At Y4PT

We have shout from the rooftop since years, so much before our actual Times, where topics like listening to young people, professing gender equality, return to empathy are in the headlines; we started before, many years ago,because we always believed it, because it is inside us. 

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Today, many more people are sharing and embracing our initiative after we were foregoers.

This is precisely what gives us the greatest satisfaction, which makes the big difference: we have always believed in new Sustainable Times, in deep, beyond the superficial narrative of our Century.

This is our strength, our truth. We were a handful of human beings in 2005 and we are steadily expanding. We “live and reproduce” ourselves because we truly believe and people feel it. We have created something durable, which goes beyond fashions, moments, which goes beyond physical space. 

And the Youth traveling, physically encountering, since years, is the living proof; so vigorous and vibrant.

Isn’t that what counts? When you leave your mobile, your tablet, your computer and meet real people truly dear to you generating real memories?

Yes, sometimes maybe you still look inside that screen to find answers to your life… but then you always come out disappointed and drained. Instead, when you physically meet someone you look at real eyes, real smiles, gestures. You listen to the words, the tone of the voices saying their truths and finally you generate a  dialogue, confront yourself, putting attention in the way of exposing your ideas and you… talk!

The human brain is structured like this: to grow by comparing, listening, evaluating, reflecting, taking care to find memories in its meanders; the right ones that can interconnect with other memories and form a new idea.

If you meet people,your ruminant brain subsides, blow over and you become fully yourself again. 

Instead, the screens take away all this from us, making us unable to reflect, to adapt, to save ourselves, to be aware, to think, and to concentrate; we are giving others control of our own lives, we’re becoming Zombies. We all know Zombies from the most popular American thriller movies but the term Zombie came from the Antilles, where Priests with selfish purposes, called Bokor, according to some popular beliefs, would have been able to restore the life of a corpse; the body magically brought back to a form of life, totally passive, would then be succumbed to the will of the resuscitating magician…

Is this what you want for your life? 

Fortunately, today many people are awakening.

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They are re-evaluating many values ​​related to solidarity, acceptance, sharing… and many movements of young people reunite only and solely to take the streets peacefully: an evidence of an important desire for change against the often ridiculous, screaming voices of politics and “influencers” which no longer have inhibitory brakes, culture and education and impose themselves vulgarly.

Awakening must come from us, we are the ones who must re-educate the world and re-educate ourselves. Starting bottom up we must act to shake up these countries, these governments. these institutions that have lost their bearings and are navigating on sight. 

We don’t want to form new political movements, new currents, but we want to bring the theme of education back to the non-formal on the other side of the scale: to transform these model of modern societies where everything must be white or black, where the nuances which are making us unique are daily erased by the willing to pigeonholing us in a political party, in a group, in a colour, in a gender.

I would like to stimulate you to think that our attention should be refocused on the deeper values that doze in you,the ones that you still all possess in the bottom of your soul. 

To evaluate and reflect on who offers us something, what they propose to us and why they propose it to us. 

And stimulate you not to stop at the offered candy, but to go beyond, to look beyond the offer. 

Clearly I know that  I am inviting you to a longer and more difficult path, but this will be a path of guaranteed inner satisfaction, to find that sense of joy and fullness in reaching something that we no longer possess.

In Europe, the ones who were  born without knowing the war or after war, are used to live in a world where satisfactions are cheap and tend to reach and imitate models of the past not even known by their generation.

They try to replicate the American dream of the past; but the American dream of today has only left a coated atmosphere that permits a superficial day dreaming . It is not any more the same of the past: today is a run to achieve and accumulate money, fame, success and power through shortcuts,  to mimic the powerful of the world, be they Stars, Politicians or Models, through their parodies, named Influencers, YouTubers and Celebrities. 

Parodies which no longer even have nowhere in sight the political, cultural depth or the refinement of the many known in the past: instead, they possess a DNA and  communication “agencies” , with the ability to know how to stay at the top, pretending to give to others, guaranteeing everyone a constant happiness by proposing to eliminate obstacles to material satisfaction. 

