Mobility Innovators

Complete transcript:

Jaspal Singh [00:10]:

Hello everyone. I’m so happy to welcome all listeners from around the world to the Mobility Innovators Podcast. I’m your host – Jaspal Singh. Mobility Innovators Podcasts invites key innovators in mobility and logistics to share their thoughts about the key changes in the sector, their work, and what is their forecast for the future. Today, I’ll be talking about two of my favorite topics – Technology, and Informal Transport.

Our today’s guest is a real hustler. He is the CEO and co-founder of WhereIsMyTransport. The technology company is building a large source of mobility and location data for emerging markets producing and maintaining public task network information from every mode of transport, whether it’s formal or informal, as well as the adjacent data like the point of interest and real-time data. I’m so happy to welcome Devin de Vries, CEO, and Co-founder, WhereIsMyTransport. I had a long conversation with Devon given his experience and knowledge in the sector. So we decided to break this episode into two parts. This is the second episode. It’s now time to listen and learn.

Jaspal Singh [01:22]:

Another topic, which also I know which is you are quite interested in and you cover in your paper as well. And you talk about it on some other forum is deep tech. Deep tech is a growing trend and will definitely bring a wave of innovation. We are already seeing the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation in mobility. I don’t know if you know about JR East’s customer service example, which is using AI-chatbot to handle the customer care center. So now instead of a human, they have AI machines, which are giving the answers to users and they saw a big increase in customer satisfaction because humans need to think about the answer, and chat Bot just bring those answers based on previous experience. Similarly, MTR Hong Kong is using predictive maintenance. So there are a number of examples of using deep tech and these technologies.

I would learn more about it as well as what are the potential applications of deep tech you see in transportation or in mobility. And, and why do you think that the emerging market will be the catalyst of these changes? Not the developed world, probably we’ll see more innovation coming from Africa, Asia, from Latin America, rather than the traditional players of innovation.

Devin de Vries [02:40]:

I would say I would change the question. I don’t think that emerging markets are going to be the catalyst. I don’t like it. I would reframe that to it is more, that deep tech will have unique applications in every market including emerging markets. And I think emerging markets have some very unique characteristics and traits such as the informality, such as the high level of decentralization that is intrinsic to many of the products and services that you experience. There is a level of fragmentation that exists within emerging markets. That is both a handicap and an advantage. It is both protection in some senses and something that can be capitalized on for those that understand it. And I think this is also where, you know, for people looking to build businesses within an emerging market context is incredibly important to have. If not the founders you know, that are from that place then to have a very strong sort of team that is building the product, having a deep and learned and lived experience from that place to understand what it is that allows these marks to operate and how they operate, because often people coming from outside make false assumptions that feel like they can rationalize it.

Devin de Vries [04:09]:

But yeah, when you actually then go and test on the ground, you realize that you didn’t just make one bad assumption. You made a list of bad assumptions all together. So yeah, I mean, coming back to your point on Deep tech, I really do think it has a place in all markets around the world and different market realities will leverage it differently. And I think in the case of emerging markets, the way it will be able to deeply leverage this deep tech is one, you know, smartphone adoption and internet connectivity are both booming in these markets. So you’re starting to have a lot richer data sort of emanating from the communities within this market. And at the end of the day, you know, as I mentioned, information is already in its fragmented nature.

Devin de Vries [05:03]:

And one of the things that we acknowledge about deep tech is that as humans, we don’t always understand how the answer is reached. Actually, this is often the case. However, we are obviously involved in building these systems in tuning these systems so that the outcomes, outputs, and results sort of match to expectation or match to something that is accurate, or that brings utility to the user. And I think in this way, given the fragmented nature of the information sources and the data of the emerging markets, deep tech really stands to help rationalize that information. Yeah. And, and turn it into something that is useful to the end-user. And this is actually something that we are already applying within the space of, how do you produce real-time information in markets where there isn’t a central source of information, and it is not consistent, real-time availability across all the vehicles, all the fleets or the coaches and carriages.

