Week 12 - Wrap up of the course

EDIT:

The course staff asked us to include the poster, report and prototype to our blog. So here they are:

Poster:

Available as PDF: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7Z0Z3Q1VvbTZRaW8

Report:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7c0tZVE9QNnlCQVk

Prototype:

Available as apk-file in https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7S3RjMDhhN01rRWs

Please use mobile phone to open the link and test the app.

Week 12

After the Grande finale it was time to took a deep breath and spent a while reading to exams. On Wednesday Matias finally broke up the silence and we started to write the final report as a group. In order to support the ideation process, Matias suggested to check the instructions that were sent by the course staff and he also urged everyone to check the form in mycourses. We dealt the responsibilities and the deadline was set to be 12pm on Friday.

On Friday afternoon it was nice to see at this point of the course that everyone did their part in time. When it comes to individual parts in the final report, everybody seemed to be satisfied with the course and the outcome we produced.

In short, the course was all together a success. We all learned a lot about electric cars and their infrastructure. It was especially pleasing to see that our idea was also executed by Elbnb during the course. We all think that it was useful to work in a cross disciplinary group, where nobody knew each other before the course. In addition we think that every group member learned about their area of responsibility, for example Matias about leading a group, Linda coding and app and Juuso doing a poster.

We want to thank all the stakeholders, course staff, interviewees and all the people that were involved to this project. We wish everybody a pleasant holiday. Maybe one day, our idea will actually see the light.. :)

- Team RuutuaEtsimassa

Week 11 - The grande finale

Week 11

At the end of the week 11, it was finally time for the grande finale. All the work we have done would culminate to one single 3 minute presentation and a poster. However, as the so called dress rehearsal went very well, we felt quite confident at the beginning of the week.

We all did our parts individually but we wanted to wait the feedback from Tuomo before making any major changes together. Once again Tuomo called our group leader Matias very promptly on Tuesday exactly at 12pm and gave some useful insight. The issues Tuomo recommended us to consider were as followed.

1) More excitement to presentation
2) More visual slides
3) Use our numbers and refer to sources we have used
4) Try to bring our concept and use of the app somehow together.

Points 1-3 were adopted straight away. Väinö promised to do new slides that turned out to be great. We rehearsed a few more times together and tried to be more excited and proud about what we have accomplished. Matias also made some minor changes to his part in order to include some key facts for example about the survey process.

Nevertheless, the fourth part was more difficult. We thought about different ways to unify our presentation. It proved to be that difficult that we had to abandon it. It was already Wednesday, our presentation was very fluent and we had no clear vision how to do it so we decided to stick with the old presentation. We had to just do it in more amazing way. In addition, in Presemo we got feedback that all the different names we used in dress rehearsal (group, project, app) were really confusing. Thus, we determined to use the name of our product, ParkIt, in every context.

The actual grande finale was only a very part of the job. Of course by far the most important one, but we had been practicing so much, that we just went to the stage and did everything as many times before. Juuso also made a really cool poster, that really stand out visually. All together, everything went really well and we were really pleased about what we achieved.

Our group presenting in the Grande finale

The event itself was a success. It was nice to visit all the stands and see what others have been doing, even though we had seen the presentations before once. It just felt sort of a festive occasion with the speak-up speaches from Stina, all the fuss, stands, microphones etc. that it was nice to took part.

At the end I have to admit this all feels a bit empty. First we did not even know each other, then we did this stuff together for weeks.. and now it is just over and everybody goes to their own direction.. Still, it was nice to work in group with many different backgrounds and many different skills. I hope that is visible considering the result as well.

There is still one week to go, when we will wrap up the course. So see you one more time!

Week 10 - Dress rehearsal

Week 10

Phuuuh... It is quite difficult to believe it is already week 10. Most of the actual work is done, now it is just time to present to all the others what we have done.

As been said, we had a clear vision what to present. Once again, we wanted to trust on each other so we practiced the divided parts on our own. We even wrote some of our lines to Google Drive, so all the others could see word by word what we were going to say. We also clocked all the parts in order to stay under the 3 minute deadline in the rehearsal.

