There are those days that you all of a sudden make a massive step forward in what you want to accomplish. Last Monday was such a day for The Unity Express Project. Coen, Stephan and Michiel went talking to two possible partners and guess what: they both said YES to the project! Read on to know what awesome things they are going to do for us!

Some things are not yet 100% confirmed, so we can’t talk about them, but these things have already been agreed upon:

EUrail

EUrail is the company that allows citizens from all over the world to travel by train in Europe for extremely afforable prices. They are also affiliated with the Interrail passes, more known by European citizens. Exploring Europe with such a pass is an experience that you’ll never forget, believe us! Basically as unforgettable as The Unity Express!

While we can’t give away all that EUrail is planning to do for us, these things are confirmed:

• We get 10 full month Global Passes to travel around Europe and promote the project! The Unity Express is going on tour! Details will follow soon ;)
• EUrail is going to sponsor us with money as well. How much and where we will spend it on is yet unknown.
• In the board of EUrail are high ranking people from railway companies. EUrail will try to negotiate with them to see if there is a cooperation possible of some sort.
• EUrail has agreed to help us promote the Unity Express in various ways through their channels.
• EUrail might have a present for all Unity Express passengers… ;)

We will let all of you know the details as soon as we have them!

Municipality of Maastricht

Why did we go to the municipality of Maastricht? Well, have a look at our route: we are going to launch the journey there! It is true that the first station will be Amsterdam, but Maastricht will be the launch city. Why Maastricht? Because they have a rich history with the birth of the European Union as we know it today! In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty was signed, forming the EU. So it is a terrific symbolic place to kick off this journey.

Again, not everything is quite ready yet for sharing with the world, but we can at least say this:

• Maastricht has agreed to cooperate with the project
• Maastricht will help us both financial and with the organization of the launch event on the 9th of July
• Maastricht will help us in spreading the idea and the event through their channels

We expect to have more details about the involvement and sponsoring Maastricht has to offer in the next weeks already. Again, we’ll share them as soon as we know it ourselves!

Things begin to roll!

As Core Team of the project, we are thrilled to see the number of partners growing. Every new partner adds to our momentum of actual success, and adds to our optimism and drive to look for even more partners and pursue them. It’s becoming more and more a reality, for all of us. Expect to have a lot more partners over the next months, as our Sponsor team works hard on writing applications and start conversations with companies about how they can contribute to this huge project.

However, we are not there yet, and we could very well use your help! Do you know the head of marketing of a big European company? Or the one from a local company that has ideas about going multinational? Please, connect them with us!

If you want to help writing applications, please join the Sponsor work group on our just released Open Collaboration Platform.

Voting for Unity Express on funding programs is also an excellent example of a little gesture you can make to actually make the project a reality in summer 2011! And quite a few work with voting systems, so be prepared to get clicking for your next adventure ;). We’ll help you by making it as easy as possible to vote for us!