At Silverstone, we met Mehul Kapadia, the head of F1 at Tata Communications. He introduced us to the F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize, which aims to leverage collective intelligence around defined challenges.<\/p>\n
The first challenge achieved the objectives set by the various project partners, starting with Tata Communications. Mehul Kapadia told us: “We are extremely satisfied with the three indicators, which are connections to the dedicated website, the downloading of rules and the challenge, and, of course, the number of final proposals.”<\/p>\n
The first challenge was about the live timing data provided by the FOM through its website. The first winner was rewarded for his idea which aims to use this data to try to predict the future: \u00ab What impressed us about this project is that it allows predictions to be made about the course of the race. The data thus becomes intelligent. \u00bb<\/p>\n
The other winning group proposes, for its part, to offer different types of data depending on three categories of users: fans who want to know everything about everything, casual enthusiasts, and teams.<\/p>\n
If these two winners have indeed won a VIP trip to the next Monaco Grand Prix, they are not guaranteed to see their ideas come to fruition since it depends on the goodwill of the FOM, which holds the rights to the live timing data.<\/p>\n
For the second challenge, the organizers of the competition have decided to highlight their partner, the Mercedes team, in order to have the participants work on a project for a virtual museum about the brand’s history in F1. The aim is for the project to allow the team to provide a foundation but also to enable fans to contribute gradually: \u00ab With this new digital world, the fans’ experience changes completely. What interests us is therefore to directly ask them to get involved and tell us what they would ideally like to do. \u00bb<\/p>\n
If this challenge is centered around Mercedes, without a doubt, the topic is likely to interest other teams as it directly impacts their attractiveness to their sponsors.<\/p>\n