Visually, we were pretty satisfied with our old slides so we planned to use them at least in the dress rehearsal. We finally came up a name to our app, ParkIt that is. Jani took some new screenshots to be used in the presentation. Otherwise, the beginning of the week was all Slush. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... yep, Slush! However, I guess it was not that bad idea to see some pitches.

In Slush, the startups had a slightly longer time to present but the situation is more or less the same. It was surprising how many things the best acts could include in a such a short time. In addition it was great to see all the group members once in a so called unofficial environment.

The Slush afterparty was epic whereas the wake-up in the next Friday morning was... well, not. However, we had no choice but to clear our throats and came to school early. We did the final touches and went through the presentation one more time before entering the hall. Fortunately the adrenaline boost wiped away the fatigue and the presentation went as planned. We were very pleased to see that other groups gave also positive feedback in Presemo.

Week 9 - Finishing the three P's (Presentation, Prototype, Poster)

Week 9

NOTE: REPOSTED 6th of December, while the picture was not visible for some reason

Week 9 was about finishing the 3 P's: Poster, Presentation and Prototype. Especially the presentation and the prototype had a tight deadline, since we wanted them to be 100% ready before the final practice on 2nd of December.

We discussed within our group about the presentation on week 8. We noticed that the concept was not 100% ready and clear as we were not able to give sufficient answer to all of the questions from audience. Especially the identification process was a crucial part of that. Also the lack of enthusiasm and storytelling were seen as problems.

Thus, Matias had one more meeting with Virta connect person who told about the RFI tags. She claimed that even most of the home chargers have a modem and a SIM so that identification with a tag would be feasible. We believed our expert and decided to use that technology as part of our process. Väinö also had a great idea about storytelling: We could describe the problems of both EV and charger owners and showcase how our app solves this problem and connect those consumers.

Our interviewee introduced how the clients use the Virta app. We decided to include the RFI tag.


We decided together the core frame of our presentation in our meeting as well. Väinö and Jani will do the storytelling and Matias rest of the 3 minute presentation. After the storytelling Matias will first tell about the concept, then show how our app works and the last slide will present in a nutshell why you should believe in our idea. Linda will continue working with the prototype and Väinö will do the poster. The course staff showed us a very good example of a great poster and we will definitely use that as a reference. Otherwise we will give free hands to Juuso, since he knows our concept and does that kind of things at work as well. We know it is going to be visually very spectacular!

Invitation to Grande Finale!

Dear students, companies, staff of Aalto University and other stakeholders:

You are most welcome to see the presentation of our "Airbnb" - styled solution for electric vehicles in the Grande Finale of SCI Project course. Our peer-to-peer concept is something that has not been done in Finland before and our results promising.

Our solution will help the EV drivers to find free charging stations and charger owners to easilly lease their poles for money through an easy-to-use app. Feel also free to visit our stand, where you are able to try the app and hear for example more about our business model and value proposition!

Week 8 (part 2/2) - Prototype and presentation

WEEK 8

On Friday we held one more presentation to some other groups. This time the presentation was more about the prototype, that we have been working with during the last week.

Linda and other Computer Science students did a great job while making an actual app, that for example uses google maps in order to provide a view of the available poles on map. Our prototype includes at the moment a login screen, a map, a possibility to search, examine and reserve charging stations plus a payment system and some other features like different side bars and menus to showcase the user interface.

Here are some screenshots of the UI:

The presentation

Our presentation including all the questions from the audience is available on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xihZux8qtOY&feature=youtu.be

As been told, Matias' computer broke up suddenly only hours before the show. Thus, we were not able to show any slides during the presentation, which was a shame.

However, all together the presantion went quite well. We had rehearsed our parts and what we wanted to say, so the speaking part went pretty smoothly, even though there were some difficulties at the beginning. We stated clearly who we are and what we do.

Still, it was a clear mistake to stand in front of the screen so that some of the audience could not see the presantion of the app. We focused too much on the functionalities and not the story and what was cool in the app. We also have to be more lively and practice the use of our body language.

