Engaging The New Generation: Hyundai Partners with Students To Drive Innovative, Sustainable Solutions
For Hyundai Motor, shaping the future of mobility has always involved harnessing the transformative power of collaboration. Fostering an open culture of mutually beneficial cooperation across ecosystems, disciplines, and generations creates the foundations on which Hyundai is helping to build tomorrow’s breakthroughs and drive progress for humanity.
Innovation is a mindset, and new ideas are everywhere. This is why Hyundai Motor promotes an in-house culture of creativity where employees are encouraged to follow their ideas, as well as partnering up with an external network of strategic collaborations, including startups, research institutions, and young talent. This ensures the kind of dynamic exchange and support that turns concepts into progress-enabling reality.
When it comes to inciting and incentivizing new ideas, Hyundai Motor Group has a rich tradition of programmes dedicated to advancing mobility for a sustainable future, including its own hub for open innovation called CRADLE and the platform ZER01NE that offers an accelerator program for startups globally. In Europe, the recent Hyundai Innovation Challenge is another example.
Partnering up for progress
The Hyundai Innovation Challenge invites university teams from across Europe to come together and develop solutions to address sustainability challenges with the support of Hyundai’s technologies. All participants are encouraged to free themselves from conventional approaches and follow their vision because creative proposals happen when barriers are broken and engineers, designers, and visionaries work together regardless of their title or background.
The innovation hub Ekipa served as the starting point for the challenge and is where teams officially registered to participate. After registration, teams engaged in a series of Q&A sessions with Hyundai experts from its European Business Headquarters, R&D centre, and representatives from Hyundai's EU-based production plants. True to its belief that perspective-changing innovation thrives in open, inclusive environments, Hyundai experts were thrilled to support the students along the way.
Following these sessions, selected teams set out to develop their proposals and submitted them for evaluation by an expert panel. The jury then selected three finalists to present their pitches during the final award ceremony. The selected concepts demonstrated how AI and sustainability can co-exist and form a beneficial symbiosis for people and the planet.
The Hyundai Innovation Challenge winners
The Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Center in the Frankfurt am Main region was the selected venue to meet in person with the three finalist teams and hear their pitches. The jury panel, composed of experts from engineering, business, and ESG fields, evaluated the three ideas and awarded a first, second and third place title.
The Hyundai Innovation Challenge first-place title went to Team Coatify from the Berlin School of Economics and Law for their idea to better apply paint to cars while lowering waste and operational costs. The Coatify solution utilizes AI-driven sensors and precision spraying systems that reduce volatile emissions during the painting process in automotive manufacturing.
Team Building Blocks from the University of Applied Sciences Worms took second place at the Hyundai Innovation Challenge with their modular upgrade system. The setup allows customers to upgrade specific individual car components, such as batteries, exterior features, and software, thus supporting circularity.
The third-place Hyundai Innovation Challenge went to Team Trailblaze from Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences for their waste-eliminating concept, which uses AI and IoT technology to anticipate, prevent, and eliminate waste before it occurs. The system integrates IoT sensors for data collection, AI-driven analytics for waste prediction and optimization, and a real-time dashboard for monitoring and adjustments.
Working together to empower people
The Hyundai Innovation Challenge represents Hyundai's continuing commitment to its vision of Progress for Humanity by engaging with university students who will be instrumental in shaping the future of mobility with their ideas, expertise, and vision. Its overarching goal is to elevate creativity and collaboration in solving pressing global issues while aligning with Hyundai's strategic Corporate Shared Value’s (CSV) pillars of environmental protection, circular economy, innovation, and empowering people.
Hyundai is committed to empowering people through innovative mobility solutions that align with today’s and tomorrow’s demands. Through collective innovation, technology, and talent pooling, strong, paradigm-altering ideas can flourish and reach their full potential. Collaborating with European students has shown us once again that when we open our innovation processes, we don’t just find new ideas — we discover new ways to think. Hyundai will continue to form lasting partnerships to promote human progress.
Contacts
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Adriana Cerami
Head of Corporate & Brand PR
acerami@hyundai-europe.comElvira Vella-Herrera
Executive & Internal Communications Senior Expert
eherrera@hyundai-europe.comMaria Bricio
Corporate & Brand Communications Expert
mbricio@hyundai-europe.comPatricia Lammers
Corporate Communications Expert
patricia.lammers@hyundai-europe.comConor Twomey
Head of Product PR
conor.twomey@hyundai-europe.comAdrian Péré
Product PR Manager
apere@hyundai-europe.comKatharina Kupper
Hyundai Newsroom Lead
