Milanamos has been announced as a category winner in the 2030 World Innovation Awards. That puts this startup among the top 110 companies worldwide for innovation, growth potential and impact on society. So how did this transport sector ‘big data’ specialist manage to go from zero to hero in such a short time?
Here’s a quick background to the awards. The 2030 World Innovation Awards were created to focus on seven key areas in which innovation could create wealth, generate employment and improve the living standards of society. One of those seven designated categories was Big Data, and Milanamos of Sophia Antipolis, France, has been selected as a category winner and a ‘Top 110 Innovator’ for their work on big data in the field of multi-modal transport, with particular emphasis on passenger throughput and profitability projections for airports, airlines, train companies and other transport operators.
It’s a niche speciality. And maybe a good way to get acquainted with the company is to take a quick look at the skills of three of the key players in Milanamos:
Christophe Imbert, Co-Founder and CEO, has 20 years’ experience with major and start-up airlines in the field of price optimization and software development. He is a business school lecturer on pricing dynamics.
Christophe Ritter, Co-Founder and CMO, also has 20 years’ airline marketing experience, with a focus on pricing, distribution and revenue management. He has an academic background in econometric modeling.
Remi Jolin, CTO, has a 25 year track record in IT management & strategy for major airlines and complex postal services. He is also a world authority on big data and database analysis which is at the heart of the Milanamos offering.
There are other respected subject matter experts at Milanamos, but focusing on the two Christophes and Remi is sufficient to put the business skillset into perspective. This is a company that understands transport + data + revenue.
On the road to the Innovation Award.
Milanamos chosen by leading consultancies within 3 months of launch.
As a business entity, Milanamos was formally launched in January of 2014, although the founders had been planning their offer and vision for over a year before that date.
Just three months later, the Milanamos big data toolkit – branded PlanetOptim – was selected by Price Waterhouse & Coopers (PwC), and also by specialist transportation infrastructure consultancy LeighFisher, as a platform for their analytical offers to airports, transport operators and government bodies.
In the same month, March 2014, Milanamos was also announced as one of the winners in the 2030 World Innovation Awards for their expertise in Big Data. So in just three months the company went from launch to global recognition.
Which begs the question … exactly what is it that Milanamos do which has led to such fast-track acceptance?
Bringing innovation to multi-modal transport. Joining up the dots. Predicting the future.
The judging panel at the 2030 Innovation Award were aware that Milanamos’ core expertise is crunching multiple databases from various sources to arrive at usage and profitability projections for airports, airlines, train companies and other transport operators.
To understand the scope and value of these projections, let’s consider two applications in the field of multi-modal transport.
At the large end of the spectrum there are initiatives like Europe’s Ten-T project, which aims to transform 38 key airports, 15,000 kilometers of high-speed railway, 94 ports and 35 cross-border projects into an integrated whole. Big data will help stakeholders to get a clear idea of passenger statistics and revenue potential for this massive undertaking by the European Community.
At the other end of the spectrum there are hundreds of smaller airports around the world (categorized as handling less than 5 million passengers per annum) who are struggling to be viable with a lower critical mass of passenger revenue, and also to attract low cost carriers into their facilities. In this case, big data helps the airport to align their services with the demographics and transport infrastructure of their catchment area, and then to make a better business case to the carriers they want to attract.
And in between those two extremes are hundreds, maybe thousands of transport projects happening throughout the world which need the usage and revenue projections that the PlanetOptim platform can provide. In particular, multi-modal city projects where airports, airlines, train companies and other transport operators share data and revenues are a key area of competence for Milanamos.
Innovation for revenue and societal impact. Benefits for passengers, communities and the transport ecosystem.
The 2030 Innovation Award judges weren’t just looking at submissions from the perspective of revenue. The winning submissions also needed to demonstrate a benefit for society and the individual. Big Data and the PlanetOptim toolkit demonstrated benefits all round:
- Consumers – the traveling public – can enjoy small but significant benefits, like multimodal timetables which are synchronised. So that the last train from the airport doesn’t leave 10 minutes before the last plane arrives!
- Airports can align their offer with the demographics and transport infrastructure of their catchment area. That leads to a more profitable travel experience with the opportunity for planned revenue sharing.
- Airlines, train companies and other transport operators can plan their services and revenue based on high-quality passenger projections. PlanetOptim crunches massive amounts of data and turns it into easily assimilated graphs and tables.
- And society as a whole benefits because more efficiently planned transport infrastructures cause less disruption, are more profitable … and stakeholders can even take smarter steps to reduce their carbon footprint.
It all means that businesses, shareholders, employees, individuals and society as a whole stand to gain from the impact of big data on transport infrastructures.
Interested in smarter transport infrastructures?
Stay in touch with Milanamos.
Milanamos is an active member of the innovation community globally, in France, and in the Sophia Antipolis area (near Cannes) where we are located. In our local business community we support the efforts of – and are supported by – Incubateur Paca-Est, i3S (University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis), French Tech Cote d’Azur and Reseau Entreprendre.
In future we’ll be publishing regular articles about the role of big data in the world of transport, plus analysing key developments in multi-modal transport systems.
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