Devin de Vries [06:14]:

So how do you start to assemblance of real time information in the absence of perfect centralized, ubiquitous information? And so there’s a lot of gaps that need to be filled in there. And for that, you need to make a huge amount of inference. And that’s not something that a human can do very well, but it’s absolutely something that we have gotten to a place of abstraction within computer programming and sort of computer intelligence that we can start to make inroads in those spaces, even with these large gaps in data, large gaps in information. So yeah, I think at the end of the day, all businesses that have technology as some aspect of what allows them to operate and grow should be stepping towards deep tech, because it is an advantage that is there for you to take hold of, and it’ll take time to apply. I’ve even seen it within our own business understanding that we want to apply Machine Learning in certain areas means that there are decisions we have to take a year out. Yeah. In order to build up certain types of data, to allow us to train and test certain systems. And so there, again these things take time. And so I definitely think it’s an area where many businesses that is turning a blind eye to it is doing it to their own detriment. Ultimately,

Jaspal Singh [07:52]:

That’s a great point. You mentioned about, and I agree with you, it’s the challenge in emerging market is that it’s so fragmented. The data is so scattered and, and there is no human power which can use the data and bring some value out of it. It’s only through deep tech. You can do that. And that’s why probably emerging markets will get the benefit of that because it’s already in a mess. So if you need to clean the mess, you have to bring some of these methods. And, and we saw in banking. That’s why the option of FinTech is much higher in the emerging market compared to the developed market because there is no formal banking system. So people have no other choice, but to use mobile banking and all those kind of stuff. Thank you for sharing. And I agree with you, if you are not looking at deep tech now in next four, five year, you are, it’ll be kind of detrimental to your group growth and the company will not able to grow.

Jaspal Singh [08:43]:

Now, I want to touch upon the topic, which you mentioned earlier about the data, and you rightly mentioned that WhereIsMyTransport is all about data companies. So for you, the fuel is the data, and it’s a real backbone of your business. At the same time, you also mentioned it’s very challenging to find good data sources and good quality data in emerging market. There is no centralized authority where you can just go and get the data.

So what type of data you collect and how do you collect high quality of data in these emerging? And I also want to ask you, like, you are also part of different initiative, like data for good at Meta and Development Data Partnership DDP which is helping different players to exchange data and provide data to build mobility layers and create some kind of a mobility information platform. Which player are still missing from these table? Like which player you see should also come forward. So Meta is providing data there are other players, but which are the player, which is missing from these table?

Devin de Vries [09:53]:

Right. Okay. So I’ll start on the reality of what it is to build like this data. Then I’ll come to that sort of second question, but I think as you rightfully said, you know, in developed markets, the there’s fixed infrastructure operations, that is the norm. Information centrally available whether it is always perfect or up to date or managed, that’s a separate point, but generally that information is available and there’s some limited amount of extra work and cleaning that it needs to be applied for it to be. Can I say fit for the consumer in the emerging markets, flexible operations are the norm. And so people need to realize it’s not just the data is absent. The actual way that the entire environment in the market operates is fundamentally different. And so this is one of the mistakes that a lot of sort of developed market individuals, organizations big and small, they make this mistake of going well, like the laws of nature, the same.

Devin de Vries [10:55]:

I’m like, well, in this case, they’re not and ignoring that is to your detriment. It’s not like, you can ignore it. And you’ll find a way around it. It’s the nature of the beast is different. And so flexible operations are the norm, and this makes data production more challenging. But, and I would say, this is at the heart of what WhereIsMyTransport has overcome this. This is a challenge that we have solved, and we have solved this better than any other organization in the world. This ability to rationalize and create all of this information that is representative of the complete on the ground network, reality market on market and for us as you know, that ultimately results in three types of data. So we have the transit data, which is the, the complete network data.

Devin de Vries [11:49]:

Yeah, we have now got the points of interest data, which is much more center centered around hubs of informal economic activity, which as you would understand, given the majority of the population use public transportation, that economic activity also exists around the public transportation networks. People don’t want to walk too far with the various parcels and goods that they would need to carry or go too far for the services they may wish to use.

And then the last one is the real time alerts which I also briefly mentioned a little bit earlier. And at the end of the day, producing all of these data offerings is something that as a business we’ve had to solve and we’ve had to solve at scale. And now are crossing sort of our 50 cities point on that. But when you, when you think about those three types of data, the transit, the points of interest and the real time, maybe just to helping rationalize how we put all of that together you know, I mentioned earlier on that this aspect of hyper localism is really core to so a way of working and that decentralized on the ground operations, how these networks operate.

