In May 2017, UIC invited its members to take part in a three-day immersion tour of Silicon Valley’s digital ecosystem, in the place where everything started and which remains the heart of digital technology.

15 members of various Regions of the world applied to participate in this tour.

18 participants took part from Europe, Asia and North America.

The intense and exciting programme included:

• Meetings with 16 companies with a mix of majors such as Facebook, Tesla and Splunk and start-ups that presented their latest outstanding innovations and projects
• Direct exchanges with important personalities such Theresa Carlson (Executive of AWS), Karen Philbrick (Executive Director MIT), Don Ubson (Executive CES Government) …
• Visit to Stanford University and initiation in design thinking
• A specific focus on the railway context and specific relevant opportunities

The tour demonstrated how data could be the key word today and its real value around the “five Cs” approach:

Collection / Control / Correction / Connection / Creativity

The main aspects of the digital world were covered: big data, IoT, from Artificial Intelligence to Augmented Intelligence, block chain… and obviously, cybersecurity is and will remain the top priority for the railway sector.

Other issues were explored such as predictive maintenance, asset digitalisation, worker safety, fluid corridor management, machine learning, interface apps for integrated transport schemes.

Having the data is one thing but being able to assemble them in the proper way to reach the expected results is the key point.

All participants clearly stated their satisfaction following this experience.
Francisco Cardoso Dos Reis, Rail System Forum Chairman, expressed his will to set up even closer cooperation with the UIC Digital Platform through various actions and among them the development of identified projects in an innovative and open source approach.

In his conclusions, UIC Director General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux stressed the importance of this programme for UIC members, presenting beyond the understanding of the digital ecosystem concrete opportunities of partnership and operational developments for the benefit of the entire railway community of UIC.
This very first edition was a success and opens the way to future such initiatives to support the UIC members in their digital strategic development.

Share, Open, Connect, the three concepts that supports the UIC Digital Platform activities have, during this Digital Tour, been put into action at the service of our community.