Sustainably connecting people on their way to work, that’s Hopon. Hopon was founded by Sebastian Karges and Germán Ramos, both students MSc Sustainable Entrepreneurship 2018/2019.

What is Hopon?

“Hopon wants to make the daily commute to work more sustainable. In the Northern part of the Netherlands, the public transport infrastructure is not ideal and most people are dependent on the use of cars to get to their workplace. 9 out of 10 car drivers are alone in their car to work or during business trips. This inefficiency brings many problems. For employees, it means high costs for travelling to work and back home and high traffic congestion caused by all the cars on the roads. For a company, it means a lot of CO2 emissions are associated with the company simply produced through drives to work, between offices and back home. Hopon connects people on their way to work, and lets colleagues carpool together. Hopon runs as an app, to make it simple and convenient.”

When did you start Hopon?

“Hopon started officially the 16th of November but the idea was incubated a couple of months before. Hopon started as a reason to participate in the Enterprijs event in Leeuwarden for startups. Altough Hopon was rejected at the competition, it helped to rethink and reshape the concept idea to make it stronger, more feasible, and more scalable. After the rethink idea-phase Hopon joined the Inqubator Leeuwarden to start developing the idea and get mentorship from experts.”

At what stage is your company currently?

“At the moment Hopon is in the early phases of the startup process. The team is composed by us, Sebastian Karges and Germán Ramos, and our software developer Sander Jaasma. Right now Hopon is developing a prototype and looking for companies for piloting projects.”

What are your (sustainable) goals?

“Hopon wants to improve the way people commute to work by carpooling in order to reduce CO2 emissions and provide sustainable mobility alternatives from the ones already in the market. For this reason, Hopon helps tackle three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 11 (make cities more sustainable), SDG 12 (responsible consumption) and SDG 13 (climate action).”

How does the master Sustainable Entrepreneurship help you with running your business?

“Campus Fryslan is what brought us to Leeuwarden, made us meet each other, and gave us the opportunity to participate in the startup competition. The master helped us gain the knowledge to face the complex challenges surrounding sustainability in business. The program also gave us the flexibility to combine the startup with the studies by allowing us to do class projects taking Hopon as the case study.”

Do you want to know more about Hopon? Visit the website!