Devin de Vries [13:00]:

So you have to meet the transportation where it is at. And so we quite literally hire groups of people on the grounds that are regular public transport users. They become gig mapper as temporary data collectors for the business. We train them on our proprietary products which are one for collecting data in the field. And two, that data is piped to a SaaS web product where that information is both checked through automated and machine processes, but also cross verified by different human individuals. I think of it as like a, it’s a collaborative product suite for data management and the principle type of data management we have focused on is transit okay. And points of interest within the emerging market setting. And at the end of that process, we have built this complete view of both transits and points of interest. With the points of interest largely sent around these hubs of economic activity, informal economic activity, principally.

Devin de Vries [14:10]:

And then following that, we roll out a real time alerts process, which is, as I mentioned, a combination of products and people and social listening methodologies, and really building out multiple networks within a market that are essentially informing our systems if you will. And what that leaves us with is a real time alert service for, or road and mobility networks in emerging market, where we wish to boot up a real time alert service. We then stay in that market and we continue to operate that service indefinitely. And depending on the SLA we have with the clients that we’re licensing the data to. Yeah, there is a certain agreed rate of refresh that we apply to those various data layers principally the transit layer and the POI layer, while the real time layer is just constant.

Devin de Vries [15:08]:

In terms of some of the partnerships such you mentioned the is, you know, working with data for good or the Development Data Partnership that is sort of a group of private sector companies and that are engaged with the various development financing institutions ranging from, you know, ADB to OECD to The World Bank, etc. It’s been really great to see increased awareness of the power of data to do good. I think, you know, one of the things that has been a frustration for us and that we have seen in many parts of the world, and I’m sure this is you a stranger to this is. Incentives are not aligned in the mobility space to even though says transit operators, transit agencies must make available the transit data as would be obvious because, you know, it’s clears public in public transport.

Devin de Vries [16:09]:

it exists as a subsidized service who serve to the benefit of the public. So why is it so hard to obtain this information? And unfortunately, the incentives are not well aligned because the subsidized operators don’t wish for their services where they are suboptimal to be noticed, or to be held accountable to that. So therefore don’t provide the data and I’m not going to go too deep into that, but essentially the missing actor at the table would be the various transit agencies and operators who should have a lot of data that they keep housed away that could be brought to the fore and we have tried to really make inroads and steps towards these various agencies and operators to say, Hey, you know, over the years, we’ve had to find ways to become really proficient at building out these complete data sets.

Devin de Vries [17:09]:

And then also constantly maintaining them and keeping them relevant data day on day. Perhaps there are ways we can start to work more closely and collaborate more closely. And so, you know, perhaps that will be something will come in in the future. I think another area that has been, I really appreciate that, you know, what has gone on with the Development Data Partnership has shown an appreciation for companies big and small recognizing that there are a number of smaller companies that are trying to create positive impact and positive change. Yeah. But for whom just making data free and open is not, it’s not something that is afforded to them as an option because it is not sustainable. And because it’s not sustainable, what you would end up doing is creating a momentary change that ultimately drains a way.

Devin de Vries [18:08]:

And I’m really a big believer in responsible impact or responsible disruption. We are talking about operating markets where the social fabric is a lot more loosely held and there is not necessarily the same security net that sits underneath society at large. And so you want to really be responsible at how you disrupt, how these much more organic systems operate. And so, to that extent, you know I believe that change needs to be made, but in a responsible manner. And for that to be responsible needs to be sustainable. And for it to be sustainable, there has to be this element of for-profit in order for it to grow, to have that impact. And I think this is something that we’ve started to find a meeting in the middle on, perhaps the thing that is, I wish I knew the answer to how to get around this, but obviously within these large institutions, there is a lot of bureaucracy to prevent you know, fraud or favoritism or abuse of these, these funds that have essentially in some ways public funds but at the same time, that rarely hinders the ability for data to have impacted scale.

Devin de Vries [19:40]:

So it’s no longer that I’ll use our business as an example, it’s no longer a question of can the entire world’s transit networks be switched on and made visible. Our business could do that today in under 36 months for the entire planet. That is something we can do. We have got the tools, the processes, the methodologies, the people. We’ve trained systems over 50 cities. And we’ve got the regional operation model to allow us to basically turn that on and to be able to do that everywhere in a way that no other organization would be able to do it in anything close to that time at that level of quality entropy being one of the key factors that actually just kills any effort to, to achieve this. Now, if you were a way up, what is the cost of us providing that if we were to be the provider to the collection or the collective of development aid and development financing institutions, governments, and agencies.