The audience asked some really tough questions and we were not able to answer all of them very convincingly. In our opinion, we have to once more clarify our concept as a group, so issues like verification of the client are clear to all of us. Only after that we are also able to present to the audience. Tuomo gave an usefull advice as well: Sometimes our group should not try give an answer, especially if we are not sure about it. In those cases an answer like "We will figure it out" would be much safer and give a better image of our group.

During week 9 we will develop our app and code some more features to it. It is also time to think about the presentation, the poster and other such things. This week was a really tough one, including all the technical difficulties. Hopefully next week will be a bit better and what would a better way to start it than go and buy a new laptop!

- Matias

Week 8 (part 1/2) - Business model

WEEK 8

We have been discussing a little about the revenue logic through the blog posts. However, we wanted to wrap it all up into one single picture. So before we discuss about the events during week 8, here are our business model and revenue logic explained:

Revenue logic: 

Picture 6: Potential revenue logic:

Our revenue logic is based on the value we give to our customers and stakeholders. These values are showcased by arrows in the picture 6

Car manafacturers: Our app makes using an EV easier, since it helps the owners to find the free charging stations efficiently. Thus, it makes owning an EV a more tempting option and could increase the revenue of the EV owners if they provide access to our app via smart phone or integrate it to the driving computer

EV Owners: Our app helps EV owners to find free charging stations, which is felt to be difficult at the moment. By providing a system that is easy to use and makes for example payment possible, our app gives them a great value.

EV charger owners: Our app helps EV charger owners to lease their plugs while they do not use one themselves. Thus, our app helps them to gain money which has a direct value to the EV charger owners.

Based on the value we provide, in our opinion there are three potential ways to generate money from the three actors:

Car manufacturers: Car manufacturers could pay a license fee for us, in order to make our service available to all their customers

EV owners: We could be able to generate money from the users either by showing them adds or different types of payments like access to a premium model.

EV Charger owners: We will take a small fee of every transaction to generate revenue. (Main source of revenue!)

-> The core of our revenue logic is to make a freemium app that has a wide customer base and get a somewhat 30% fee of every transaction. 

Business model canvas:

Our business model is provided through the same link used in blog post 6:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sn7YicEVp8jHiKhCFaiN-oSQ3neebo4puXeuhX2-2CE/edit#slide=id.p3


Key partners: Our key partners are car manufacturers, EV charging station manufacturers and public sector. Both types of manufacturers provide parts of the essential infrastructure. By co-operating with them, we could find new potential customers and get usefull insight about for technical issues related to loading the EV:s (experience icon in the previous picture). Public sector is also very important partner, since they could provide for example subsidies in order to enhance EV driving, or other type of support.

Key activities: Our key activity should not be forgotten! We are foremost an intermediator between EV driver and owner of the charging station. Our mission is to bring these two parts together, nothing else!

Key resources: First of all, one key resource is the wide customer base. Noone wants to use an app of only 10 or 20 poles. Then we have to be able to use the location data of the car and the poles to bring them together. Futhermore, while the app is all about the user experience, an user-friendly user interface is a key resource to the success.

Cost structure: Our running costs are low, as we don't have to do much after the launch. Our service should be coded so well, that there are no bugs or any other failures and the service could more or less to run on its own. Of course we need some staff to work around the tech support and development, in order to develop the service and answer customers inquiries.

Customer relations: Our customer relations are based on the active presence in social media. Social media is an efficient way to reach the targeted group and does not cost much, that is very important issue for a small startup. As been said, an active collaboration with the stakeholders is equally important, since the app requires not only customers but infrastructure to work.

Customer Segments: As been named, our three customer segments are EV owners, EV charger owners and car manufacturers, of which the two before mentioned are much more likelier.

Channel: Our app will be available for free in different app stores. In the future EV manufacturers might want to include it directly to their EV:s

Value Proposition and Revenue Stream: These two have been discussed thoroughly in the previous section.

