LeasePlan will today hold a hackathon with 30 hand-picked students from Delft University of Technology.

The aim is to bring together the brightest minds in industrial engineering, technology and fleet management to develop the products and services required to get self-driving car fleets on the road.

During the eight-hour hackathon, student teams will use rapid prototyping methods to develop autonomous vehicle fleet management solutions that could form the basis of LeasePlan propositions for self-driving car fleets.

Students will work on 'use cases' including how to design multi-functional autonomous vehicle fleets that can be used for passenger transportation and other functions (e.g. last-mile delivery, power-napping and conferencing), as well as how to solve the problem of travel sickness with autonomous vehicles.

At the end of the hackathon, an expert jury comprising Tex Gunning, CEO LeasePlan, Michel Alsemgeest, chief digital officer LeasePlan and Bart ter Steege, managing partner Jungle Minds, will select the winning idea based on criteria including creativity, feasibility and relevance to LeasePlan's core business.

The reward for the winning team is a fully catered trip to the biggest festival for new ideas and creative technology in the world: 'South by Southwest' (SXSW2018) in Austin, Texas.

Gunning said: "At LeasePlan, we are preparing intensively for what's next in mobility - and that includes the emergence of large fleets of self-driving cars. That's why I'm delighted to be holding our first hackathon with some of the brightest minds from TU Delft and our LeasePlan Digital team in Amsterdam.

“By linking the latest in industrial design thinking with our extensive expertise in fleet management, we will ensure LeasePlan plays an important role in facilitating the widespread adoption of self-driving cars."

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