Simony César

Tell us about you, and your career journey?

Founder and CEO of NINA, a startup and consultancy that offers a channel for reporting harassment and violence in urban mobility. I am a publicist, and professor of the MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Unisinos and Forbes Under 30 highlighted in innovation and technology. I coordinated the implementation of NINA and creation of the Program to Combat Sexual Harassment in Public Transport in the city of Fortaleza (CE). I was nominated by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences for the BRICS Young Innovator Prize 2018, an award that recognizes research projects by young scientists who have developed innovative solutions to improve living conditions in emerging countries. I am also a Fellow of the MAN Impact Accelerator, a program for accelerating startups on a global scale with mobility solutions offered by Yunus Social Business and MAN Truck & Bus.

What did you learn from the Moovmi Empower WISM program and why was it valuable to be a part of?

I was part of the EmpowerWISM 2023 top 3, and it was an enchanting experience that allowed me to meet other great women in the mobility industry. In addition, it was a huge opportunity to expand NINA's history and purpose to a global scale, increasing our networking and impacting even more people who believe in building safe urban mobility for women, safe for everyone.

In your opinion, what are the top 3 trends in the transport industry niche that everybody should look out for in the next 5 years?

The main trends for smart cities in the coming years are to ensure sustainable, shared, and, above all, safe mobility for women, safe for everyone.After all, it is important to create shared mobility with greater energy efficiency. However, ​this mobility needs to be, above all, safe and accessible for everyone,  especially since sexual harassment is a global problem. In the UK, 59% of women feel unsafe walking home from a bus stop or station. In Washington DC, 77% of people harassed on the subway never report the incidents – and the numbers could be even higher as many women avoid reporting them for many reasons.In contrast, we women are the world's leading users of public transport. In Brazil, we are 65%. In France, two-thirds. In Philadelphia and Chicago (USA) the number is 64% and 62%, respectively (Ceccato, 2017). Therefore thinking about urban mobility from a gender perspective is the main trend that should be followed around the world in the coming years. This is the only way to prevent gender violence in urban displacements from also continue being a problem in the future.

How does your company innovate?

Every 4 seconds, there is a case of harassment in Brazilian public transport (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 2018), and 97% of Brazilian women have already suffered harassment in urban mobility (Locomotiva and Patrícia Galvão institutes, 2019). Faced with such alarming data, NINA aims to combat and prevent harassment and gender violence in urban mobility through its technology, collecting data and using them to influence the construction of public policies in favor of safer and more inclusive cities for all. NINA is already in one Brazilian capital, Fortaleza, Ceará. Since 2019 we're the complaint channel integrated into Whatsapp that allows public transport users in the county to report sexual harassment in mobility. Since then, we have already influenced the construction of safety protocols and public policies and coping with gender violence in city displacements. Now our goal is to expand to more places, bringing this social innovation to more people.

Why is encouraging innovation, new ideas, and applying new technology important?

NINA started from scientific research. Faced with the alarming cases of sexual harassment in urban mobility in Brazil and my personal experience: my mother was a bus ticket collector and spent 12 hours as an easy target in the urban fleet. So, I decided to investigate how violence in transport impacts women's lives. Through the research, I was nominated for the BRICS Young Innovator Prize 2018 by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, achieving recognition in Brazil and worldwide.My work results from investment in public policies to encourage education, science, and technology, which promote the development of new ideas and innovative solutions with social impact. Therefore, I strongly believe that the way to guarantee the development of new technologies is to encourage everyone, especially girls and women, to participate in these activities and give life to their ideas.

NINA's website