Smart Dublin and Enterprise Ireland have launched a €100k Challenge to get more people using their bikes in and around Dublin. They want your input!

As part of the Smart Dublin initiative, the four Dublin local authorities and Enterprise Ireland recently launched the €100k Small Business Innovation Research Challenge (SBIR).

In this day and age, we are all looking to live a more healthy lifestyle, and this challenge aims to promote this, alongside a more liveable city. This can be achieved by increasing the number of people cycling in the capital.

Sarah Scannell, recently appointed ‎Cycling and Walking Promotion Officer, Dublin City Council, said: “We want to increase cycling in Dublin, both across the Dublin Region and in the City Centre with a target for a quarter of all trips in the city centre to be taken by bike. Achieving this objective will require major investment in cycling infrastructure, increased promotion of cycling as an option, supportive policy decision making, and a step change in attitudes to cycling in our city. There are a number of short term improvements possible through the application of smart, low cost innovative technologies. The SBIR challenge will allow us to provide seed funding for companies and individuals to develop innovative and data driven proposals to accomplish this goal.”

The SBIR challenge is a joint initiative between Smart Dublin and Enterprise Ireland and is receiving applications until 3rd May, 2016. This is an open competition process run in two phases and is open to any organisation, developers of ICT and software solution providers, universities and service providers.

David Timoney, Dublin Cycling Campaign, said: “Dublin Cycling is supporting the SBIR challenge and encourages all companies with smart ideas to get involved in this competition. We would like to see innovative solutions developed that gather better cycle behaviour data which will allow for evidenced based decisions on cycling infrastructure. Hopefully these solutions can tackle the various barriers to increased cycling including bike security, inadequate private and public bike parking, perception of bad weather and perception of safety.”