Download the Carma Carpooling app
iOS AndroidWe learn how to share as children.
The best parts in life are shared.
When we learn to drive, we know it's more fun with others.
It's the 'who' not the 'where' that makes the journey.
Every single day, millions of people around the world choose to drive to work alone.
They willingly prolong their commute, maximize its cost, and dramatically increase their carbon footprint. This problem has reached epidemic proportions, because people don’t realize they have a choice.
There are 7 billion people on the planet and this is expected to rise to 9 billion in the next 25 years. We currently have 800 million cars on the road and this is expected to grow to 4 billion in the next 25 years.
The mobility model we have now simply will not work - even if every one of these 4 billion cars have zero emissions, we will still have 4 billion cars on the roads! If we are going to overcome this challenge, we MUST focus on occupancy. This is your chance to get involved.
Carma’s mission is simple: "to empower people to break away from the tyranny of the modern commute."
It has been widely acknowledged that the way we commute needs to change (and soon), in order to make our cities more sustainable. Carpooling is the most effective, sociable and affordable way to do this.
At Carma this has already started, with thousands of people using our app to get to work every single week. The Carma Carpooling app helps you find people in your community who want to share trips. Then, by logging trips using a smartphone, riders automatically pay small reimbursements to drivers, making everyone’s journey greener, more affordable and more sociable.
But with over 1 billion cars on the planet, more needs to be done to address this challenge, and soon. That's where you come in!
When venturing into unchartered territory, it is important to think different. The commute problem isn’t going to fix itself, which is why we are introducing the Carma Prize.
The way it works is simple:
The Carma Prize for 3rd Party Developers will award $1 million to the first developer using Carma’s real-time ridesharing API to build an application that results in 10,000 daily user trips over a 90-day period.
The Carma Prize for Internal Developers will offer $1 million to a Carma employee who creates a feature that results in 1,000 additional daily trips in a single metropolitan area. Carma is actively looking for the right technical talent.
The Carma Accelerator is a $500,000 program that will offer $25,000 in cash to development teams with innovative ridesharing ideas and projects. Additional benefits include free office space, facilities (at its headquarters in Cork, Ireland) and mentoring to grow their ideas.
So, you’re interested in becoming a ridesharing revolutionary?
There are three different ways you can change the world:
Yes!
Simple!
We are essentially trying to solve the world's commute problem, and any entry into this competition should aim to achieve the same.
We are interested in apps that will focus on daily repeat trips that facilitate the sharing of rides to work, school, college, university... or other locations where large numbers of people tend to gather.
In short, they must be real-time, on-demand transportation apps.
We are also interested in extensions to pre-existing apps which relate to either travel or commuting.
If you have an idea that you think is awesome but doesn’t match the above, don’t worry! You should get in touch anyway and if we think it is awesome too, we’ll be in touch.
Click here to download a list of example use cases.
Qualifying trips must be genuine GPS-tracked journeys, of over 1 mile, with at least 2 occupants in the vehicle.
To prevent spoofing or spamming, a maximum of 4 trips per day will be counted per individual user.
Carma reserves the right to exclude trips if it determines that they are unlikely to be real.
A ‘user trip’ (or UT) is essentially just that - an individual trip that has been completed by a user. Either a driver or a rider completing a journey using our APIs counts as 1 user trip.
Because you can’t rideshare all on your lonesome, user trips never come in ones. Both driver and rider journeys count as user trips. One driver and three riders sharing the same car? You got it, that’s four user trips!
Want a more technical description? Here goes:
There "user trips" are subject to:
You can read our overview here, but to get the real good stuff you'll need to apply and gain approval.
Pretty much!
Although, no self-respecting competition would be complete without terms and conditions. Check out our full terms and conditions for the small print.
For more information on the Carma Accelerator click here.
So, it's a real $2,500,000?