Ford's Aussie Outback challenge

Ford is offering US$15,000 in prizes to the winners of a global challenge to find the best accessory or app that supports travel in the Australian Outback.

Announced by Ford's global research and development boss Ken Washington at the company's Australian headquarters in Melbourne today, it is the latest in a series of what the company dubs the 'Innovate Mobility Challenge Series'.

An earlier challenge in the same series produced the E-Bike Ford (pictured) revealed at the Smart Mobility Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in early March.

Other challenges have included finding technology solutions to identify open parking spaces in urban areas, better ways to navigate crowded cities and the use of navigation and other tools to help people gain access to medical care in remote areas.

The series is a part of Ford's 'Smart Mobility' plan, under which it is investigating future automotive developments in areas such as connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience and big data.

Entrants in the Australian leg of the global challenge are able to use a Ford-developed open source hardware/software platform dubbed OpenXC, that has also been available for some previous challenges.

"In this case we are not describing the answer, we are just posing the problem, which is how would you enable people to be on the move in a more secure and high quality manner when you are driving around in an area that is very rugged like the Australian outback?" explained Washington.

"We are not saying how you might use connectivity, we are not saying anything about how you should use the OpenXC framework. We are leaving it wide open.

"If it is anything like other challenges that we have issued we will likely see some very innovative and creative things."

Previous challenges have been issued to provide solutions for specific mobility challenges in North America and South America, Portugal, Africa, India, China and England.

"Some very innovative mobility solutions emerged from our first round of mobility challenges; this new challenge will help us discover new ways to assist people on the move in Australia's Outback," said Washington.

Washington said previous challenges had drawn "hundreds and even thousands" of responses.

The former aerospace engineer has been in charge of Ford's global research and advanced engineering team since last August and is making his first visit to Australia, primarily to make himself familiar with the Melbourne-based product development organisation.

"I want to hear their ideas for how they could help and how they can help us select the [challenge] winners and some of the other things they have been thinking about in terms of our mobility concept," Washington explained.

"I want to build the relationship and get to know the team that is local here in Australia."