Sayya Dushanbieva
📍
San Francisco, CA
Currently seeking creative spaces where curiosity drives the work, with care for craft, inclusion, and designing products that matter.
YUME
A service layer on autonomous vehicles that gives teens independence and parents peace of mind.
Timeline
8 weeks
Summer 2025
Role
Lead Design
Research -> hi-fi
Team
S. Baerte, P. Chandra
2 Design leaders (advisory)
Scale
Concept pre-launch
Service experience
Two goals. One ride.
A teen who gets home safely.
A parent who finally exhales.
OVERVIEW
Yume is a service layer on top of autonomous vehicle platforms.
It gives children safe, independent travel while keeping parents connected through real-time visibility and control, reducing stress and expanding a child's freedom as trust is earned.
PROBLEM
Kids today have far less independent mobility than previous generations.
Parents face significant time burdens ~30% spend over 30 minutes daily driving kids to school, and ~62% miss work due to childcare coordination.
Safety concerns and inadequate infrastructure have created a cycle where environmental risk push families toward over-supervised solutions, limiting independent exploration critical for healthy child development.
How might we give teens the freedom to move on their own terms, while giving parents the confidence to let them?
PROCESS
Research integrated a system analysis of structural barriers preventing children's independent mobility and interviews with parents and teens about their mobility practices.
Laura – a parent who manages all family logistics and prioritizes routine, needing real-time visibility without constant involvements.
Maya – a pre-teen who relies entirely on her parent and often misses activities when rides fall through, needing consistent on-time transport with minimal disruption.
Alex – a teen emotionally ready for independence but frequently blocked by logistical gaps, needing autonomy with safety and parental peace of mind, plus exposure to social activities beyond their immediate neighborhood.
Visibility isn't surveillance, it's a starting point.
Parents don't need to know everything forever. They need enough to feel safe at the beginning. The ask isn't constant oversight; it's a baseline of reassurance that earns its way out over time as trust builds.
Design oversight that fades as confidence grows.
Independence is practiced, not granted.
Teens don't become independent overnight. Yume is structured to give kids small, repeatable moments of autonomy — familiar routes, trusted destinations, low-stakes first rides. Each successful trip quietly expands what's possible next.
Create system that builds confidence, not dependency.
SOLUTION
Yume is the Japanese word for 'dream,' but it also hold you and me. The name carries the idea at the heart of the service: the mutual understanding between parent and child that makes independence possible.
For parents: provides a reliable, safe solution that will make life easier to manage.
For teens: provides a solution that will build independence and trust and allow more freedom as they grow.
yume
Experience through the eyes of parent & their child
Parent (Laura) needs dependable solution that would fit into their child's routine.
Pre-teen (Maya) relies on parent and often misses activities due to transport limits.
Select area to mark it as safe or unsafe
Safe area
Unsafe area
Select area to mark it as safe or unsafe
Safe area
Unsafe area
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
7:30 PM
Peace of mind with
safety zones
Parents can set geographic boundaries around familiar locations by drawing custom perimeters or setting a radius. Green zones are always accessible, while red zones stay off-limits.
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
7:30 PM
Journeys handles with
AI agent
Yume connects to your family's calendars and handles the logistics: suggesting rides, optimizing routes, and waiting for your approval before anything moves. The mental load stays off your plate.
Wednesday
06 Aug 2025
Laura
7 AM
8 AM
9 AM
11 AM
10 AM
9 AM
Maya’s singing class
1011 Shotwell St
Pasta making session
1090 Dr Maya Angelou
Time for Maya’s singing class
Trip details:
Yume number :
ABC0123
ETA :
40 mins
Destination :
1011 Shotwell St
Show route
Approve Yume
Deny, change of plans
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
6:40 AM
Board confidently with
secure verification
Yume combines face scanning and PIN confirmation to verify each child's identity before they board. It's a two-step check that ensures only the right person gets in, giving parents the confidence to let them ride independently.
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
6:43 AM
Stay informed with
live activity
Parents get real-time updates at every step, from confirmation to arrival. Live location tracking shows exactly where their child is, with notifications for any changes along the way.
3 min
9:41
Arriving in
3 min
ABC0123
Arriving in 3 minutes
145 Hoopers St
80 Crestline Dr
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
6:55 AM
Check in with
connect
Yume gives parents a live view inside and of the surroundings, with two-way audio for whenever you want to say hello.
Maya is currently on her way to violin class
ETA : 04 mins
Live
Inside car
Outside car
Maya is currently on her way to violin class
ETA : 04 mins
Live
Inside car
Outside car
BEFORE TRIP
DURING TRIP
AFTER TRIP
6:58 AM
Arrive safely with
smart exits
The vehicle scans for bikes and traffic before the door open, so every exit is safe. Once the child arrives, a photo confirmation is sent straight to the parent; the trip ends as smoothly as it began.
Trip Complete
Desti nation: 145 Hooper St
Time: 4:30 PM
REFLECTION
Balancing control and autonomy
The hardest challenge wasn't the features, it was the trust model underneath them. Safety tools can easily tip into surveillance. The real work was designing a system that gives parents confidence while leaving room for children to move independently.
Restoring independence at scale
Youth mobility has been declining for decades and fewer children are walking, cycling, or traveling independently than before. A service layer like Yume isn't just a safer ride, if done right, it could the infrastructure that reverses that trend.
©2026 Sayya Dushanbieva. All rights reserved.