Their entry in the competition is a project titled “Para Pickup,” a “service that gives individuals with disabilities safe, affordable, and flexible ways to get home, improving on current options that can be inflexible and slow.” Xia’s teammates are industrial design graduate students Riley Keen and Pranav Nair, as well as undergraduate mechanical engineering major Kris Weng.

In April, Toyota and the nonprofit Next Impact invited the “Para Pickup” team to Plano, Texas for a final judging round where innovation experts helped them refine their concept pitch. The winning team will be announced in early summer, and the winners will be offered summer internships at Toyota, as well as a chance to acquire funding to bring their solution to life.

The Next Generation Mobility Challenge, a national competition organized by Toyota and Net Impact, offers students an opportunity to use design thinking to devise solutions to mobility issues, such as transportation challenges impacting low-income workers and people with disabilities.

Learn more about the “Para Pickup” here: https://vimeo.com/214441872