The astuteness of production is using us, human beings of today, because of our limitless will of self-celebration. Playing along with us, making us believe to be free exactly when we are living on our living flesh the most totalitarian form of power of the whole human history.

And so we become barbarians: possessing a lot of materials goods and having an empty brain; barbarisation is a sign of decadence. 

But this doesn’t matter to the new political and economical rulers of the world.Accumulating as long as they are alive is their goal, 20/30 years, then problems will fall on someone else. 

The solutions can come only finding your true self within yourself

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Transform yourselves, therefore, be “ingenuous”: free men in the Roman world were called “ingenuous”(the legal and social condition of those who were born free, or born from a free father). 

They were the natural, those born free, the candids, the ones  with an incorrupt spirit from the world; but today the word is misinterpreted,  it offers the side to derogatory connotations: lack of cunning, forethought, wisdom, knowledge, experience.

But how can simple purity defend itself easily from the numerous sirens that promise immediacy on our omnipresent screens? How can you defend yourself from the consumerist illusion that to be happy you have to buy rather than understand, enjoy rather than rejoice, grab rather than commit … only to find yourself perennially unsatisfied?

Try to put some of these tips into practice 

1) What is artificial becomes natural today; therefore privilege books and Nature

2) Prefer neighborhood shops, cooperatives, handicrafts.

3) Propagate the less is more

4) Get rich by developing your inner life

5) Look for passionate people near you, passionate about books, about stories or anything else, people  that speaks to you about their passions; listen to them, venture into their dreams, study them.

6) Live in peace, stay in the midst of nature as much as you can, do not give in to any forms of violence, we all have them…

7) Practice,  practice!! One minute a day as a first experiment and the reach two minutes and more, make these exercises regular: your brain is a muscle, nothing more, you can exercise it like all other parts of your body!

8) Stop: Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.

And you will see; it is a law, a teaching that we learn from the past: in economic decline, the condition that corresponds is a social and human development.

Give preference to the quality of relationships with yourselves and with others to the detriment of the desire to possess objects which in turn, will have you.

9)have consistency: Ideas are made to be lived. If we are not able to put them into practice, they will only serve to make our ego vibrate. We are all soaked in compromise, but our effort will be to strive for greater coherence. It is the bet of the credibility of our speeches. We change and the world will change.

10) We crave feeling supported, valued and connected: but very many often, nobody will be  out to give you high fives and lavish you in praise, either! So, the trick is, how do YOU support, value and connect with yourself. Is your attitude.Your mental strength and capacity.

These ideas are not exhaustive, it’s your soul job to complete them. There is no way to live ‘immaculate’ on Earth, but if we do not commit ourselves to striving for coherence, we will be reduced to complaining hypocritically about the consequences of our lifestyle.

Happy New Start to All! 

Alessandra

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Anna Movsesjan and Nina Ebel:  16years old, among our new youngest voices : we are glad the real world is not only bad news but is committed and dedicated!

These 2 young ladies are not awaiting to be old and bold to get more involved in the environmental protection and in our Y4PT Hackathons to generate a transformation.

They have clear ideas on how the world is driven and where we are heading to: their first participation to a Y4PT local Hackathon in Menden, South Westphalia, has been an incredible opportunity that gave them access to the Final Y4PT through in Stockholm, during the UITP Summit,  last June 2019.

The famous African say, “If you think you are too small to make a difference, it means you have never spent a night in a room with a mosquito”, well represent the strength and the determination of these two young girls willing to start making this difference with us and embracing the position of Ambassadors for Y4PT.

Every morning Anna and Nina they go to school knowing that every action they make has a profound impact on their community and on the planet. Nina often asks her parents to let her take the public transport system, instead of using the car, to reduce the emissions in the atmosphere. Anna is very concerned by plastic use on the planet and she has been educated by her family to reduce the plastic and garbage waste, at the point that she is now training her younger sister to do so too.

