Bike-sharing platforms or public transportation stations supplied with solar energy? This can become real in Chisinau!

Students are invited to participate at this exercise to develop prototypes for the services or products and test their functionality, being provided a budget of 200 $ per idea/prototype.

“Innovations in urbanism represent a very popular trend in the majority of European capital cities. We would like to use this project to combine students’ ideas and enthusiasm with solving urban challenges which may be tackled by all of us with joint efforts”, said Dumitru Vasilescu, Project Manager at UNDP Moldova.

The urban challenges to be addressed are: gloomy underground passages, unsafe pedestrians’ crossings, buildings with deteriorated facades, missing maps with public transportation network, absence of touristic signs, insufficient promotion of the architectural and cultural patrimony, etc.

The prototypes of the solutions are expected to be new on the market, ecological, involving low production costs, so as to be easily replicated. Ideas which could be implemented in practice immediately without any changes in the legislation are encouraged.

“Chisinau Loading” will be localized within the UNDP Business Innovation Lab, at the ICT Centre of Excellence – Tekwill, where participants will benefit from support provided by local and international mentors.

The application form may be filled in here. The deadline for application is 1 July 2017.

The current initiative is part of the project “Innovative business development for local sustainable economic growth”, funded by the Government of Norway and UNDP Moldova, which envisages to promote innovation in the sector of small and medium enterprises, via transfer and absorption of knowledge, technologies.