Travel Grant: Urban Tech Academy meeting on electrified multimodal transportation

This proposal funding will support travel grants for graduate students from US universities to attend the Urban Tech Academy & Summit, taking place from November 13th to 15th, 2023, at the Cornell Tech campus in New York City. The summit aims to address urban issues through technology and engineering ventures, with a specific focus on "sustainable cities" this year.

In the new format for the meeting, one day will be added to the program (called the Urban Tech Academy Day) to expand its educational outreach and scope. The Urban Tech Academy Day will include talks and discussions on emerging problems that the research community needs to address from leading experts. The specific Intellectual Merit of the discussion will be on multi-modal transportation and its electrification, critical for sustainable cities.

Current research fails to holistically address the coupling between various transportation modes and their dependence on electric power infrastructure. Researchers will discuss how cyber-physical system models can help optimize and operate these heterogeneous charging systems effectively in different urban environments, promoting resilience, fairness, efficiency, and rapid decarbonization.

The Broader Impacts section emphasizes the significance of solutions to urban challenges, including housing costs, decarbonization, climate change, and resource distribution. The Urban Tech Academy Day's synergy with the summit is expected to broaden its impact. While the NSF funding primarily supports student participation, the involvement of top researchers in the electrified multi-modal transportation field and the co-occurrence of the two meetings will naturally attract industry stakeholders, startups, and institutional players in New York City.

The goal is to foster innovation, engage various stakeholders, and provide solutions for pressing urban challenges.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.