They are both extremely concerned about the fall of numbers of plants and animals, they are extremely conscious on how the loss of endangered species, is already troubling the life on the planet and, at the long term, will continue to trouble and produce nefarious effects on our human societies.

They have been impacted by the Y4PT experience and pleasantly surprised by the possibilities of belonging to a committed community where thousands of young people are thinking the same and are able to generate real transformations.

Now, they are bringing forward two important projects, and one of them has won the First Prize during the Y4PT 3^rd Global Hackathon Final in Stockholm June 2019 , at the UITP Summit, the worldwide oldest and most prestigious event on Mobility around the world. www.uitp.org

Anna participated in implementing a project related on how to improve mobility in war zones where cities life is affected: where locals are still living and confronted to a lack of services and public utilities. Anna was helping Ahmad and other participants to improve the Start-up Ahmad has created in Damascus, Syria, to help its fellow concitizens.

Nina, has been generating, within a group of young people from South Africa, Colombia, Ecuador, The Netherlands and Germany, an innovative project on recuperating food waste via public transport, for biogas production.

“We are sure we can impress people and we can give life to a transformation, we need to start from bottom up to influence and provoke the decision makers to take different steps and embrace different directions“ , Anna and Nina said; “we want to reach the schools, everything starts from there, education is fundamental, creating workshops and with the help of Y4PT (www.Y4PT.org ) we know we can make it! We are just going forward and Y4PT is giving us strength! “

Y4PTis proud to have reached many young people all around the world in all these years, spreading seeds and see them growing: Anna and Nina will represent this positive voice in a “sea of unsustainability”, bringing all of us, Humans, hope.

The first pills of wisdom of Anna and Nina are here!

https://youtu.be/i2ImKiv19Q4

https://youtu.be/PUyeOlCT6nE

and follow our YouTube Channel for more youngest voices videos! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDeS_gINnZHgVFVMEF4SwlA

Alessandra Gorini

Head and Founder Y4PT

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“Live as if you were the key to solving the transportation issues. Because in a way, we all are.” Lucía Moreno González-Páramo, UK / Spain, Civil and Structural engineer, Team Compal

Another season shifts and settles. Here in Stockholm, the summer sun is drawing what has been sown into full growth and bloom. In the centre of the city, a trolley is pushed from one raised herb garden to another, watering the tidy boxes of aromatic green in the intense light and heat. Between the conference centre and the railway station, groundspeople are carefully tending and replanting perfect flowerbeds. And here, among patches of shade from steady trees, tiny midges are happily feeding on participants of the 3rd Global Y4PT Hackathon as they exercise and meditate in the warm air.

In the framework of the 63rd UITP Global Public Transport Summit Stockholm 2019 – the world’s oldest, largest and top leading sustainable transport event – the winners of local and global Y4PT Hackathons have gathered for the finale of a third year. These young researchers, students and professionals bring together expertise and knowledge from over 40 events worldwide.

In a soft curtained room in Stockholmsmässan, a record-breaking 45 initial ideas were pitched by the young participants. Addressing healthy and sustainable mobility, and universal accessibility through local experience and global scalability, some of these ideas were brand new, while others built directly on previous successes.

“The final in Stockholm is like a dream – to work with people with the same objective. I already feel like a winner because the technology we made is now used by the government of Colombia to save lives and improve mobility.” Walter Gavez, Columbia, Engineer, Team Evital

From these 45 ideas, 12 were voted by the group for development and teams were formed around them.

During the 3 days of the hack, these diverse collaborative teams, with members hailing from over 30 countries, developed each idea into a prototype and pitch, which was tested and refined throughout with international industry mentors.

“I believe that working in interdisciplinary groups, where everyone can share different ideas and visions of things, added to the cultural value of our perspectives allowed us to achieve much more interesting projects.” Alejandro Sanchez Gutirrrez, Mexico, Biomedical Engineer, Team Check

These projects were presented to a panel of international judges representing the 5 Y4PT Ring Cities –  Dubai, Manchester, Menden, Milan and Moscow – UITP and Y4PT.