The size of the business

At the moment, the cost of loading an EV could be something around 2€ per 100 kilometres. Because of the amount of EV:s is low at the moment in Finland, our app would not be very big business instantly. In addition, our comission has to be reasonable. For example Virta takes rough 30% of every transaction, which means we would propably get fees that are on average 1-2€ or even less per loading. In order to get the first clients, our app has to be more or less a freemium version so the payments from the EV drivers would not generate much money either.

However, since the concept is great and the amount of EV:s will propably sharply rise in the future, our idea could be a perfect startupp for 3-5 persons. Once the team gets a reasonable amount of customers into the app, in our opinion it would rise the interest of huge car manufacturers. B2B - type pricing model would generate much more revenue. Also, there is always a possibility to lauch the app abroad as well. So it is fair to say, that our concept has at least some potential to become a medium sized business. However, we wanted to be realistic and not base our revenue logic to assumptions.




 

Week 7 - Coding of the prototype and receiving feedback

Week 7

Week seven began with some good news since we received an answer from the elbnb. Their email gave some interesting additional information before we started to build the prototype. We had a small conversation with the Virta contact person as well and we agreed to continue the convesation later. One spesific issue that came to light was the identification process. We had not given many thoughts to that part of the customer joyrney. However, it is very essential that the plugs are used correctly and by the right persons.

We felt ready to start building the very first version of our prototype. At this point it was clear that the prototype would be a small part of the final app, as the course staff suggested. We decided to focus first on the reservation and usage of the plugs. Furthermore, we wanted to have most of the UI ready.

Thus, on our meeting on thursday our recommended outcome was decided to be as followed:

1) Login / Register page
2) Actual Map
3) Possibility to reserve and use different plugs and see their details
4) Sidebar to demonstrate the UI and other functionalities
5) A demonstration of the payment system

On Friday we received information on the lecture about the future presentation and schedule so all the course arrangements are now very clear.

One important issue was that we should be able to build more functions on the prototype when the course continues on upcoming weeks. In addition, the app should be usable in our mobile devices so we could show it to potential users.

At this point everything seems to be just fine. Much of the analysis is done and Computer Science students seemed to be confident that we will have an awesome app. Next week is about presenting the app to the audience and testing the UI both internally and externally.

Week 6 - Value proposition canvases and presentation

Week 6

Schedule of the week

At the end of the week 6, we were asked to hold a presentation about the current state of the project. We decided to present the content as we would have been asking more funding to develop our prototype from the R&D managers. Thus, much of the week dealt with making and practicing the presentation. We divided different topics at the beginning of the week to be worked with individually.

Before our meeting on Thursday Tuomo, a member of the course staff, called our project manager Matias and gave some usufull advices considering our working structure and the whole project. He suggested us to especially concentrate on the cohesion of the text. For example he mentioned that in the different part of text we used different kinds of terms and words to describe the same thing. Since we are forced to make much of the work on our own, it is an issue we really have to consider. He also suggested Skype meetings and gave other usefull advises.

As been said, we met on Thursday and Friday morning to practice the presention. All together, it went quite well. We told the audience how we have achieved some good results. Our concept is proven to work and it has great business potential. Furthermore there are no direct competitors in Finland whereas in Sweden elbnb, a company with more or less the same concept, has been succesfull. We also told how we have moved on to the field work to figure out the necessary customer needs before building the prototype.

One problem that occurred during the investigation of customer requirements is the huge difference in techniques and plugs that are used in EV:s.



Picture 6: An illustration of the time required to charge the EV

State of the fieldwork

Considering the actual fieldwork, at the moment we have have four groups to be interviewed:

1)  Potential EV owners
2)  Current EV and charging plug owners
3)  Companies such as Elbnb and Virta
4)  Car manufacturers

We have sent e-mails to for example elbnb and car manufacturers. We have been making a questionnaire to potential and current owners of EV and charging stations and searched actively targeted consumers plus actually found some. We also have one contact from Virta. Thus, the state of the fieldwork is all right and we hope to see results on next week before starting to make to prototype based on them.

