Smart Tiles to Combat Fare Dodging. The idea of Claudia, Davide and Veronica Awarded in Toronto
A smart flooring to be applied near underground turnstiles to fight fare dodging. This is the sustainable idea with which three Bocconi students Claudia Cotoloni, Davide Maccarrone (International Management CEMS MIM program) and Veronica Semprini (International Management) arrived third in a case competition in Toronto, organized by the Rotman School of Management in collaboration with the A4S Accounting for Sustainability association. Teams of participants were asked to design and present new, market driven, sustainable, urban energy infrastructure models.
"We are very satisfied with the result achieved", says Massimo Magni, Director of the International Management Master of Science. "The project highlights the importance of combining business and specialist skills to deal with the complexity of the global context and to develop solutions that have a strong social relevance".
The idea came from a talk that Davide had, two years earlier, with a friend who studied engineering and who told him about piezoelectricity, that is, the property of some materials to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. "Walking on piezoelectric tiles generates clean energy," explains Davide. "We have thought about applying such tiles in the areas around the turnstiles of the underground: a smart flooring that does not simply transfer energy, but also data allowing to identify the passengers who have stepped on the tile, but did not pay the ticket, so as to fight fare dodging," continues Davide. "We also planned to apply these tiles in crowded places, such as squares and train stations, always with the aim of producing clean energy," adds Veronica.
With this project the team of Bocconians passed the first pre-selection and flew to Toronto to present the idea. Once there, they passed the second phase with 14 teams and went through to the final with 4 teams, and gained third place. "When we arrived, we felt a bit confused because we were the only 22-year-old students with no business experience behind us among MBA students," Veronica admits. "Reason why we learned a lot, and not only in Toronto, where we met students with different cultures and backgrounds (we were the only Italians among American, Indian, Canadian and English students), but also in the design phase, during which we filled our engineering gaps thanks to the help of Luigi De Nardo, professor at the Politecnico of Milan, who welcomed us into his lab to explain to us the concept of piezoelectricity. We would also like to thank Bocconi academis Stefano Caselli, Ariela Caglio, Gianluca Delfino, Gimede Gigante and the assistant vice-president of Barclays Rodolfo Pambianco".