“I would tell those living in the future to work across geographic, gender and racial barriers to overcome their future challenges. I will tell those living in the world today that our challenges are only surmountable through collaboration and idea sharing.” Disun Vera-Cruz, Nigeria, Remote Operations, Team Clearway

During the opening ceremony of the UITP Global Public Transport Summit Stockholm 2019, the winners of the 3rd Global Y4PT Hackathon Finale were announced and prizes presented:

The winners, and all our hackathon pioneers then joined the congress, welcoming visitors and dignitaries to the room where these ideas were created, and taking to the show floor.  

The theme of the summit is “The Art of Public Transport”, and throughout we experience transport professionals wrestling with what it is to be an artist, what it is to truly create. Aesthetic inspiration quickly travels to the immediacy and power of making things happen. To the awareness of detail, and to lasting human impact.

This is the core of Y4PT Hackathon.

As we return to a breath in the green space, we are as aware of the midges as we are of the trees. I am reminded of a saying I read on a whiteboard at Tower Hill Tube station, London: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito”. I look it up – it is an African proverb. Told, but not credited, like so much of our shared knowledge.

Look again at the names and faces here – follow them as they recur. They are creating the future of our mobility, of the ways we navigate our world. Now they are hackers, here to challenge and create. Here to buzz in your ear and make you notice what you previously had not. Tomorrow they will be beside you, and you will follow where they lead. Don’t wait, invite this now.

“Humanity and community will always remain. Working together as one knowing that together you get farther. Don’t forget that you are not the only one.” Alejandra Ortiz Rengel, Ecuador. Designer Team Check

It is not perfection and completion that keeps us going, but other lives and ways of being – and these may not sit comfortably with what we currently choose to recognise as our own. A tiny itch of a bite in the summer sun spurs me to move, and I realise I had sat too long on one position. My body is glad of the change.

Being part of something greater than ourselves is not always easy, smooth or convenient, but it is in these times that we learn truly what our actions are capable of transforming.

– Laura Trevail; Stockholm & Southend On Sea, June 2019

“The world is a small world for passionate people” – Eloi Stree, VR Developer, and Y4PT Hackathon Winner & Mentor

 

 

In a little under a week, Y4PT participants and mentors will be travelling from all over the globe to Stockholm, to take part in the 2019 Y4PT Global Hackathon Finale. Our adventurers will bring and share their winning ideas from the past 2 years, and, in the framework of the UITP Public Transport Summit, create and present new solutions to our planet’s most pressing problems.

 

To those outside the field, transport may seem an unlikely leader and champion in the fight for the future of our world. On our journeys we see huge vehicles, grey roads, and shimmering fumes. We get lost in stations, miss connections, wade through grinding and wasteful delays. When we travel, when we move, all around us are reminders of the dangers we face now and may yet leave as our legacy to those walking the Earth after us.

 

The truth is, though, none of us are really outside this field. Transport is not a sector that can ever hide away. However we choose to use or build it, however we participate, however it carries us; we all have to find a way to get from one place to another. From the moment we wriggle in our parents arms and reach out towards something we want on the other side of the room, we are working out how to get around, and what we can make use of to help us get there! We humans are ambitious beyond the limits of our own bodies; ambitious beyond the limits of our current abilities; ambitious beyond the limits of our resources. This ambition gives us the power to achieve great things for ourselves, for our communities, and for our world. And also the power to deplete, to pollute, to waste, and to destroy. Nowhere is this battle for balance more tangible than in the ways we travel. For the entirety of human existence, transport has been right at the point where idealism and messy reality meet. So this is where we choose to stand, to create, and to make a difference.  

