MicroTraffic takes the top prize in the Smart Cities, Transportation, and Logistics category at the 13th annual SXSW Pitch.
AUSTIN, TX — March 20, 2021 — MicroTraffic took home first prize in the Smart Cities, Transportation, and Logistics category at the 13th annual SXSW Pitch® (the marquee event of South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals March 16-20, 2021.
Winnipeg-based MicroTraffic uses AI-powered computer vision to turn cities’ existing or temporary traffic cameras into sensors that measure near-misses. City traffic engineers use the data to plan changes to intersections with the goal of preventing fatalities before they happen instead of reacting after a bad crash.
MicroTraffic’s pitch compared the problem of planning road safety improvements to the problem of vaccine rationing. There are solutions to improve intersection safety, but the expensive ones have to be rationed across a very large number of intersections. Cities want to use data to guide the rationing process as much as possible, but they can feel stuck in a reactive approach relying on historical crash data.
SXSW Pitch host Mandela S.H. Dixon noted that the MicroTraffic pitch was successful because it was memorable and educational in drawing the listener into the company’s story. She offered the following comments:
“I saw the stat about traffic accidents are the number one cause of death for people under 29 and it kind of stopped me in my tracks”
“What makes a great pitch presentation is when the audience walks away knowing something that they didn’t know, because it helps make you memorable.”
“These winners of the pitch competition… this is the best of the best of the best that you’re seeing right now.”
SXSW Pitch honoured 8 of the world’s most exciting innovations in categories including Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Voice, Enterprise & Smart Data, Entertainment, Gaming & Content, Future of Work, Health, Wearables & Wellbeing, Innovative World Technologies, Smart Cities, Transportation & Logistics, Social & Culture.
Craig Milligan, CEO and Road Safety Engineer at MicroTraffic, provided the following comment after the award:
“I was kind of shocked, actually. There were some amazing companies in this pitch contest. ClearFlame looks like its poised to turn the heavy duty diesel engine industry upside down. Transpod seems to have a decent shot at delivering on the hyperloop concept. Whether you are tackling emissions, travel times, equity, or in our case, safety, the opportunities in the transportation space to make people’s lives better are immense. We were honoured to be named a finalist and were very happy to find out we won”
This award continues positive momentum for MicroTraffic in the Smart Cities space. In the last year, MicroTraffic has added 25 cities to its paid pilot program, doubled the size of its computer vision team, and tripled the size of its road safety team. If you are a city, state, or county traffic engineer and want to learn more about our paid pilot program, please email craig.milligan@microtraffic.com.
After raising a pre-seed round in 2019, MicroTraffic graduated from North Forge and was accepted into the Creative Destruction Lab Rockies Fall 2019 accelerator cohort. Shortly after this, MicroTraffic won a spot in the inaugural Winter 2020 cohort of the Safe X Connected Cities Accelerator run by Highline Beta and Aviva Canada . Concurrently, MicroTraffic secured a spot in the 2020 AcceliCity program backed by Leading Cities and QBE.
The SXSW pitch deck and video are available on request.
For more information about SXSW Pitch and to view the complete list of winners, visit: https://www.sxsw.com/pitch.
