Safa-E for Philips and IBM

Safa-E was Team Safa's entry to the Philips × IBM Student Service Design Challenge, tackling the disposal gap in India's fast-growing EV sector. Research centered on e-rickshaws, India's largest EV segment, where batteries fail every 4–6 months and drivers pay ₹150 per recharge or ₹30,000 to replace one, often through unregulated methods like illegally tapping electricity poles. Empathy mapping and stakeholder analysis across drivers, recyclers, scrap dealers, and charging station workers reframed the challenge around one goal: building a shared economy to repurpose EV batteries for their secondary uses.