 

“I have learned to never give up, and find [a] solution for every situation I encounter” – Sabin Dimian, Landscape Engineer, Product Designer, Y4PTHackathon Participant and Winner

 

Our Y4PT community – participants, mentors and supporters alike – are determined, proactive and visionary. We know in our hearts, and can conjure in our minds a future where sustainability, humanity, equality and health are fundamental to practical innovation rather than words thrown into a wishing well for funding. We have the guts to be building this world right now, with our own hands. We can see and create the destination. Our challenge is to you; Can you get here? We can help you find the way.

 

 

Every time we plan a journey, we launch ourselves into an uncertain future. We put our hopes, our goals, our safety in the hands of others. And not just those who build the machines and routes to move us, not just those who operate and maintain them, but also those who create the ways we navigate from where we are now to where we want to be. Whether across a town, a continent, a galaxy or an ambition; navigation is key.

 

On arriving at each Hackathon destination, the first thing we experience is the transport within that location. We find ourselves, new and young each time, in an unfamiliar place, with somewhere we need to be. How to we get there? Often the smallest and most immediate steps are the hardest. We know there is a train, but how do we find the platform it is leaving from?

 

“As an avid world traveller, I have faced many challenges when trying to use public transport in non-English-speaking countries like Russia where even signs were in a local language and very few people spoke English.” – Ion Morozan, Software Engineer, Product Designer, Y4PT Hackathon Participant and Winner

 

Replace “English” with Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Hausa, or whatever our mother tongue may be, and we find we are all of us thrown each time into a moment of uncertainty on arrival in any place that does not share a language we are already familiar with. The joy of growing understanding during our stay will come, but first we must overcome the initial confusion. Right at the time when we need to achieve something very practical and specific! And the confusion is not just with words; symbols, patterns, placement and customs taken for granted can be very different. Even a small difference can shake it up – people travelling from one city to another sharing the same language still often find the differences overwhelming.  

 

It is the same in our lives and work, when striving to achieve a powerful fresh goal. It is often the most immediate, tiny, practical steps into the the new that are the most daunting. It is the same pattern of challenge each Y4PT Hackathon team faces, when generating and beginning work on a new idea.

 

“Looking from different perspectives, taking into account the different needs that people have in their lives and countries. And this, I think, is not a matter of country. We’ll be there to share our experience, and to create something that will hopefully be available to a lot of people all over the world.” – Massimo Santi, Mechanical Engineer, Y4PT Hackathon Participant and winner.

 

Many translate that experience directly into solutions. Joint winners of the 2017 Global Finale in Montréal, “UpWay”, took on the challenge of Metro navigation head-on with a combination of Augmented Virtual Reality, and Bluetooth beacons. In Dubai and Moscow, teams “Alwan” and winners “Portunhol” faced this challenge using the universal language of Colour. “Pomoshnik”, also a winner in Moscow, built on “FindMyTaxi”’s Montréal chatbot development to create a conversational solution, as did “BeMyGuide”. And “SellingRed” so improved navigation in the Moscow Metro that as well as taking 2nd place, the team were taken on to work on the official app, and aid international visitors throughout the FIFA World Cup 2019.  

 

Moving outside the stations to the streets, Dubai Winners “Namshi” proposed moving walkways throughout the city to aid navigation and provide ease of healthy mobility at the same time. Many teams, including “Origin”, also Dubai winners, and “EcoTravellers” used navigation to inform and incentivise healthy and sustainable transport choices, rewarding positive choices.

 

 

Also incentivising healthy mobility, and thinking beyond the limitations of any one city, “Walkarama” (Moscow), focused on building a global walking community.

 

Alongside human navigation, projects have also addressed the logistics of locating and moving physical assets in more sustainable ways. Montréal 3rd place winners combined the two with “uDeliver”’s clever combination of wayfinding and crowdsourced courier service, and IMOVE Berlin winners AKM made mutually beneficial use of host Urbi’s location and usage data to enable sustainable transport providers to better manage their assets.   

