The first entrepreneurship program in Cambodia to focus on smart cities and transport
innovative ventures
grand prize
Driving innovation in mobility and transport
The Toyota Impact Challenge inspired innovators to build solutions to a largely untapped yet fast-growing sector: smart cities and transport.
We kicked off the program with a hackathon: a chance for aspiring entrepreneurs to meet like-minded people, form teams, and create new ideas for business solutions to enter into the Toyota Impact Challenge. From there, seven teams were supported over two months to build business skills and prepare to pitch — and three awesome finalists were selected after a pitch event with over 150 audience members! These three start-ups joined our 6-month incubation program, concluding in a Demo Day to showcase their solutions in front of influential members of City Hall, private sector, investors and more.
Meet the inspiring changemakers
SmartBin
SmartBin
SmartBin is a digital hardware to software innovation that focuses on solving waste management problems by giving its users incentives for environmentally protective behavior.
tosJis
tosJis
A public transport app, TosJis provides real-time updates on buses and route creation to help a user best use public transport to get from A to B.
Rushero
Rushero
Rushero is a fast, reliable and cost-efficient logistics delivery management system to connect thousands of independent drivers to hundreds of tons of goods that need to be transported.
Behind-the-scenes of the Toyota Impact Challenge Hackathon
One of the key lessons that the aspiring entrepreneurs took away from the hackathon weekend was the importance of understanding the problem they are trying to solve, an often overlooked but essential step in starting a successful social business. Teams used the ‘problem tree’ to map out the challenge, the consequences it has, and the root causes. This deeper insight into the problem helped teams to shape their idea around a particular problem point, to ensure they have a realistic and sustainable impact.
Another big emphasis was on expressing or ‘pitching’ their idea clearly and concisely so that they can approach potential customers and get the vital feedback they need for their idea. The teams got real-world practice as they carried out at least 30 interviews to test and validate their ideas.