Software République Update: Open Competition Toward the Future of Mobility

"Since the announcement of the creation of the Software République in April 2021, the six members [led by Renault Group, together with founding members: Atos, Dassault Systèmes, Orange, STMicroelectronics and Thales] have aimed to develop tomorrow's mobility solutions and systems." (Image credit: Renault Group / Software République.)

The Software République was launched in April 2021 under the leadership of the Renault Group, with the aim to develop tomorrow's mobility solutions and systems: “six of the largest European companies are joining together to create the Software République, a new open ecosystem for smart and sustainable mobility. The Software République acknowledges the urgency for France and Europe to collectively build a sustainable ecosystem, which aims to ensure their sovereignty in this area.”

The concept of open innovation, as initially introduced by Chesbrough (2003), is concerned with combining internal and external ideas as well as internal and external paths to market to advance the development of new technologies, products, and services. The first open innovation challenge from the Software République coalition was announced on 2 September 2021; it is opened to start-ups, entrepreneurs, research institutes, SMEs, academics, or individuals wishing to contribute. The idea is to bring forward new ideas to a multi-disciplinary panel, and translate the selected ones into innovation opportunities for France and Europe, with the automotive industry at its core, reaching out to its supportive industries, across electronics, software, hardware, data management, connectivity, cybersecurity and more.

In this post, I review the rules of engagement of this open innovation competition, as described on the organizers’ website: www.challenge-software-republique.com, and associated press releases.

Open innovation differs to ‘closed’ innovation in the context of early supplier-customer collaboration, as organizations increasingly rely on external sources of innovation to secure competitive advantages. It involves leveraging talents, skills and ideas of others through the transfer of knowledge and the use of shared capabilities.

This is exactly what the Software Republique is aiming at with this competition: a call for ideas and use cases to be developed and brought to market by leveraging the group’s data, assets and resources. In April 2021, Luca de Meo – CEO, Renault Group, summarized this initiative as follows: “the vehicle is no longer the central point of the automotive value chain, as software, electronics and on-board intelligence increasingly determine both the value and use of the vehicle for new mobility needs and services. We want to work together with partners in the Software République to position ourselves as a pioneer in this new mobility value chain.”

The competition aims to foster new use cases towards innovative products or services which can ultimately be integrated and commercialized by Renault and its partners in the context of new vehicle mobility requirements, leveraging either usage, battery, service, or other product data which could be exploited to create smarter ecosystem and user experience (a.k.a. new “mobility 4.0”), combining for example:

Battery management information or connectivity solutions provided by STMicroelectronics, leveraging data from the product environment, the vehicle and its battery, or other usage information.
Urbanism, smart mobility and infrastructure information already exploited by solutions from Thales, possibly translating into new services and features to end-consumers and users, while integrating requirements from legislators.
Transport-on-demand applications deployed by Atos securing consumer and user services across the relevant networks.
Connectivity networks, services and telecommunication infrastructure from Orange, leveraging for example 5G solutions and other connectivity protocols.
Enabling, developing, and simulating innovative ideas by leveraging the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from Dassault Systèmes, to collaborate and share information across teams and organizations.

As described in the rules of engagement, contributions are expected to align to 1 of the following 5 themes:

Improvement of the user experience related to Electric Vehicles
Multimodal accessibility
Intelligent transport
Cybersecurity
Open ideas

Participants have six weeks to respond by 13 October 2021. Shortlisted candidates will then engage in a 2-week preparation activity followed by a 1-month prototyping phase across October-November, pitching their ideas to a multi-disciplinary jury composed of eminent representatives from founding members of the Software République:

Sophie Proust, EVP Group Chief Technology Officer, Atos Group.
Laurence Montanari, VP Transportation & Mobility Industry, Dassault Systèmes.
Frédéric Vacher, Head of Innovation 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, Dassault Systèmes
Jean-Marc Lafond, IoT portfolio Director, Orange Innovation.
Luc Julia, Scientific Director, Renault Group.
Gilles Le Borgne, EVP Engineering, Renault Group.
Frédérique Le Grevès, Executive Vice President, France Public Affairs, STMicroelectronics & President and CEO, STMicroelectronics France.
Stéphane Royer, Group Chief Data Officer, Thales.

Though the Software République focuses on French and European sovereignty, international ideas and contributions appears to be welcome, pending candidates fit the following entry criteria and non-competitive clause:

Being at least 18 years old and capable of entering into a legally binding agreement.
Being a company below 500 employees.
Not having a shareholder above 30% being one of the competitors of organizers.
Not being registered (for companies) or being residents (for individuals) of countries subject to trade sanctions.

Furthermore, though the selection criteria and winning prizes are not disclosed, and clearly subjects to the jury’s discretion, the proposed ideas must link to scalable opportunities. Throughout this process, candidates are expected to demonstrate “expertise of the team” combined with “prototype quality”. There is no clear mention of the level of business or technical acumen required to enter and potentially be shortlisted for this competition.

In true “Shark Tank” or “Dragon’s Den” style competition, it should certainly be expected from candidates that they provide a basic business case illustrating how scalability would be achieved and potential returns on investment. Not everything appears to be clear with this competition, and after digging, many of my questions remain. Some include:

For this technical scope, how can the prototyping phase be possible in such short timeframe, unless candidates already have an early design of their ideas?
How much contribution will be provided from the founding members of the Software Republique towards the design and development of these prototypes? (Providing data and existing asset access might not suffice.)
How can this competition target sovereign value creation if IP rights are not necessarily capitalized in country, or at least in Europe?
Open innovation typically requires strong collaboration across parties and application of the ‘fail fast’ principle to stabilize a new solution; what level of collaboration will be expected throughout the selection process to foster experimentation during the prototyping phase?
Why can prize value and level of marketing exposure not be communicated upfront to motivate participants and provide visibility of the potential outcome of the competition?

Do you have any other questions? What are your thoughts?

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