Urban mobility is evolving rapidly, driven by the need for more sustainable, efficient, and data-driven solutions. As part of this transformation, entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in shaping the future of mobility by creating innovative solutions that adapt to the market. In this interview, we speak with Pawan Seshadri, co-founder of Urban Vind B.V., a startup tackling one of the biggest challenges in public transportation: passenger flow data optimization. 

Pawan shares his journey from mechanical engineering to entrepreneurship, detailing how his passion for electric vehicles led him to rethink sustainable mobility. He also discusses the challenges of launching and scaling a mobility startup, the importance of customer-driven innovation, and the critical soft and hard skills needed to succeed in this dynamic sector. 

What lessons has he learned along the way? How can his insights help aspiring entrepreneurs in urban mobility? Keep reading to find out! 

What inspired you to pursue a career in urban mobility, and how did your background and experiences shape your journey? 

I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in India, and at first, I was really passionate about building racing cars. This passion slowly shifted to building Electric Vehicles after my first trip to Europe as a student. That trip was to Germany for an automotive conference, where I was exposed to a whole new world and saw how people in the European Union deeply cared about sustainable mobility. 

This fueled my passion for working on Electric Vehicles. I spent two years learning and working in the field, which led to my Bachelor’s thesis and my first research publication on improving the range of an electric vehicle. That work landed me a job at an e-bike manufacturing startup in India, where I was first introduced to both Active and Shared Mobility concepts and entrepreneurship. 

I worked there for a year, and during that time, I had a realization: sustainable mobility is not just about building electric cars; a much more holistic approach is needed to achieve real sustainability. That’s when I discovered the EIT Urban Mobility Master’s program, which was the perfect opportunity to move there and study. With my background, I was accepted into the EIT Urban Mobility Master’s programme with a scholarship, marking the beginning of my journey in urban mobility. 

The programme not only shaped how I thought about things but also brought out my hidden passion for solving crucial mobility challenges through innovation and entrepreneurship. 

How did the idea for Urban Vind B.V. originate, and what were the biggest challenges you faced in launching and scaling the startup? 

Two words: Customer Interviews! 

Like many aspiring entrepreneurs, we initially believed that a startup idea was simply about coming up with an innovative concept. However, we soon realized that success required a much deeper understanding of real-world problems. 

While I was doing my EIT Urban Mobility Master’s degree, we had an entrepreneurship summer school in Milan and Rennes. I was paired with my co-founder, Ivo, to work on an idea. We attended a talk by TrenItalia, a railway operator, about how their trains were severely overcrowded and difficult to manage. That’s when we came up with an idea to reduce peak-hour demand using gamification. However, we struggled to develop it into something solid or sell the idea to anyone. We kept pitching it for a year. 

Then we finally read the book The Mom Test and realized we were approaching things the wrong way. Rather than focusing on a solution first, we needed to understand the core problem. So, we started doing customer interviews, targeting public transport operators and authorities to understand their biggest problems and daily challenges. That’s when we found out that while crowding was indeed a major issue, they all lacked reliable passenger flow data to optimize and plan their networks. 

We discovered that this problem was so significant that operators spent millions of euros on expensive AI cameras and consultants just to make sense of passenger flow. That’s when we realized we needed to develop a simple, elegant solution to collect this data. 

We initially focused on buses. Since almost everyone today carries a smart device, phones, smartwatches, AirPods, etc., and there is always at least one person on board the bus (the driver), we thought: why not use the bus driver to collect data? So, we developed a simple Android app that bus drivers could install on their work phones to collect Bluetooth scanning data. By combining that data with our machine-learning models, we were able to predict passenger counts and generate origin-destination matrices. 

This eventually led to the development of hardware, as not all bus drivers had work phones. Now, we are deploying in two cities—Antalya and Jurmala—as part of an EIT Urban Mobility project, with more deployments on the horizon. 

From your experience, what are the most critical soft and hard skills for succeeding as an entrepreneur in the urban mobility sector? 

When it comes to soft skills, two of the most essential qualities for an entrepreneur are strategic patience and persistence. In this industry, and especially when working to drive change, patience is crucial, bringing a vision to life can take years. Equally important is persistence, as one of the main reasons startups fail is that founders eventually give up. 

As for hard skills, while technical expertise comes from your background, whether in engineering, urban planning, or architecture, the most critical ability is understanding how different elements interconnect holistically. It is essential to recognize how your role influences the broader system and to develop a cross-disciplinary mindset. Most importantly, you need to understand how your work contributes to sustainability and advances sustainable development as a whole. 

With urban mobility challenges constantly evolving, Pawan Seshadri’s journey highlights the critical skills needed for success, such as resilience, strategic patience, and the ability to think holistically across disciplines. These qualities, combined with a deep understanding of sustainability and cross-disciplinary collaboration, are essential for entrepreneurs and professionals looking to stay ahead in this dynamic field. Programmes like the EIT Urban Mobility Master’s and other educational initiatives found on our EIT Campus offer valuable opportunities to develop technical skills in sustainable urban mobility, transportation technologies, mobility data, and entrepreneurship. 

Explore additional resources and join the conversation in our online community. If you’re interested in UrbanVind and Pawan’s journey, connect with him on LinkedIn Pawan Seshadri Venkatesh | LinkedIn and visit UrbanVind: Empowering Urban Mobility with Real-time Insights.