L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015 L'Italo-Americano "I would like a bus similar to my house, but in motion... I want to live inside, not just to travel". A quote from a random conver- sation with an American tourist has become the main source of i n s p i r a t i o n f o r T o m m a s o G e c c h e l i n , a P h y s i c i s t a n d Industrial Designer, who has thought of a prototype of self- driving vehicles to use in public transportation. While dealing with the issue of future mobility f o r a n i n t e r n s h i p p r o j e c t , Tommaso kept thinking of that traveler's dream and started to work hard to understand how to apply his math and science skills to improve people's life. A mix of science and creativity became then very useful in order to cre- ate what could change the whole user's experience in transporta- tion. Emmanuele Spera, origi- nally from Rome, is the other soul of this story: by bringing to the table 20 years of IT manage- ment experience, 15 years in h e a l t h c a r e , a n d h i s r o l e a s Director and CEO for two IT c o m p a n i e s i n E u r o p e , Emmanuele got very excited by Tommaso's project at the point that he decided to leave from R o m e a n d e m b a r k o n a n e w experience. As co-founder of Next, Emmanuele, who lives n o w i n t h e S i l i c o n V a l l e y , helped us understand how this technology is finding its realiza- tion in San Francisco. How does Next work? Next can be considered an advanced smart transportation system based on swarms of mod- ular self-driving vehicles. Each module can join and detach with other modules on standard city roads. When joined, they create an open, bus-like area among modules, allowing passengers to stand and walk from one module to another. NEXT's smart rout- ing system will autonomously drive the vehicles and join other modules in order to redistribute passengers and optimize occu- pancy rate, while cutting con- sumption and the traffic foot- print. Why did you take your pro- ject to California? The project was born in Italy thanks to Tommaso's design. I decided to sell everything, and move over here. At that point, I r e a l l y w a n t e d t o b e g i n m y American dream and build a new life here, starting from this small but genial idea. Didn't you have any chance to develop the technology in Italy? W h e n I k n e w T o m m a s o ' s idea, I really thought it was the best I had ever heard: his first prototype was ready to become real but unfortunately nobody in Italy wanted to invest money because it was considered an "out-of-the-Box" project. People there have to deal with bad traf- fic, transportations, and other things which make any innova- t i o n l e s s a p p e a l i n g . I g o t i n c h a r g e o f t h e B u s i n e s s Development plan, we started working on how to develop the design and had some small pro- t o t y p e s t o s h o w h e r e i n t h e Silicon Valley. W h y d o y o u t h i n k t h e American market is a better fit for this idea? People working in America look at the future and are always willing to invest their money in new, challenging projects. It is true that they have the money but the risk they take makes a difference too. When do you think we will see this transportation on the road? Our target is to be available o n t h e m a r k e t i n 2 0 2 0 : t h i s relates to the announcement made by Google and Tesla, who believe that self-driving cars will become part of our life by then. I think that it may happen even earlier for us, because we work in the public transportation, we don't need any new infrastruc- ture and because we are using existing "off the shelf" technolo- gies, like self driving, inductive charging and in-motion battery swap, which allow our vehicles to never run out of power. W h a t d o p e o p l e i n I t a l y think now that your idea is becoming real? People find it an interesting idea but quite impossible to real- ize. Here is the difference with the United States and the Silicon Valley, where the new technolo- gies are welcome and seen as possible to use. Which milestone did you get so far? This is the only project of self-driving vehicles feasible for public transportation because it puts together the car sharing fea- tures, the on-demand services, and on-demand transportation. We just closed a deal with a German automotive partner who offered both the fundraising and the construction of the first two- working prototypes in the next 12 months. What is your next goal? We are aiming to build the prototypes as soon as possible, in order to get in the market and start selling them. Our first goal is to help change the old, obso- lete bus fleets that we see every- day on the streets. Next cofounder Emmanuele Spera showing his prototypes Next: two Italian beautiful minds changing the future of transportation in Silicon Valley SERENA PERFETTO The design of the Next transportation

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