The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on our jobs and normal routines, including the ability to safely visit restaurants, pharmacies and grocery stores. COVID-19 has altered the way consumers look at food delivery, but traditional gig economy food delivery still requires human contact that many people are looking to minimize or avoid altogether. Easy access to food delivery can also be impacted by economic disparity in communities of concern.

Enter Kiwibot, the delivery robot startup that got its start shuttling burritos and snacks to students on the University of California-Berkeley campus. Expanding on its college campus model, Kiwibot has signed an agreement with Sodexo and launched a food delivery service at the University of Denver. With its past success at Berkeley and its current initiative in Denver, Kiwibot is well positioned and interested in scaling this model on other college campuses where Sodexo operates.

In 2020 Kiwibot expanded to the City of San Jose and partnered with Shopify and Ordermark to launch a new business model. Kiwibot's expansion in the City of San Jose signified a shift to a B2B business model. Their launch in San Jose isn't just about adding a new city to their service area, it also marks the public launch of Kiwibot's new B2B strategy.

"We started thinking instead of building the robot infrastructure and the marketplace, let's focus on just building the robot infrastructure and partner with companies that already have that in mind," said co-founder and CEO Felipe Chavez. Kiwibot is focused on creating modes of accessibility for all, in the cities where it operates.

Kiwibot is also working closely with officials from the City of San Jose. The city's Mobility Department will be able to locate and monitor each robot in real time via the Mobility Data Specification (MDS). A growing number of cities are using the MDS tool to track shared mobility vehicles such as scooters, e-bikes, mopeds, etc. Chavez contends that San Jose is the first city to be integrated with a robotic company API. The data is anonymized to keep customer's personal information private and data analytics are provided to the City of San Jose, by Blue Systems, a mobility manager software company.

Using MDS and Mobility Manager software to analyze the impact of Kiwibot in San Jose

Enter Blue Systems and one of the most innovative mobility data processing companies operating in the U.S and Europe. Blue Systems has developed a cutting-edge smart mobility platform with ground-breaking capabilities including; strong aggregation, visualization and data protection capabilities, intuitive customer path and simple operational structure. This flexible system adapts to different urban mobility environments as well as many types of vehicles and city infrastructure. 

Pre-Covid, Blue Systems' data platforms aggregated and processed data from 200,000+ shared vehicles and 400,000+ road assets (parking meters, parking spots, charging points) worldwide.

Partnering with Kiwibot to integrate data via MDS onto the Blue Systems platform is an important benefit to the City of San Jose. "Our commitment to the cities we partner with is to not only assist with the monitoring and analyzing the movements of e-scooters, but also to innovate and adapt to the changing mobility landscape which now includes delivery robots. Our Mobility Manager Platform is fully capable and ready to integrate with all forms of mobility as we've demonstrated in San Jose," said Blue Systems CEO Christophe Arnaud.

What's on the horizon for Blue Systems

Christophe Arnaud explains that the roadmap for the United States includes the continued expansion of Mobility Manager Platform to more cities in 2021. "Our team in the U.S. is committed to partnerships that allow both small and large cities to take advantage of all the capabilities of our Platform." In addition to Mobility Manager, Blue Systems' product portfolio includes Smart Parking Manager which integrates public parking meters and parking spots, and incorporates a digital parking permit system for public use and city enforcement. 

To learn more about Blue Systems, visit www.bluesystems.ai