The U.S. Department of Transportation recently selected 15 semi-finalist teams to advance to the next stage of its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure or ARPA-I Ideas and Innovation Challenge.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
Through the Ideas Challenge, USDOT seeks to encourage the development of “bold, transformative solutions” to enhance America’s transportation infrastructure, improve safety, and cut costs for USDOT, with the winners to be awarded a total of $1 million in prizes across two stages.
“From the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to the space age, American ingenuity has always led on the frontier of innovation in transportation,” said Sean Duffy, USDOT secretary, in a statement. “These projects represent the best and brightest, next generation ideas to propel us forward. I could not be more excited for the future of transportation as America prepares to celebrate our 250 years of excellence.”
For Stage 1 of this challenge, ARPA-I received 448 concept paper submissions. From those submissions, 15 winners were selected as semi-finalists, who will be awarded $20,000 each ($300,000 total) and invited to present and further refine their ideas with business and government stakeholders at the USDOT Innovation Workshop on December 9 at USDOT Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
In Stage 2, USDOT said the semi-finalists from Stage 1 will be eligible to submit a detailed proposal, with up to 10 of them selected to be finalists to advance to the ARPA-I Ideas Challenge Finals in 2026. The finalists will present their project proposal to a distinguished panel of judges and audience members from the public and private sectors to compete for Stage 2 prizes that total $700,000.
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