HYPERLOOP - How Elon Musks gamechanger idea becomes reality

Dirk Ahlborn received the 2b AHEAD Innovator’s Award for 2016 for his realization of Elon Musk’s HYPERLOOP idea. Because good ideas first become great innovations when they’ve been implemented with exceptional passion and dedication.

The German native lives in Los Angeles. It was here that he founded Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, financing the launch with a crowdfunding jumpstart. Here is where the difference lies between Ahlborn and his competitors in the Hyperloop race, because Ahlborn is betting on the collective passion and ingenuity of his community.

The means of transportation itself is not the only thing that is revolutionary about Ahlborn’s idea, but also his approach to tech development: Ahlborn’s business model rests on an army of volunteers all over the world who contribute their knowledge to the project – without pay, out of personal conviction, but with stock options as compensation for their work if the endeavor is successful.

Ahlborn sees the future of technology in this approach, which he views as the future of business. The HYPERLOOP may well overtake planes and trains in the world of long-distance travel. The system sends passenger capsules through a system of tubes in near-vacuum state, where they race towards their destinations at up to 700 mph. With this performance, the Hyperloop could take passengers the 460 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes.

The real breakthrough for the HYPERLOOP, however, may lie in Europe, where passengers could make the trip from Berlin to Paris in just under an hour. Current plans call for the interconnection of Bratislava, Vienna, and Budapest.