Ben Pullen
Co-founder & CEO of Generation.e
Ben Pullen, CEO & Co-founder of Generation.e talks about transformation to smarter mobility and start-up establishment.
A few words from...
My name is Ben Pullen.
I am the Co-founder and CEO at Generation.e.
Few words about your company
Generation.e has the mission to inspire transformation to smarter mobility.
We have been achieving this mission through two main events that we run in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
One is the Electric Vehicle Road Trips and Smarter Mobility Summits.
How did you fall in mobility?
I was amazed by Tesla back in 2013, and thought more people in the world need to know more about these early electric vehicles.
So I took it upon myself to set up the Electric Vehicle Road Trip, which we launched in Europe in 2016, and since then scaled that event accross Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
But I quickly realized that electric vehicles are not the solution for all of the problems that we have in mobility. And in fact, that a combination of micro, active, shared and public transport that are really gonna serve the mass population and insure that we can reduce our impact on the environment.
What are the 5 major trends you see in mobility?
I see a huge uptake in cycling, unfortunately and for some bizarre reason, increases in SUV ownership, lower public transport ridership, electric vehicle adoption increase, especially in Europe, and I see an overall demand for medium to long distance trip droping mainly because an increase in staycations, home working and the use of virtual conferencing tools. Public perception have shifted.
Many webinars appeared in those last months. What makes your event so special?
We focus a lot on the visual experience for the audience to create something that resembles live TV. At the end of the day you can have the best content but if the audience is not engaged, the message will get lost.
Major events go digital: MOVE, Autonomy, CoMotion.
How do you differentiate? Is there a business model for online events?
I hope so, however it’s too early to tell as we are still in a state of adjustment.
The audience and key stakeholders are still getting familiar with these new tools and methods of delivery. However, we will always include a virtual element into our physical events going forward to keep event emissions down and expand the audience can benefit from the event.
How do you replace physical interaction?
Obviously, one of the main benefits of a physical event is the networking element. So we’ve worked really hard to make sure that networking plays a key role in our digital events with speed networking, which is face to face networking with the speakers and the delegates.
Seems like the show must go on... Good luck then!
A last word?
One thing that’s come from this crisis is that it increased public acceptance for a range of different mobility solutions. So let’s use this as an opportunity to create a smarter mobility world.
Stay tuned for more insights!
Mobility Makers Team
