Why I built ETIOCA
Almost every family knows someone who drives for an app not by choice, but because life left no other option: long hours, their own car, their own costs, and no certainty about tomorrow. ETIOCA turns that around: a car at no cost to the driver, a guaranteed wage, holiday pay and a pension.
The cars that carry people for a living were never designed for the job. When I showed my car to taxi drivers, they were moved that someone had finally thought of them. I thought of passengers too: a separate driver cabin, cameras and a calm, safe ride, for a woman travelling alone at night, for a child, for an older person.
A city belongs to the people who can move through it. That is why a wheelchair user can board an ETIOCA car without transferring and without help. For me that is not an option; it is the standard.
We want cities to be cleaner and quieter: electric driving, fewer empty miles, fewer cars in traffic, and every vehicle built to have more than one life.
And above all, children. Every car is planned to support children every month, in the town where it works and in Sierra Leone and Morocco. I want the generation that grows up with ETIOCA to have more security than any before it.
I will not tell anyone fairy tales. I am looking for partners who will sit down with me, get to know me, and decide whether they can add value: not only capital, but belief in what we are building.
Mark Ishakov
