to an existing economic hub, just as we have seen with the TGV in France?
The Dutch Hyperloop Challenge calls for ideas and concepts that focus on the application, on societal impact, on economic growth, on what-if ideas, in-the-box or out-of-the-box. For transport of goods and/or people.
Who can participate?
Everybody: students, professors, knowledge institutes, companies from every sector, consultants, scientists, public organizations.
The Jury
The jury consists amongst others of Mark Frequin (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment), Jan Hendrik Dronkers (Rijkswaterstaat), Walther Ploos van Amstel (Hogeschool van Amsterdam), Pieter Litjens (City of Amsterdam), Frank Wammes (Capgemini), Carlo van de Weijer (TU Eindhoven), Guido Dierick (NXP), Vincent Kobesen (PTV Group), Mars Geuze (Hyperloop Delft) and Nico Anten (Connekt).
Your idea will be judged on:
Relevance for the development of The Netherlands for logistics and/or for passenger transport, economic feasibility and creativity. We don’t reward thick reports, we do reward stories, video’s and visualization of your dreams and how this will work in practice.
We don’t reward thick reports, we do reward stories, video’s and visualization of your dreams and how this will work in practice.
What are the prizes?
The overall winning team will be announced on Friday September 2nd and will be the entry into the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. The team will be rewarded with tickets and hotel to Hyperloop One. A panel of renowned experts will select the Hyperloop One Global Challenge finalists by September 15, 2016. Winners will be announced by March, 2017 and will be selected as the projects that best demonstrate the transformative power of Hyperloop, are most likely to gain government and regulatory support and attract the financial investments required to proceed.
There are also prizes ze for the most out-of-the-box idea and for the best economically feasible idea.
About the challenge
The Dutch Hyperloop Challenge is part of the Hyperloop One Global Challenge, an opportunity for individuals, companies and governments around the world to develop creative ideas to deploy the first Hyperloop One solutions to solve the worlds most pressing transportation problems. The Dutch Hyperloop Challenge is organized in cooperation with the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the Topsector Logistics, Rijkswaterstaat, the city of Amsterdam, KPN, Capgemini and NXP.
Meet some of the members of our jury:
Mark Frequin, Director General for Mobility and Transport Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, and president of the jury: “The challenge offers an unique opportunity to get insight into more smart transport-options for users. This is in line with The Netherlands being one of the most smart regions in the world”.
Walther Ploos van Amstel, Lector City Logistics at Hogeschool van Amsterdam: “The Hyperloop is a ‘gamechanger’ for transport, like the container in the 60s of the last century. The competitiveness of regions is going to change. The Netherlands, as the logistics mainport of Europe, must capitalize on it now.”
Pieter Litjens, alderman City of Amsterdam: “Amsterdam has always been a place for innovation, we’re elected most innovative city in the EU in 2016. We support this challenge to find out what Hyperloop can mean for the city of Amsterdam, our citizens and our connection with other important economic regions in the EU.”
Frank Wammes, CTO Applications Services Continental Europe at Capgemini: “Hyperloop One sounds like a childhood dream, but it is our new reality. Only those who can dream big dreams and are not afraid to fail, can achieve big things. I am proud that our Calvinist Dutch country is moving and participating in this great dream, as one of the first countries in the world. This can have a major impact on future infrastructure and it is self-evident for the Netherlands to take the lead.”
Carlo van de Weijer, Director Strategic Area Smart Mobility Eindhoven University of Technology: “Throughout history, people never changed the frequency of their travel habits, but they did increase their speed. The Hyperloop can be the most sustainable way to facilitate that growing need for speed. The many challenges we are facing just make it more interesting for smart people. Thus I am looking forward to their ideas with great interest.”
Guido Dierick, CEO NXP Netherlands: “Smart mobility has just started to reshape today’s mobility and will become pervasive in the next 5-10 years. Now is the time to start looking beyond that horizon: unleash your dreams, vision and creativity to help shape hypermobility beyond smart mobility.”
Vincent Kobesen, CEO PTV Group: “The Hyperloop challenge represents a unique possible revolution in long distance connectivity, making transport more efficient, safe and with zero emissions. These attributes are equivalent to the values that the PTV Group stands for. We at PTV want to enable state-of-the-art, future-oriented connectivity for people and goods throughout the world. We are fully supportive of the Dutch Hyperloop Challenge. We embrace the innovative character of the contest even beyond the engineering challenge. With the use of PTV’s expertise and technology the teams can also consider planning, operational and economic aspects to ensure a successful proposal for this exciting and unique project. We are looking forward to the solutions and creativity of the Dutch engineers and students.”
Mars Geuze, Chief Technical Officer of the Delft Hyperloop team. “Although building a Hyperloop vehicle seems like a daunting task at first, there are elegant ways to accomplish an extremely efficient and high speed transportation system that operates safely.”
Nico Anten, Managing Director Connekt: “We believe that with the strong public private coalition supporting this challenge, we can really help bring up ideas that are disruptive and out-of-the-box. As Connekt we’re proud to be running the Dutch Hyperloop Challenge. We took this initiative because we want to connect the right people to make our society more smart, sustainable and social for the future.”
About Hyperloop One. Hyperloop One is reinventing transportation by developing the world’s first Hyperloop, an elegant, integrated structure to move passengers and cargo between two points immediately, safely, efficiently, and sustainably. Our team has the world’s leading experts in engineering, technology and transport project delivery, working in tandem with global partners and investors to make Hyperloop a reality, now. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company was founded in 2014 by its Executive Chairman Shervin Pishevar and CTO Brogan BamBrogan, and is led by CEO Rob Lloyd. For more information, please visit www.hyperloop-one.com.