Devin de Vries [20:47]:

Yeah. What would the cost be versus what is the opportunity cost of not doing that? And that’s the status quo today? It’s not doing it. We are trying to boot up sporadic projects, which are centered on, you know, open data principles and open source principles. I believe in that from an ethics morality perspective, I fully support the idea that transportation data should be free and open, but we have to get to a place first where it can be made sustainably available at absolute scale, so that the projects for investment and electrification can move much faster than they’re moving today so that the investment in infrastructure can be better informed. And so you have a higher rate of success within those projects, so that, you know, the rate of transformation of these various local mobility now address can also pick up speeds so that private sector companies can have greater faith in investing into certain of these markets.

Devin de Vries [21:57]:

There’s so much change that can be enabled and where the data can be catalytic to that. But we are still, even when we are at a place now where we could sprint all the way to that finish line and go that chapter of challenges now behind us as humanity. And we can go into the next, we’re not doing it because of ultimately bureaucracy. And that, for me, as a founder, as a builder, as a creator, as a person, who’s doing this with a very genuine interest. I think, anyone who had a question of like, why is he doing this as a fly by night? I’m like, I’m over a decade in. It’s not, it’s not a fly by night. It’s a genuine intent to have positive impact. And I just wish we could cross this bridge sooner rather than later, because the amount of inertia that we could remove from by making this data ubiquitously available and the amount of change that therefore could, you know, really start to pick up speed is remarkable. Yeah. And, you know, I’ve taken this all the way up to the MD of the IFC and, you know, it’s a, it’s a question of like, where else do you, do you take this for the message to hit home? So that, this change can happen.

Jaspal Singh [23:17]:

That’s a very powerful message I would say. And, and we read news about the cost of GDP for traffic cost of GDP of unproductive hours, cost of GDP of non-participation of women in an economy. And, and I feel the cost of inaction in a lot of these economies, is much higher than even if they take some action and put fraction of that money. Like they lose billions of dollar of not doing something. And if they say, okay, I’ll just spend 1% of that. They can make that possible. They can realize those billions of dollar. And I agree with you. It’s a willingness and, and who’s missing from that table. Actually, when you see the logos, you don’t see those actor right now. So, that’s what we are trying to do. I would say there are a lot of champions now in the public transit sector, and they are looking to support this mission. And what you mentioned about that, you can build this for the entire world in next 36 months. And I wish that became reality. And, and when we speak again in next 36 months, or in 2024 and 2025, you tell me that WhereIsMyTransport is now in 5,000 cities than just 50 cities. So I wish you good luck for that.

Devin de Vries [24:35]:

That would be amazing. And it’ll be, and if it we’re able to, able to transform it to something where that information is democratized. The only reason we retain this information is to enable a sustainable system to keep growing that information availability, not because of a deep seated desire to actually retain the information. That’s, that’s not it at all.

Jaspal Singh [24:59]:

And actually, my next question is about that. Now we, we talk about mobility. We talk about transit. It now want to explore your entrepreneurial side, because that’s the biggest challenge, your biggest hurdle you come across and you had a long journey as an entrepreneur. Immediately after your college, you started building your first company. And so I just want to know what are the lessons you would like to share with founders who are building a product, which has really a long-term vision, because you were not building this product for exiting in two or three, or four years, you were building this product and, you know, from the beginning that it’s a long term product.

The other challenge is the funding. You managed to raise a good funding and from some of the best investors in the world, I would say it’s a remarkable journey. You have any tips to the founder who are looking to raise fund. And basically to the founder who are building a product, which is not easy to explain to investor. What you are building sometime investor doesn’t understand about this emerging market and the data and, how this product will look like when it come in the market. So what are tips to the founders

Devin de Vries [26:11]:

Well, I don’t think I have anything revolutionary in this area, but you know, to share a handful of lessons I think that I’ve picked up along the way. Start with intention. You know, you spoke to realizing it’s going to be a long journey. I think a lot of founders don’t necessarily start with intention or the recognition that this will be a long and difficult journey especially, you know, if you need to stay the course. And for that, starting with intention is really key to being able to stay the course. Yeah. I would say also try and find other founders. There is simply no replacement to making this journey yourself just by, I know your personal story includes also building a business and growing a startup and going through the heartache and the ups and downs and yeah.

