In November 2025, INRIX celebrated Innovation Week, an annual tradition where everyone in the company sets aside normal day-to-day work and spends one week coming up with fresh and innovative ideas.
Anyone in the company can propose an idea and employees spend the preceding weeks forming teams and making plans in preparation for the big week. As previous interns, Innovation Week was one of our favorite parts of the internship. Now, returning as full-time employees, we found that this year was no different. There were many fantastic ideas, with innovations often inspired by industry trends, historic customer feedback, internal improvements, and much more.
Our team, Finding Our (Trips) Purpose, focused on a challenge that resonates across both public and private sectors: understanding the why behind people’s commute. While we currently have data that tells us where and when people travel, uncovering the purpose behind those movements opens doors to deeper insights which allows businesses to make smarter decisions, enabling planners to design better infrastructure.
Over the course of the week, we explored creative ways to bridge gaps between raw mobility data and actionable intelligence. By combining geospatial analysis and other contextual information, we demonstrated how purpose-driven insights could transform everything from site selection and marketing strategies to transportation planning and sustainability efforts.
The energy during Innovation Week was incredible. Teams across INRIX pushed boundaries, experimented with new technologies, and collaborated in ways that reminded us why innovation is at the heart of what we do.
At the end of the week, every team gets a chance to present their idea to the whole company, and after some scrutinizing rounds of judging, winners for different categories get selected. We’re proud that our project was recognized among the top ideas this year, but even more excited about what this means for the future. Innovation Week isn’t just about winning; it’s about learning, sharing, and imagining what’s possible when we work together.