PickMe partners with Cornell University to expand R&D

Digital Mobility Solutions Lanka Ltd., owner of Sri Lanka’s most innovative taxi hailing service, PickMe, recently entered into a research agreement with a Cornell University professor in the US, to work together on a project in the area of dynamic routing and matching for on-demand ride-hailing systems, which will hopefully further enhance and strengthen PickMe’s current technology.

Cornell is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, and aspires to be the exemplary comprehensive research university for the 21st century. Renowned for its distinctive mix of eminent scholarship, academic rigor and commitment to public service, Cornell is ranked #14 on US News & World Report’s 2018 list of best US universities.

Samitha Samaranayake, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell, who specialises in innovative technology to create the next generation of algorithms to model, optimise and reimagine the future of transportation, will be working with PickMe’s data science team.

Initiating agreements of this nature illustrates PickMe’s continued commitment and mission of bringing safe, reliable, affordable and easily accessible transportation, around the clock, to any part of the country.

The agreement between Digital Mobility and Cornell University’s Samaranayake was signed by Digital Mobility CEO Jiffry Zulfer.

Professor Samaranayake said, “I am delighted and convinced that research initiatives with innovative new companies on services, such as PickMe, will play a pivotal role in creating exciting opportunities to produce new technologies to help invent the future of transportation. I look forward to the promise it holds for both parties.”

Outlining their vision, Zulfer said, “PickMe has used technology to change the way people access and use transportation. With this research agreement, we hope to pave the way for some of the best minds engaged in academic research, and those working on PickMe, to come together to produce leading-edge technologies to create the next generation of artificial intelligence algorithms, to help improve safe and efficient transportation for the people of our country.”

He further explained, “In the constantly changing environment of technology and cyber security, no single or static approach is sufficient, and everyone involved must keep moving, adapting and improving to stay ahead to offer value to their customers - that is what we are doing at PickMe.”

As such, PickMe plans to continue to innovate and enhance their services through more such agreements in the future, by using new technology to understand, predict, and make more efficient, the experience for our riders and drivers.