TrenLab, Renfe's accelerator developed by Wayra, Telefónica's open innovation hub, has announced its second call for applications at 4 Years From Now (the Mobile World Congress's entrepreneurship event), seeking startups focused on mobility, digitalization, and traveler communication. Interested startups can apply from February 26th to April 28th at www.trenlab.com. The call, aimed at seed and early-stage startups worldwide, presents three business challenges to the entrepreneurial community: Digitalization of Operations, Integrated Mobility Operator, and New Traveler Communication Channels. With the first challenge, Renfe aims to identify new data sources and tools to transform them into actionable insights, enabling the company to make the best business decisions in real time. The Integrated Mobility Operator challenge seeks to facilitate customer mobility by offering different modes of transport on a single digital platform. Finally, Renfe seeks to establish new communication channels with passengers to proactively and personally provide them with information. The selected startups will receive a personalized acceleration plan, with funding assistance of up to €50,000, administrative and legal support, supplementary training, and a networking platform to help their projects mature. The project will also contribute to incorporating entrepreneurial methodology, knowledge, and culture into the Renfe Group, as well as identifying and fostering internal innovation and talent. Limmat Group, Zeleros, Iomob, and Nixi1 were the four startups chosen during the first call for applications and are already working at the TrenLab hub on Gran Vía. The jury valued their growth potential, scalability, and the differentiating value they bring to the market by incorporating new approaches, business models, products, and/or services. Since joining, they have been able to connect with leaders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, have been working on business development with Renfe and Telefónica, and have received individualized training from experts in financing, sales, team building, branding, networking, communication, and other key areas for scaling their startups. Tomorrow, February 27, TrenLab will participate in the 4YFN panel ‘The future of transport. Hyperloop End2End Vision’ at 12:00 PM on the Agora Stage, where they will discuss the future of transport and the emergence of new mobility models alongside Zeleros, a startup participating in TrenLab. Innovation and cultural transformation for the Renfe Group: Renfe's accelerator seeks to boost the company's digital transformation and strengthen its position in the face of the upcoming liberalization of the passenger rail market. Digitalization is at the heart of the objectives it addresses to explore areas such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Blockchain, artificial intelligence solutions, and Big Data. The company also plans to launch an internal entrepreneurship round to mobilize ideas and projects from Renfe professionals that respond to potential new business models and solutions within the framework of the challenges posed and other initiatives that contribute to the benefit of customers, employees, and the Renfe Group as a whole.
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