Here is a link to our questionnaire:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeVea9L8cLy6XP3-XzhZKZGw9q3HeNoKaUQatqDRooCMxtUAQ/viewform?c=0&w=1

Value proposition canvases

We have been working around value proposition canvas during last couple of weeks. I thought it might be a good idea to provide a link to it here. Furthermore, we have also included our recent business model canvas to the same document.

The canvases are available in:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sn7YicEVp8jHiKhCFaiN-oSQ3neebo4puXeuhX2-2CE/edit#slide=id.p3

Feel free to check them :)

Week 5 - Search of interviewees and information

WEEK 5

During week 5 we began to actively search for interviewees. It was more easier said than done since none of us actually knew anybody who would have own an EV straight away. Thus, the very first task was to ask if any of our closest relatives and friends would know someone. For example our parents promised that they would try to find usufull contacts in their working places.

Also, it clearly helps to keep eyes and ears open whenever and whenever considering our project. Matias met on Saturday one older IEM student, who appared to work in Virta, a startup that works with the EV plugs. His dad also gave me some helpfull information about the different EV parking spaces in Kesko's supermarkets.

As been said, we were able to find plenty of more articles related to elbnb, the Swedish startup that uses somewhat same idea than we came up with. It clearly has boosted up the amount of EV plugs in Sweden in just couple of weeks which confirms that we are in the right track. We familiarized ourselves with the core functionalities of the service and thought of how the service could be improved. Linda also sent an email to them and we look forward to get an answer from them, that would be really beneficial considering our project.

If you want to read more about elbnb, here are some usefull websites:

http://elbnb.se/

http://www.thelocal.se/20160706/airbnb-for-electric-cars-launched-in-sweden

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/08/swedens-elbnb-like-airbnb-ev-chargers/

We had a meeting once again on Thursday. Juuso announced that he would travel to Singapore for two weeks. He promised to start work with the "mock-up" while abroad, which could be according to him done remote. Matias and Väinö decided to hold the presentation. Otherwise everything seemed to be satisfaying and each of us could continue the work on their own. Since most of us work at least three days a week, much of the work is done remote.

As a reference for the prototype, we decided to use Uber. Uber's user interface and experience is among the best solutions.

 Picture 5: Ubers user interface

We will meet once again on Thursday and on Friday the course continiues.

Week 4 - Defining customer requirements and existing solutions

Week 4

Once we had decided to develop our "AirBnB" solution, it was time to investigate the current solutions worldwide and start to look for possible interviewees. We wanted to find especially current EV owners, but also interview car owners who do not find owning an EV usefull at the moment.  Furthermore, it was very interesting to notice that for example in Sweden, one company has launched lately a service called "ElBnb" that uses somewhat similar concept we had thought.

  
Picture 4: A picture of Elbnb's user interface 

On Thursday we had a meeting where we discussed about the preferred outcome of the project and dealt responsibilities for next week. The meeting was very efficient and we reached agreement about the content fast.

We found four different parts of the project we have to take into account 

1) Background
      - Current situation of EV charging
      - Problems
2) Requirements
      - End users
      - Customers and stakeholders
3) Solution
      - Functionalities
      - Value Proposition
      - Business plan
      - Prototype
4) Launching plan
      - How to make our solution "nationwide"

Our responsibilities for week 5 were as followed:

Matias: Background study
Jani: Questionnaire for non-EV users
Linda: Elnbn and other current solutions
Väinö & Juuso: Car manufacturers

All: To find EV owners and get familiar with the topic!

We will meet propably on Thursday and find out what each of us has done during the week.

Until then, see you!

Week 3 - The working structure

Week 3 - The working structure

At the beginning of the week, we were eager to get our hands finally dirty and get started with the actual content. However, we quickly realised that we should structurise our work more. Luckily in terms of the course, this weeks agenda dealt with the working structure! So it was time to stop for a moment and brainstorm, what we are actually going to do and especially when. Our course staff provided the necessary questions we should answer in our working plan and we divided them between our group.