 

Y4PT Participants have explored solutions to navigation challenges, and also how navigation impacts all other elements of transport. All with the important advantage of working in teams made up of participants from many countries, and with many different skills. Each knowing how to navigate problems and journeys in their own spheres, and open to sharing with and learning from others.

 

“The ability to share knowledge is something astonishing. If we empower this to its best, we could provide a better life to a lot of people all over the world.” – Massimo Santi, Mechanical Engineer, Y4PT Hackathon Participant and winner.  

 

Now, at the Y4PT Global Hackathon Finale, participants will once more walk bravely into the new. A fresh quest, in the City of Stockholm, among industry leaders and great opportunity at the UITP Summit 2019. In the space of just a few days, ideas will be dreamed, developed, presented and finessed.  Old friends will greet each-other, new friendships and collaborations will be made. The magic of ambition meeting great love for our shared world will again mean our ability to travel is carried far beyond the expected, to where we really want to go.

 

 

“I think that this group of people can solve any problems that we are facing.” – Sabin Dimian, Landscape Engineer, Product Designer, Y4PTHackathon Participant and Winner

 

The expertise and fresh viewpoints of our young participants stand ready to join the discourse and exploration developing our transport of the future. They will be grasping the opportunity to learn from, and to inform the transportation decisions of the future that are developed here, and will be presenting their new ideas and projects at the Y4PT Hackathon Fair – described in 2017 as “The most exciting thing in the Congress”. These are the young people who will challenge and inspire. These are the young people who bring the solutions of the future. Join us in room T6, follow us on social media, invite us to visit your stands, sit on your panels and join your debates.

 

 

Whether you are a delegate, an exhibitor, a speaker, a journalist, an investor, or following us from afar, these are the young people who will help you find your way.

 

“How would you like to see the future? Now go for it, and build your own future!” – Johnny Heesterbeek, Engineer and Y4PT Hackathon Participant

 

– Laura Trevail; Southend & Disneyland Paris. May 2019

 

TEAMS REFERENCED:

 

UpWay: “An augmented reality app to help people find their way in, out and around city transport hubs and underground networks” Aleksandrs Konopackis, Eloi Stree, Jonathan Adiaheno, Charles-Henri Van Nuvel, Ignacio O’Mullony

 

Alwan:  “Breaking the language barrier with colour”   André Borges, Jean Marinho, Bisher Zumot

 

Portunhol: “Colour coding hardware and software solution to help the guidance and management of crowds, inexpensively integrating with existing @moscowmetro technologies” Andre Borges, Luis Martins, Fernando Giraldo Montoya, Esteven, Bernardo Tavares, Vreixo Gonzales Caneda

 

Pomoshnik: “Passenger communication platform integrated into existing Moscow Metro application, providing route planning, ticketing, security & live support” Ion Morozan, Sabin Dimian, Riccardo Scarinci, Mariam Khalifeh, Emma Phiri, Stefan Binder, Uli Stroetz

 

FindMyTaxi: “Decreasing wait times for shared taxis in developing countries” Emma Phiri, Keven Villeneuve, Myriam Beauvais, Abhishek Gupta, Poyan Nabati, Sebastien Blais-Fernandez

 

BeMyGuide: “Virtual assistant for easy, clean & sustainable city navigation”  Dafne Medina, Diego Cardenas

 

Selling Red: “Gamification app about #moscowmetro life. RL quests, which can be promoted by local businesses, provide users with points to spend at the inner metro e-shop” Rimikhanov Husein, Vladislav Bakhanov, Nikolai Zhikin, Dmitry Kuznetsov, Stanislav Vorobiev

 

Namshi: “Eco-friendly city moving walkways” | Facundo Di Giacomo, Simon Carpman, Riccardo Scarinci, Mariam Khalifeh

 

Origin: “App rewarding green route choices” | Soorya Kumar, Shaurya Sood, Bilal Shabandri, Kevin Martin

 

EcoTravellers: “AR trip planner rewarding green routes” | Ahmad Mehravaran, Fares Bou Najm, Hadi El Baba, Mostafa El Sayed