Devin de Vries [27:15]:

Find other founders. Don’t be too proud to try and reach out and just go, Hey I’m looking to start something. I would love to get your thoughts on whatever aspect it might be. No question is stupid. No question is silly. It’s a journey of exploration and founders that have had to do this before you can share a lot from their own experience. And so I really encourage people to try and connect with other founders. Who’ve done it before. Also, if you’re going in, if you’re going to build a business, try and find a co-founder there is a lot of statistics on this, but the probability of success when you have co-founders versus you are a founder alone are fundamentally different and people go, oh, well, Elon Musk, you know, he has built multiple companies by himself.

Devin de Vries [28:12]:

I’m like, actually, no. You know, he’s just the founder, that’s on the front of the magazine or the front of the article. He is the front person. But in many of his companies, I’ve actually been fortunate to meet of his co-founders, in his other startups. It’s like, there are other co-founders that are behind the scenes that are remarkable engineers, marketers and you know, they have been core to that success. So yeah, try and find co-founders that compliment your strengths. And what I mean by that is that complete the picture, not that are the same as you. You don’t want founders that are the same you want diversity of skills. So, you know, diversity even begins already within the co-founding team, not diversity of values. Yeah. You want alignments and values, but diversity and sort of skills and, and capabilities.

Devin de Vries [29:06]:

And maybe the last one is talk about your vision. Talk about it, take every opportunity you can to talk about it. Yeah. Sounding it out, ready helps you refine it and having it come out of your mouth is one of the best ways for that to refine and for you to get inputs. And, you know, some founders will be like, oh, I don’t want to share it because I don’t want somebody to steal my idea. Ideas are dime and, you know, it takes a huge amount of effort and grit to run with an idea and then turn that into a business and then scale that. So don’t be precious about your ideas, be willing and ready to share them and to talk through your vision and, to sound that out of people that you trust and people that are around you. And yeah, I think those are just so and basics there. There there’s nothing, as I said, nothing transformative there, or there’s no big surprises no big reveals, but for people that are just starting out, I think those are really key things to keep in mind, as you, as you look, especially if you’re a first time founder,

Jaspal Singh [30:18]:

All the point you mentioned are, are really appreciate. I would say it’s basic, but at the same time, basic is more difficult in today’s world because people ignore basics. People want to do something like if you tell them something basic, they will feel like, oh, I know that already, but nobody implemented. And, journey of entrepreneur is very long. And I really appreciate to see your journey because you saw ups and down, but you continue your journey and, and it’s going upward. So I’m so happy to see that it’s moving upward and upward and continue to do that. But it’s a long journey. A lot of people think that I’ll become a founder and within two, three years I’ll make millions and come out of it. But it’s not the reality. You know, it takes it a village to raise a kid and it take your whole life to build a company and do something wonderful.

So this is my last question now. And you already touched a little bit about it. What are the key challenges faced by startup in transit and mobility space, especially because it’s a different world altogether? It’s a world where you need to deal with multiple actors.

Devin de Vries [31:26]:

You know, at the end of the day many business challenges are shared that I don’t think they’re unique to mobility space. Startups certainly face sort of standard set of challenges in establishing themselves. So validating and invalidating their stress security in investment, finding product-market fits, building a brand that you can then raise further capital into and then, you know, moving into the ever heralded stage of scaling and people often don’t realize quite what scaling is until they’re really in that space. And I included that like scaling is a multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted challenge. Scaling is scaling yourself. Scaling is scaling your organization. Skating is scaling your products, your services your way of working. It really is something that touches every part of the organization. And you know, obviously being familiar with the concept of randomness as, you sort of scale out that entropy and complexity ready magnifies to the power of.

Devin de Vries [32:36]:

And so as a team grows, you rarely feel all of these different challenges. And at the end of the day, businesses are made up of people. So there too, you have to be able to create a culture and a purpose around which people are able to align and feel a sense of fulfillment in the work they do. You know, more narrowly in the case of mobility and, and our space you know, networks require physical infrastructure like tracks and trains. And in our case, data production requires physical infrastructure in the forms of teams of people in markets. And that has been incredibly challenging thing to scale without bloating. How do you keep that very lean, but still scale that footprint to be all around the world and the regionalization of that and then enabling us to scale from these tier-1 mega cities into tier-2 and tier-3 smaller outlying cities.