The time schedule of the course is quite strict so it definetely was a good idea to schedule rest of the course on the weekly basis. Furthermore, we were able to put other of our thoughts on the paper. It is interesting to see, if we are able to stick with the plan. At least there is some usual content for Matias as a group leader to monitor :)

Our working strucute is available for everyone in google drive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7NQRBaZsxycWkZMaTFsVV80ek0/view?usp=sharing

On Friday we had a short meeting after the lectures and made plans for the next week. Unfortunately the next possible time to meet is on next Thursday. However, all the group members seem to be motivated towards our goals. As far as I concern, we understand the problem quite well. Furthermore, we now have on paper the direction we want to move on and the next steps we are willing to take. 






Picture 3: Upcoming milestones

Next step is the get more actual content and begin to investigate the customer needs related to the topic (EV parking). 

Week 2 - Defining the objectives and direction

Since many of the stakeholders of our project appeared to prefer english, we have switched the language to English. I have also translated the description and the first blog post.

WEEK 2

Since the messy background of all kind of problems related to charging the electrical vehicles on the road had become more clear, the beginning of the week was all about defining our objectives and the direction we wanted to move on. The ultimate goal of the EU-project our substance advisors are in, is to create an user-friendly and complete ecosystem that would contain all the commercial charging poles and all the big players in a single system.  However, the need for this kind of solution has been out there for quite a long time and no perfect solution have occured so far. Thus, we wanted to think a little bit differently and rely more on crowdsourcing.

The idea of an "airbnb" - liked service for electrical vehicles came to light in our meeting on Tuesday. We had investigated the current markets as group and each of us agreed there could be market potential for this kind of new service. We sent the description of our idea to the contact person Kary Främling who approved it. The first smart parking group decided to focus more on the existing situation including players like Fortum and Virta which meant both groups will have their own scope and objectives.

On Thursday we had a meeting with our contact persons Kary and Andrea, smart parking group 1 and  Natalia from Forum Virium. Natalia described the current situation thoroughly and gave many great examples of similar projects. Andrea and Kary encouraged us to take also other crowdsourcing and shared-economy opportunities (like shared EV-cars) into account which our group felt usefull. We also discussed about the final solution. Could it be for example a start-up idea? Or should we concentrate on finding an universal answer how EV charging could be done?

The last part of our efficient week was the workshop with course staff and other groups. We held a small presentation and discussed about state of the project.

Picture 2: Group members in the meeting 
 
The outcome of the week 2 was, that our objective is to find a entirely new and complete solution on EV charging, that is based on crowdsourcing and shared-economy. A preferred solution would be an app that is based on the concept we will develop. 

Now it is time to get our hands dirty and get the project going - see you next week!

Week 1 - The journey begins

The project

Before we talk about what happaned during the first week, in our opinion it would be worth to take a quote of our project "Helsinki Smart Parking and EV Charging"

"The project consists in specifying how electrical vehicles (and their drivers) can discover and reserve compatible and free charging stations close to where they have a meeting or other appointment...
The group should identify how this kind of service would be best implemented, what kind of user interfaces are needed, how billing and payment would work with such services and who are the existing service providers and stakeholders".

Week 1

Our project was launched on the very first lecture of SCI Project course on 23.9. Before that the students had been divided into project groups based on their own interest. Before the first lecture we had more or less even no clue how other group members look like. However, after a bunch of telegram messages, we were able to find each other. After that, we noticed that our group consisted of three Computer Science (Juuso, Linda, Jani), one Information Networks (Väinö) and one Industrial Engineering and Management student (Matias) - a rather diverse collection of skills!

The rest of the Friday and basically the first week were spent getting familiar with the topic and especially defining the project carefully. For example we examined the current apps for loading Electronic Vehicles (EV:s from now on). At this point, it was not 100% clear what our client wants from our project. Thus, there was much of a discussion with the other group, that has the same topic, about the goals of the project.

Furthermore, we thought about our strengths and dealt responsibilities. Most likely the Computer Science students will work around the possible prototype while Matias and Väinö will concentrate on project management, business models and user experience.


Picture 1: Responsibilities


All together, at this point all directions are still open. We arranged a meeting with the client on 3.10. After the meeting we will probably begin to work with the project more.

The project is now launched and much more is about the come. Stay tuned!