 

Walkarama: “Walk the world from your phone” Ignacio O’Mullony, Vreixo Gonzalez

 

uDeliver: “A city logistics crowdsourcing solution connecting commuters to parcel delivery”  Filip Ivic, Tomas Janovsky, Jan Kouba, Tomas Kouba,, Matej Kuraja, Dejan Pavkovic, and Uli Stroetz

 

AKM: “Helping sustainable mobility providers optimise physical resources” Kai-Ting Chan, Abhinav Suman Paul, Matthias Kuhn

“Sustainability is the key. Plan all your actions with this in mind.” – Riccardo Scarinci, Algorithm Designer, Project Manager, Biz Dev. Y4PT Hackathon Participant and winner.

 

 

As we travel together, the sun is beginning to grow warm over part of the world. Spring is rising with the dawn, heating the earth and coaxing the seeds of plants and ideas to crack open and send tendrils of potential out into the unknown.

 

Beneath our feet and in our hearts, this journey is moving from hope to happening in a season of new growth.  

 

And elsewhere on this same planet, at this same time, the year is cooling into autumn. Plants and animals are preparing to survive the winter; gathering resources, sheltering what is important and shedding what is no longer needed.

 

Surrounding us, and in our brains, this journey is moving from hope to happening in a season of harvest, readiness and conservation.

 

Our world is in balance, breathing steadily in and out. From all our different seasons, our different weathers; we global elements of Y4PT travel together. We meet, we exchange, we travel on. We return to meet again.

 

 

Beginning the morning’s work with meditation, we focus on our breathing. In, and out. Steady, balanced. The flow of air and ideas uniting our community in this moment. All our languages, our skills, our unique experiences brought together; breathing in and out.

 

As we breathe the air of the places we meet, we are aware that it gives us life. We are aware that we breathe in the oxygen we need. But what else are we breathing?

 

Perhaps we listen to traffic passing outside. Or perhaps to the movement of trees. Perhaps we hear people laughing. Or perhaps we hear horns and shouting.

 

Someone reaches into their pocket for a tissue and blows their nose. Perhaps the white paper is grey with the dust of the city. Perhaps someone else is using their asthma inhaler more than usual today. Perhaps we are tired. Perhaps there is a little catch in our throats..

 

We know why we are here. Our world is in danger. We have been choking it up for years. Creating processes, vehicles, objects, and whole places that seep, exhale, belch and slough off dangerous waste. Tiny particles shivering off and away, into the air. Into the air, and so into us as we breathe. Every particle containing the potential for sickness and disease. Heart disease, stroke, COPD, respiratory infections and lung cancer – just from breathing. And not just now, as we are learning and aware of the danger, but every day as we go about our lives.

 

 

We have been building ourselves cities – wonderful human gatherings where we can work together, make friends, make families. But for generations, we have built them in ways that stifle us, and even take our lives.

 

“The trend I see is that people are more inclined over short term goals and wins and they don’t foreseen the big picture or the implications of their actions over long term.” – Ion Morozan, Software Engineer, Product Designer, Y4PT Hackathon participant and winner. 

 

We have prioritised expansion, without conserving what we need. We have been living as though it is always spring. But at Y4PT, when we meet, we have travelled from all the seasons, not just one. We are here to create and to inspire a better, healthier way. We do not need to do things the way they always have been done. We are new generations. We choose to work with the balance of nature, rather than attempt to conquer it.

 

“Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past and don’t consider mankind superior to all the rest of the organisms in the world.” – Vreixo González Caneda, Software Developer, Y4PT Hackathon participant and winner.

 

Mistakes of our past and present have polluted not just the cities themselves, but far beyond. In 2012, the WTO reported that one in eight of total global deaths was due to air pollution, making air pollution the world’s largest single environmental health risk. New data in 2018 revealed that one in nine people globally breathe highly polluted air.  As well as particulates, a wide range of gasses in our polluted air including Carbon Monoxide(CO), Chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs), Nitrogen Dioxide(NO2) and Sulfur Dioxide(SO2), are forcing the climate of our entire planet to change.