Devin de Vries [33:39]:

That’s absolutely been a challenge for us. And the other thing that I’m sure you’ve seen this with certain businesses is you’re not credible until you’ve reached scale. But how, and you’re not relevant until you’ve reached scale. But to reach scale, takes time and so to get that flywheel to turn, you have to produce value at these incremental stages in order to reach that scale and relevance. It’s taken us a long time to get to 50 cities and will take us a much shorter time to be able to get to a 100 cities. Oh yeah. Disproportionately shorter time. So this process of scaling is one that is just a continuous lesson in growth and work on various aspects of the business. So I’m not sure if I addressed your question in full there.

Jaspal Singh [34:39]:

No, it is. It is actually what you mentioned is good because you actually cover from the largest space. It’s sometime people say that some sector are easy and some sector are difficult, but what I’m getting from you is it doesn’t matter which sector you are in. If you are a startup, you have a uphill task of like you mentioned about building your reputation and relevance. And for that you need scale and to reach the scale, you need a reputation. And, and so it’s like a cycle which, which lead to one to another. So it’s not easy to do that.

Devin de Vries [35:14]:

I guess just on that point though you know, people have to start from the ground up, but at least in the space now, and in emerging markets, the good news is for others that are working in the space of mobility and location and emerging markets, they don’t need to start from the ground up because they just need a data partner. They can rely on. And in this case, you know, this is WhereIsMyTransport can fundamentally help get them started, but not from zero a little bit further along which, you know, reflecting on right at the beginning of our discussion, the number one inhibitor to us scaling the consumer product, scaling the technology and the platform was the data. And so it’s taken us a long time to solve for that, but I believe in solving for that, we can hopefully make a an incredible difference to others that are building in the space of location and mobility across these markets.

Jaspal Singh [36:12]:

Well, that’s a great point. So in fact you are not a platform for consumer, but you are a platform for other startups who want to do something with the data and try to build something probably electric vehicle network, or probably charging infrastructure. You never know how they will come to you and ask how they can use your data to build some of these exciting project or, or building some of these exciting project or idea. But yeah, now you rightly said the data is there, the information is there, what they need to do is use the data and build their layer of innovation to create a new product.

Devin de Vries [36:51]:

Exactly.

Jaspal Singh [36:52]:

Great. So now we are kind of at the end of our discussion I would say I had tons of learning from the business side, from entrepreneurial side, but now want to explore a little bit of your personal side and, we have this rapid-fire question round. We will ask you five questions and you need to answer them quickly so that we know what’s the personal side of Devin. So if you’re ready, I’ll start with my first question.

Devin de Vries [37:23]:

Good, good, great.

Jaspal Singh [37:25]:

so my first question is if you were not in mobility or technology sector, what other profession you would have selected?

Devin de Vries [37:34]:

Okay. Well, I definitely will always be in the technology sector in some way as in technology will be a core enabler to whatever I’m involved in building, but the area of food security and food supply chains is something that has it been a personal area of interest and fascination for me for the longest time. Again, it sits at that, you know, that intersection I mentioned earlier of emerging markets and technology and things that hire a team to solve. And, you know, as humanity, we produce enough food to feed. I think it’s like eight or eight and a half billion people. Yeah. Yet 3 or 3.5 billion out of the 8.5 billion of us are malnourished, or do not get the recommended number of calories per day. A that’s there’s no good excuse for that.

Devin de Vries [38:29]:

And I, I understand there are a lot of reasons for why this is the case, but that would be an problem to be involved in solving. And I know that there are a lot of startups that are tackling problems from food waste to food production, to allowing food sourcing, to be closer to where it is consumed. Yeah. This is just a problem that has ready, fascinated me. And I feel like is also much like the challenge we have in transit, where there is a misalignment of incentives. I believe here too, in the food space, food availability, there is a misalignment of incentives that in many ways hinders or prevents perfectly good food from getting to those who need it.

Jaspal Singh [39:17]:

Yeah, no, it it’s a topic which is close to my heart too. I think in future, we’ll see another company, which is like, Where Is My Food? Or Where Is My Meal?

Devin de Vries [39:27]:

True

Jaspal Singh [39:30]:

So my next question is about the travel. So you travel so much around the world. Before pandemic, it was hard to catch you because you were always in different time zone. Which is your favorite city in the world?

Jaspal Singh [39:46]:

Mexico City. Yeah. I mean, Mexico as a country is a phenomenal place. It’s so rich in culture, so varied beautiful landscape and climate. That is the kind of climate I enjoy as well. So there’s a personal preference aspect to it. There is but yeah, Mexico City is a wonderful place. It’s this blend of emerging and developed market realities, all melting together in a single place. I really love it there.

