Ohio State Gives Seed Funding to Spur Transportation Innovations

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May 10, 2019

Written by Laura Arenschield / Ohio State News / arenschield.2@osu.edu

Transportation is changing. Cars can run on electricity, and tell us whether we are too distracted while we drive. Buses offer free wi-fi. Ride-sharing is ubiquitous. Bike-commuting is in vogue.

Decades from now, the way people move through their daily lives will likely look even more different—and a new program in the partnership between The Ohio State University and Honda R&D Americas is working to nurture the kinds of innovative ideas that will, hopefully, make transportation easier, safer and more environmentally friendly.

Ohio State’s Office of Research hosted a pitch day recently at the newly opened 99P Innovation Laboratory on Kinnear Road and heard ideas to improve transportation from research groups from across the university.

“We’re really at an inflection point where things in the world of mobility are changing pretty rapidly,” said Alissa Comella, the university’s co-director of the Honda-Ohio State partnership. “We have the opportunity, by partnering with Honda, to really have a unique vantage point on taking commercial thinking and academic thinking and bringing them together to look at what the future could be.”

A panel of engineers, scientists and others from both Honda and Ohio State evaluated those pitches and offered seed funding to five projects. The proposals varied from creating better, more sustainable, high-energy lithium batteries, to building a “smart” roadway that can tell drivers, pedestrians and cyclists what’s happening outside their line of sight, to social-work outreach that could improve the ways senior citizens access public transportation.

The seed funding—$25,000 to each project—will allow teams to begin research and have development updates for the 99P Lab’s official "grand opening" this fall.

Read more about the transportation and research ideas pitched for seed funding.