 

Our air knows no borders. So our ideas too must travel. Just as every particle or molecule of pollution contains the potential for harm, every spark of an idea contains the potential to prevent and reverse this damage. And so we meet, we exchange, we research, and we create the solutions of the future.

 

We know that just pushing the problem elsewhere is not a solution, because we all come from somebody else’s “elsewhere”. Truly global collaboration owns and addresses the whole challenge.

 

“My hope is that the pollution generated by transport and especially private transport might be reduced in the years to come, even removed [and replaced entirely] with sustainable power sources. My fear is that we just move the contamination from place to another, for example from city centres to the surroundings of big batteries manufacturers.” – Vreixo González Caneda, Software Developer, Y4PT Hackathon participant and winner.

 

In 2015, we launched the #BreatheableCities World Campaign; a multi-stakeholder initiative measuring people’s exposure to and inhalation of air pollutants through different modes of transport, in order to estimate impact on human health.

 

 

In the first experiments of this kind ever performed in the country, Bogotá DC (Colombia, South America), was the was the first city to host the Campaign, organising two editions to date. The first measuring black carbon during the course of a day, and the second integrating exposure and inhalation aspects, monitoring a wider range of air pollutants over a 12 day period.

 

The studies concluded that not only did car drivers experience the highest exposure to particulate matter, but that those engaging in healthier mobility modes, such as cycling, while suffering significantly lower exposure (almost half), were vulnerable to increased inhalation of pollutants due to the physical effort that would otherwise provide health benefits. Our polluted air is making even #HealthyMobility significantly less healthy.  There is no option but to clean up, and fast. 

 

 

“I hope and I’m sure that it will be sustainable one day, but my fear is when this will happen.” – Silvio Biasiol, Software Developer, Maker and Y4PT Hackathon Participant.

 

The Youth of Y4PT are not prepared to wait for older generations to come up with the answers. Why wait, when 8.8 million lives a year could be saved? At each Local and Global Hackathon, ideas are pitched that can solve these problems. From the improved air pollution monitoring hardware of Montréal Global Finale 2nd Prize-winners “Air4”, to the integrated rural transport of Menden Local Hackathon winners “Get moving”, Y4PT teams are offering improvement, optimisation and innovation at every step. Skilful teams of young minds develop these ideas, carrying them forward and exposing visiting mentors, judges and supporters to the inescapable truth that things can be done differently, and that the people capable of making these changes are already here. We must welcome and invite them. We must employ them; and not to continue our work as it already stands, but to listen to them, learn from them. They know how to make it work, and they know that it is practical and logical to improve.

 

“Technology moves forward rapidly, and […] current standards tend to leap behind quickly. Therefore nowadays humanity is still actively looking for popular movements which could eventually become the standard. So once humanity can be convinced to adopt a greener or better standard, this might become the next million-dollars platform for the years to come.” – Johnny Heesterbeek, Engineer and Y4PT Hackathon Participant.

 

The world is listening to the youth, and is beginning to change. Even those of us motivated only by the bottom line are aware that these changes must be made.  What is best for us as humans, is best for us as cities, as countries, and as a planet. A healthy way may seem simple and obvious, and ideas promoting it are often selected to win these competitive Hackathons – so why do we keep avoiding it in our everyday lives?

 

“What makes people happy in a city? Clean air, green spaces to meet and play, facilities in proximity of each other. Put these wishes central to your urban developments and mobility decisions. I can guarantee you will face many temptations in your daily work, especially of things that people want (more), but never forget what makes people happy in the end! – Geert de Leeuw, Urban Geographer,  Lecturer in the Built Environment, and Y4PT Hackathon Participant and Mentor

 

 

 

– Laura Trevail; Brussels & Southend. April 2019