Jaspal Singh [40:20]:

It close to Canada, so it’s on my bucket list. So I’ll tell you how I feel after I planned there.

Devin de Vries [40:27]:

So you should definitely make the trip

Jaspal Singh [40:30]:

And, and now you work in transit and I’m pretty sure whichever city you used to visit you, first thing you used to check is the transit. So which city has the best transit network in the world?

Devin de Vries [40:41]:

Yeah. I mean, out of all of the ones I’ve used it’s between London and Tokyo. Obviously London being, being a native English speaker is easier for me, but both are just remarkable transit systems in incredibly efficient and the way they also interact with the non-motorized legs of your journey. And the accessibility that is available. Those would be the two most remarkable transit systems I’ve used.

Jaspal Singh [41:15]:

Yeah. Many of the people shared that London and Tokyo always come on the top of the list and I love them as well. The are quite integrated and it’s a lifeline of the city. If you go, and you see how people use it. You meet a lot of people in the mobility sector especially in different country, try to do advocacy, try to learn from them. Next question, Who’s your favorite leader in the mobility sector?

Devin de Vries [41:46]:

Sorry, my answer to you on this one is it’s not about one individual, it’s about one stakeholder, and that is the informal operators. You know, at the end of the day, informal operators are the only public transportation that operates profit. They are the original demand-responsive transportation. Yeah. And at the end of the day, they move many hundreds of or millions of people every day. And without them, these centers of economic activity would quite simply grind to a halt because the need is far greater than the formal transportation that is available in almost all of these emerging markets. So yeah, the heroes for me are the informal operators.

Jaspal Singh [42:45]:

That’s a great answer. I would say because like you mentioned when the pandemic hit, lot of these formal transport players got some kind of a support from the government, but many of these informal transport operators in many countries around the world, they didn’t get any support. I know the stories of Jeepney operators in Philippines and how they struggled to survive during that period, and still continue to provide services in that difficult period. Especially the bus operator in Africa. Like you don’t have a mask, nobody is following social distancing and there is no sanitization, but still they continue to provide services in those difficult period, because there is no other option. Like you said, it’s not a choice. They can’t just stop it because if they stop everything will collapse, there is no economic activity in the cities. I love your answer.

And my last question and I don’t know, I mean, it, it can be very big or it can be very small, but if you can change one thing in your life, what would it be?

Devin de Vries [43:48]:

Change one thing in my life. If I could change one thing in my life it would be to try and change one thing in the world, which is that we live in a time of incredible polarization. There is there is sort of an absence of acceptance between one another within society, and there’s a deep seated sense of people holding onto identity for no good reason. And I think this has resulted in us moving to a place where there is an absence of human care and understanding towards one another. Yeah. And that’s not something in my life, but it is something in the lives of us as people, as humanity. And I wish I knew the panacea to that. Right. I think unfortunately for better or for worse technology has been the accelerator in this, becoming more and more endemic yeah. To us as a species. And I do wonder how we could remedy it? What is the cure to all of this? And I don’t have any great insightful answer, but if there was a magic wand and something that I could change would be allowing people’s perspective to go to a place of acceptance and care towards one another. And I think a lot of the ills of the world would be able to be reversed and fixed.

Jaspal Singh [45:43]:

I fully agree with you. It’s the technology is some way kind of accelerating that polarization and making us more away from the society and collective goods. And everybody is talking about what’s good for me and how I can do something and deprive other of that opportunity. And all it should be reverse. Technology should help to bring us more closer, but we are moving away from each other. And I agree, I would also envision a world where everybody’s supporting each other and all.

Thank you so much, Davin. I would say you share such a great insight about mobility, your entrepreneurial journey and the personal side. I love all your answers and learn a lot from this conversation. And, and like I said, I wish when we talk in next three year, I will look 5,000 cities mark and the milestone. No pressure on you, but that’s a milestone we need to achieve.

Devin de Vries [46:41]:

I would love nothing more than to see that global impact be made into reality. So yep. Maybe, if there’s a listener now that has the power to unlock some decision-making channel to allow that future to become a reality. That would be very special.

Jaspal Singh [47:03]:

Thank you so much. And I wish you good luck with your journey.

Devin de Vries [47:08]:

Thanks, Jaspal, thanks for taking the time.