Canadian University Dubai Students Solve City's Parking Problem with Innovative Solution
Instead of building new parking lots, owners of unused parking spaces can rent out their spots for parking
A group of students from Canadian University Dubai (CUD) has developed an innovative solution to alleviate parking issues for motorists throughout the city. The Rent-a-Parking platform, created by second-year students Ramisha Ahmareen Zaman and Fatma Ahmad Alattar, won the first prize of AED 5,000 at the Entrepreneurship Showcase, part of the recent Brand Me Summit. The CUD student-led event was held at the university's City Walk campus. It featured various distinguished speakers, entrepreneurs, and public figures who demonstrated the power of personal branding.
Inspired by their daily challenges with parking around the city, Ramisha and Fatma explored how they could redeploy unused spaces to increase capacity in high-demand locations. Fatma explained, "Dubai has one of the world's highest numbers of cars per capita. One option would be to build more spaces, but we wanted to explore a more sustainable solution, where residents with unused parking spaces could rent them."
Ramisha described how the system would work, "We have built a dynamic online marketplace where people can list their available parking spaces in residential buildings. It enables renters to monetize their unused parking space while providing a convenient solution for drivers. The platform is available citywide, and spaces can be rented for varying durations, whether hours, days, or months, based on the user's specific needs."
Ramisha and Fatma were one of three teams of entrepreneurship students presenting their business ideas to a panel of high-profile creators and innovators during the Brand Me Summit at CUD. Runners-up in the competition were Abdulla Mahmood Sanad, Anushka Naomi, Danielle Anne P. Avendano and Sukhroop Kaur with their innovation, Raybot+. The team showcased their prototype for a solution that assists maintenance teams in parks and public spaces while streamlining waste segregation. The other project on display was an intelligent infant feeding and nutrition tracker developed by the team Visionary Ventures. The panel of judges included Ahmed Ben Chaibah, Founder & CEO of Aqua Fun; Dr Mohammed Naji, Executive Director of Liberty Medical Group; Omar Al Ashi, Founder & CEO of Urent; Firas Al Msaddi, Founder and CEO of Fam Properties; Jigar Sagar, CEO of Creative Zone; and Mohamed Hilal, Founder & CEO of Mohamed Hilal Group, who also sponsored the competition prize.
Dr. Dima Jamali, CUD's vice president of academic affairs, moderated the Entrepreneurship Showcase. She remarked, "This event provided an outstanding opportunity for these enterprising students to gain valuable insights from successful innovators in the UAE business community. We are grateful to the panel for encouraging and inspiring our students to continue pursuing their ideas to create their start-ups."
After almost a year of work on market analysis and prototype development, Ramisha and Fatma are now looking to the next stage of their project. Fatma concluded, "We would like to explore investment opportunities and develop the platform's regulatory framework, which we hope to do in collaboration with relevant authorities like the RTA. The scarcity of parking spaces is a growing problem, particularly in urban areas, and we hope that our innovation can contribute to a sustainable solution to this challenge."