Ford Smart Mobility

Dates:
Jun 2014 – Aug 2014

Skills:
Stakeholder interviews
Initiating and organizing a team
Sketching
Storyboarding
Public speaking

Collaborators:
Smart Mobility Team
Information systems
Product development

Progress:
100%

Overview

This past summer, I worked at the Ford Motor Company’s Research and Advanced Engineering Division. In 2014, Interbrand named Ford as the #1 Best Global Green Brand. Ford was also named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2013 by Fast Company magazine.

I worked on the Blueprint for Mobility Team, which deals with issues related to mobility, congestion, and sustainability. The senior leadership at Ford, starting with Chairman Bill Ford, realizes that today’s mobility model will not work in the future. A new mobility model is needed because of the emergence of megacities, changing demographic preferences, and sustainability issues.

By 2050, an estimated 86% of the rich world’s population will live in urban areas. Millennials increasingly view cars as appliances, not aspirations. In order to achieve atmospheric CO2 stabilization at 450 parts per million, the amount of emissions per vehicle needs to decrease. One side effect of solving these problems is that it will also solve mobility issues for the poor, the disabled, and the elderly. Being on the team was a fascinating and eye-opening experience because I witnessed firsthand how a large company addresses complex problems.

My objective was to create a framework that would allow our experiments to be more easily understood. I conducted stakeholder interviews, brainstormed, reasoned through complex information, sketched wireframes, crafted scenarios, illustrated storyboards, and built a prototype. Because of an NDA agreement, I cannot present any artifacts of my work.

I was successful in both completing my internship objective and meeting my personal learning outcomes. I practiced the skills I learned in the classroom, networked with people who could help me in my career, exercised leadership skills, and gave an effective, well-received presentation to the members of the mobility team.