More than 1,000 participants from 50 countries participating in Porsche Next OI Competition
Digital IF-THEN assistant for your Porsche: Steffen Iwan, Christian Brachert and Valentin Rüchardt, aka team “AUTOmator”, have been crowned the winners of the “Porsche NEXT Open Innovation Competition” with their idea of linking apps with the Porsche vehicle and making them work for the driver automatically. The final of Porsche’s competition to find innovations for the sports car of the future took place on Saturday, May 19, as part of the Formula E Grand Prix in Berlin. The pitch delivered by the trio from Germany saw them triumph against six other finalists and over 270 submitted projects.
“We are thrilled to have won the Next OI Competition against such talented opponents. We are extremely proud to have the opportunity to develop our idea further together with Porsche. We hope to be able to contribute in a small way towards Porsche’s digital transformation in the future”, said AUTOmator inventor Steffen Iwan after the award ceremony. The three developers won not only a visit to the Porsche Research & Development Centre in Weissach, but also prize money totalling 10,911 euro. Moreover, their concept will now be refined in a pilot project in collaboration with Porsche.
Iwan, Brachert and Rüchardt pursued the idea of making the car work for the driver automatically, akin to a personal assistant. Specially predefined situations would independently trigger specific app commands that you would otherwise have to carry out yourself. The magic words are if-then. For example, if the car leaves the parking spot at the company, then the smart home system should be automatically be activated. Or if the driver gets an email from a certain sender, then a notification should automatically be shown at the car display. According to this principle, numerous if-then-links of apps and vehicle functions are possible.
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