UBER INTRODUCES TEEN ACCOUNTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Image: The Citizen

Uber has recently introduced a groundbreaking initiative in South Africa: teen accounts. This move marks a significant step forward in catering to the transportation needs of young riders while prioritizing safety and convenience.

In a country where traditional transportation options might not always be reliable or accessible, especially for teenagers, Uber‘s introduction of teen accounts is a game-changer. Now, young riders aged between 13 and 17 can seamlessly access Uber’s services with accounts linked to their parents’ or guardians’ Uber profiles, ensuring supervision and control over their rides.

Kagiso Khaole, GM of Uber Sub-Saharan Africa – Image: IT Web

Uber Teen Safety Features

“We’re thrilled to offer this innovative feature to families in South Africa, with key safety features built into the heart of the experience. Whether their teen is getting a ride to an internship or heading home after football practice, parents will receive real-time notifications and can follow along with live trip-tracking every step of the way. We’re committed to helping keep teens safe and getting families moving,” says Kagiso Khaole, GM of Uber Sub-Saharan Africa.

Kagiso adds that only drivers who have passed local screening and background check requirements, and are highly-rated will be able to receive trip requests from teen account holders. Drivers can choose to opt-out of receiving teen trips at any time.

The introduction of teen accounts also addresses the evolving transportation needs of young people in South Africa.

Image: Uber

 How is Uber Teen Different?

Live Trip Tracking: To help keep parents in the know, they can follow along in the app with real-time updates and live trip tracking whenever their teen requests a ride. Additionally, for teen trips, parents will receive the driver’s name, vehicle information, and requested drop-off location so they know exactly where their teen is going and who is behind the wheel.

PIN Verification: Before a teen gets in the car for a trip, they’ll be prompted to give their driver a unique PIN. Drivers will not be able to start the trip until they enter the correct code into their app, providing an extra layer of protection to ensure teens get into the right car with the right driver.

RideCheck: The app uses sensors and GPS data to detect if a ride goes off course, stops unexpectedly, or ends early. If something like this happens, the Uber app will message the teen and the driver to make sure they’re OK. RideCheck will be adjusted to be more sensitive during teens trips.

Audio Recording: Uber’s Audio Recording feature allows users to record audio of their trip directly through the app and saves files on the device, automatically encrypting them so that no one – not the driver, not the rider or parents, and not Uber – can listen back to the recording.

Expanded Communication: Parents and guardians will be able to contact their teen’s driver at any time during a trip.

Only Highly Rated, Experienced Drivers: Only drivers who have passed local screening and background check requirements and are highly-rated and experienced will be able to receive trip requests from teen account holders. Drivers can choose to opt-out of receiving teen trips at any time.

Uber’s launch of teen accounts in South Africa represents a significant milestone in the evolution of ride-hailing services in the country.

AwareOrg and its industry partners donate R500 000 in Uber Vouchers

AwareOrg

In a deliberate effort to drive behaviour change, the Association for Alcohol Responsibility and Education (aware.org) and its industry members, are giving South African consumers the opportunity to arrive home safely, while effectively curbing drinking and driving by donating over R500 000.00 in Uber vouchers in the first of its kind “Pay-It-Forward” designated driver initiative this festive season. This is the first leg of a national designated driver campaign to rollout in 2021.

“While South Africa is notorious for drinking and driving, past campaigns to curb this behaviour have been met with resistance, as people generally don’t want to be told what to do or have their freedoms curtailed,” says Ingrid Louw, CEO of aware.org. “What we have seen is that we still have a lot of people who are not making use of alternative modes of transport when under the influence of alcohol, and by giving them an opportunity to experience using it, we hope to start driving behavioural change. By gifting consumers with Uber vouchers, we are taking direct action to support our statement of Never drink and drive and Don’t walk drunk.” she adds.  

The newly launched national festive campaign “It’s not just about you” appeals to citizens’ greater sense of responsibility to their loved ones and their fellow South Africans as a whole, and the resultant impact of road fatalities on those left behind. Drinking and driving is illegal, and drinking and walking can be equally dangerous, both leading to hundreds of road fatalities each year.

“By offering consumers real, practical solutions to get home safely, we are not only saving lives, but increasing awareness of the very real dangers of drunken driving and helping South Africans pay forward lifesaving driver vouchers to their friends and family,” Louw says.

The initiative forms part of the 2020 Festive Season National Road Safety Campaign, a multifaceted stakeholder effort that involves a combination of zero-tolerance, visible law enforcement, a national education drive and a call to action, which includes the provision of safer alternatives to getting home.

Through a comprehensive campaign, consumers will be encouraged to sign up for the “Pay-It-Forward” offer and nominate friends or family who will receive a voucher.

“The effectiveness of this campaign, which will be rolled out nationally to reach as many South Africans as possible, will be amplified by executions on digital, social media and community radio. This is just the start of a focused drive by industry to inculcate a culture of designated driving in South Africa,” concludes Louw.

Hyundai takes to the sky with Uber Elevate

Hyundai and Uber

The Hyundai Motor Company and Uber have announced a partnership to develop Uber Air Taxis for a future aerial ride share network and unveiled a new full-scale aircraft concept at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, America.

In this partnership, Hyundai will produce and deploy the air vehicles, and Uber will provide airspace support services, connections to ground transportation, and customer interfaces through an aerial ride share network. Both parties are collaborating on infrastructure concepts to support take-off and landing for this new class of vehicles.

