Introduction to ArtificiaI Intelligence in Higher Education
Prevoz.org presentation
1. Prevoz.org
Ridesharing in Slovenia
presented by jure@cuhalev.com
Sunday, March 14, 2010
2. Problem
• Lots of Slovenian students study away from
home in Ljubljana, Maribor or Koper
• They’re max 2h of drive away from home
or 2-3x that with public transport
• Ad-hoc car sharing since it’s 3x cheaper
than with public transport
Sunday, March 14, 2010
3. Solution
• Online community http://prevoz.org that
connect students with cars to students
who need a ride
• Built as a community project for students;
no fee for site usage for anyone
• Students just pay the money directly to
each other as they share a ride
Sunday, March 14, 2010
4. History and stats
• Founded in 2004
• 1600+ rides offered every week
• 14.000+ registered users
• Price range of a ride: 5-10 eur
• Popularity rises as fuel prices go up and
economy weakens
Sunday, March 14, 2010
5. Lessons learned
• Running community oriented sites online is
cheap with all the open-source and
students that are IT savvy
• Hosting is also free if you partner with
friendly NGO
• Word of mouth inside the community will
promote your project so you don’t need
advertising budget
• Community sites don’t need to make
money. It would ruin our site.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
6. Technology changes
• Running site for 5+ years thought us:
• hardware and software evolved faster
than our needs. Free speed and
productivity boost.
• Facebook became our #1 source of
traffic as people share links. Before that
we’ve seen hotmail, gmail and forums.
• OpenID makes auth easier for everyone
Sunday, March 14, 2010
7. Impact on society
• Prevoz.org is now a real alternative to
public transportation between cities
• Lots of people that commute, use it to
supplement their income now
• It makes living as a student cheaper as it’s
now more likely that you’ll get a ride as
there are more people offering one
(basically all offered rides are cheaper and
faster than train or a bus)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
8. Future
• As of November 2009, we’re offering cross-
border car sharing. It’s now possible to find
a ride to Austria, Italy, France, Serbia and
many others
• Next stage is creating translated site for
other countries as well as provide mobile
applications and a public API
Sunday, March 14, 2010