In February 2018, Porsche launched an open competition for digital development in cooperation with the Berlin-based technology start-up, High Mobility. Participants were tasked with designing and developing apps enabling the vision of the sports car of the future. For two months, participants were granted access to over 140 APIs (open programming interfaces) and thus data sources and functions of a Porsche vehicle to enable them to build their own applications, present them virtually and test them using a car emulator. The various ideas focussed on infotainment, navigation, parking applications and the chassis.
The competition was open to interested parties from all over the world and aimed in particular at independent developers, start-ups, students as well as internal Porsche developers. A total of 1,055 participants from over 50 different countries registered for the competition, calling up half a million APIs between them.
“The competition showed us how important it is for us as a company to be open to new ideas and outside impetus. Our aim is to expand the Porsche ecosystem through campaigns such as the Next OI Competition. The level of interest shown in the competition and the quality of the submissions confirmed that this was exactly the right approach. We are already looking forward to the next contest”, said Andy Grau, innovation manager at Porsche and project manager of the Porsche Next OI Competition.
The teams crowned second and third in the final also have to opportunity to refine their idea in a pilot project in collaboration with Porsche. Furthermore, they were also awarded monetary prizes of 9,110 euro and 1,911 euro respectively. The “SoundReply” team programmed a driving simulator using the Porsche Track Precision app 4.0, which gives the player tailored voice instructions to keep them on the ideal line on the race track. The “Smart Garage” project developed by the “Dräxlmaier Campus” team is a solution allowing Porsche drivers to maintain full control over vehicle data and have necessary services performed automatically.