Hyundai is the first automotive company to join the Uber Elevate initiative, bringing automotive-scale manufacturing capability and a track record of mass-producing electric vehicles.

The air vehicle concept that Hyundai displayed at the CES was created in part through Uber’s open design process, a NASA-inspired approach that jump-starts innovation by publicly releasing vehicle design concepts so any company can use them to innovate their air taxi models and engineering technologies.

“Our vision of Urban Air Mobility will transform the concept of urban transportation,” said Jaiwon Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Division. “We expect UAM to vitalize urban communities and provide more quality time to people. We are confident that Uber Elevate is the right partner to make this innovative product readily available to as many customers as possible.”

Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate, said Hyundai was their first vehicle partner with experience of manufacturing passenger cars on a global scale. “We believe Hyundai has the potential to build Uber Air vehicles at rates unseen in the current aerospace industry, producing high quality, reliable aircraft at high volumes to drive down passenger costs per trip. Combining Hyundai’s manufacturing muscle with Uber’s technology platform represents a giant leap for launching a vibrant air taxi network in the coming years.”

In preparation for this announcement, Hyundai has worked with Uber Elevate to develop a PAV (Personal Air Vehicle) model, S-A1, that uses innovative design processes to optimize electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for aerial ridesharing purposes.

The Elevate initiative based this process on NASA’s historical approach of putting design concepts out publicly to inspire innovation amongst multiple companies, spurring the development of common research models to investigate novel aerodynamic concepts and catalysing industry progress in wing design, noise, aerodynamics, and simulation verification.

As a result, Hyundai’s S-A1 model unveiled at CES reflects previous eVTOL designs Uber Elevate has released in the following ways:

  • It is designed for a cruising speed up to 290 km/h, a cruising altitude of around 300 to 600 m above ground, and to fly trips with a range of up to 100 km.
  • The Hyundai vehicle will be 100% electric, using distributed electric propulsion. During peak hours it will require about five to seven minutes for recharging.
  • The distributed electric propulsion system drives multiple rotors and propellers around the airframe. This enhances safety by decreasing any single point of failure. Having several, smaller rotors also reduces noise associated with large rotor helicopters with combustion engines, which is very important in cities.
  • The S-A1 is designed to take off vertically, change to wing-borne lift in cruise, and then revert back to vertical flight to land.
  • The Hyundai vehicle will be piloted initially, but over time they will become autonomous.
  • The cabin is designed with four passenger seats, allowing riders to board and disembark easily and with enough space for a personal bag or backpack.

Ushering in the era of seamless mobility, Hyundai’s exploration of future urban transportation incorporates the electric PAV concept with a new ground transportation, the Purpose-Built Vehicle (PBV) concept.

Hyundai’s vision for creating communities from future transit systems comes into focus with yet another new infrastructure concept, called the Hub. When many PBVs and PAVs are docked and connected to a Hub, they make a new public space where diverse groups of people can come together.

5 Tech Brands that have become generic terms

Technology has changed the way we live and how we do things. It is now at the centre of our lives because of the convenience it brings. Over the past decade or so we have seen the rise of tech brands taking the lead in terms of brand valuations. Some of these tech brands are more valuable than Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) who used to dominate the brand valuations. According to the Interbrand’s report the top four brands in the world in 2018 were tech brands. Often it does not mean that the brand is the only one in the market or it was the first in market. Some of these brands came in late in the market and surpassed the existing brands in that market due to their platforms being user-friendly, accessible and efficient. We therefore end using these brands’ names to refer to other brands or products in the same category,


The following technology brands have become synonymous with our day-to-day activities and more often than not we could be referring to other brands but we find ourselves to using their name to describe an activity related to the brand or a generic term.

1. Google – online searching
This internet giant was never the first one to launch a search engine. There were few search engines before it was established but today find people saying they will Google things whilst referring to running an online search. In 2006 Google made it to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb. The dictionary defines of Google as search for information about ( someone or something) on the Internet using the search engine Google.

2. Uber- Ride Sharing

Before Uber there was Zimrides which later started Lyft back in 2007. Today Uber has dominated the ride industry. Most of us cannot imagine the world without Uber It has fundamentally changed how people commute. In South Africa you will often hear people saying “I will Uber home with Taxify” referring to using the Taxify app to get home. Uber is being used as a verb for ride sharing.


4. Photoshop – Photo editing

The first version of Adobe Photoshop was released in 1987. Since then, it has become one of the most popular photo editing programs in the world. It is so popular that many people now use the word “photoshop” to mean photo editing in general.

4. e-Wallet – Mobile Money

Mobile money has undoubtedly transformed how send and receive cash. It has banking more accessible to everyone more the marginalized. M-Pesa was first launched in 2007, in Kenya by Vodafone and Vodacom. In South Africa FNB launched the e-Wallet in 2009 which changed the face of mobile money. Other banks have since followed suit. You will often hear South Africans say “I will e-Wallet you money via Cashsend, it’s like ABSA’s e-Wallet.

5. FitBit- Fitness Trackers

Health and wellness has been getting a lot of attention lately. The majority of people are starting to live active lifestyles e.g they run, walk and cycle. In the process they want to keep track of their time, heart rate, pace etc.
Fitbit, which debuted in 2008 as a clip-on device, was one of the first activity trackers to get mainstream attention. Since then, most people refer any wearable fitness tracker to FitBit even though it wasn’t manufactured by a different brand.

If you know of other tech brands that have dominated the market, please feel free to leave a comment. Remember to share the article if you found it valuable.