These are the 5 Porsche NEXT OI 2019 Finalists
In my last post, I introduced five jury members and their criteria for a winning idea of the Porsche NEXT OI competition. Just now, the jury has selected the final five teams that will present their ideas at the finals in Ludwigsburg on June 6, 2019. We’re in the hot phase. In three weeks, three ideas will be chosen to be further developed together with Porsche. Three teams have the chance to actually shape the future of mobility.
I am more than happy to introduce the finalists of this year’s competition as I love the ideas and am overwhelmed by the creativity, professionalism, and competence of the teams.
These are the five final ideas of the Porsche NEXT OI Competition:
Road.Travel for Porsche
Road.Travel For Porsche seeks to complement existing Porsche apps such as Porsche Road Trip. It is an online platform which combines planning, booking and exchanging travel experiences. The platform lets travelers plan their trips with the help of A.I., find trip scenarios from travelers or travel experts in the marketplace, customize and book everything with a single click. The team aims to revolutionize road trips by connecting the trip planning ecosystem with in-car digital experiences, paving the road for autonomous travels of the future.
How did you come up with the idea?
We know from our own experience, how much time and effort it might take to organize a journey. According to a study by Expedia, it takes an average of 38 website visits to plan just one trip. Only 30% of search requests for vacation packages are fulfilled by traditional tour operators, which mostly cover mass tourism destinations that become even more overcrowded, while less known places stay hidden from the majority of travelers. The travel market is missing an enormous opportunity to provide a holistic, seamless experience for self-driving travels in the era of connected and autonomous cars. That’s where Road.Travel comes in.
What do you like about the Porsche NEXT OI Competition?
The Porsche Next OI Competition was a fantastic opportunity for us to present our project in front of highly-skilled experts from the automotive industry, receive a lot of valuable and actionable feedback and build the very first live integration between our platform and an infotainment system of the future.
Thanks to the HIGH MOBILITY’s API platform, we are able to communicate with the interfaces of a not-yet-existing car model even before it is available on the market. It’s a big breakthrough in terms of technological evolution, as it gives third-party developers and innovators like us an ability to develop and test our ideas quickly in a lean way, without having access to a real car, which might otherwise be impossible at all for startups limited by budget.
What’s your #nextvisions?
Self-organized trips will become even more popular with the evolution of trip planning and booking technologies, and with cars becoming smarter and better connected. We believe that autonomous cars will eventually be transformed into personal travel guides, meeting passengers in an airport, bringing to a hotel, showing places along the route, telling stories, and being readily available according to a person’s dynamic itinerary. And Road.Travel shall be a part of this new level of in-car digital experiences.
Porsche P.O.L.E
The team behind Porsche P.O.L.E is reimagining car ownership for a generation of consumers who are used to have the world at their fingertips. With the upcoming launch of the Taycan, the team wants to take this opportunity to reimagine a car demo/test drive. The app allows users to manage their car demo or test drive remotely from their phone. With later iterations, users can complete car purchases, schedule services and buy charging time, parts or Porsche branded goods right from the palm of their hand.
How did you come up with the idea?
We’re big fans of Porsche, there’s even a former 911 owner among us, so when the contest came out, we thought it was a great opportunity to show off our core technology in a fun and Porsche-focused way. P.O.L.E. stands for Porsche Owner Lifecycle Engagement and we’re envisioning to simplify the customer experience during the ownership lifecycle by creating a powerful and simple tool.
What do you like about the Porsche NEXT OI Competition?
There are a couple components to the competition that set it apart: First of all, the number of APIs was eye-opening as to what is all available. It’s not common that a world-class company opens its doors to the public like that. We really love the open spirit. Next thing is providing focus: The competition is a great discipline for any startup wanting to get familiar with the ins and outs of building a viable software company. The feedback loops, the very clear procedures on the deck and the requests for assets were very helpful to get us organized quickly. Last but not least, the Taycan is a game changer. We’re thrilled that our product could help efficiently drive sales volume in the short and long term of this awesome product.
What’s your #nextvisions?
We grow less tolerant of friction in our customer experiences day by day. Our vision is to simplify and speed up the entire lifecycle of car ownership. Why not make it a goal to have a car sale take as long as a lap around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and not the conventional 3 hours here in the U.S.?
ChargeBest Attendant
The ChargeBest Attendant seeks to remove the main obstacle currently halting the mainstream adoption and consumer acceptance of electric vehicles: the need to constantly check the battery levels of the car. The solution offered by ChargeBest Attendant is an app that automatically finds the best time and place for the next charging stop by matching the car’s needs to the driver’s individual behavior. This way, charging becomes a seamless part of the journey — not an additional hassle.
How did you come up with the idea?
In order to handle a vehicle or prepare a trip, the driver has to process a lot of information, partly consciously, partly unconsciously. Looking at the Auto API on the NEXT OI platform, we discovered ways to combine some of this data to automate certain tasks. In this case: the interaction between driver and an electric vehicle to make charging easier.
What do you like about the Porsche NEXT OI Competition?
We simply like the task. Also, the platform is an ideal workspace for innovative project development. We were impressed by the variety of mentors who were available for questions. The encouraging, constructive and demanding feedback in the individual steps has helped a lot to keep the project on track and to give it a focused direction.
What’s your #nextvisions?
A central topic will be reducing the complexity experienced by the user. We believe that we will see more and more digital assistance systems in all areas of life and that the most convenient of these assistants will work silently in the background and will require almost no attention from the user. To develop these assistants, we should be aware of AI skills ready to use and combine this knowledge with design thinking methods.
GHOST-feel it: Race Perception
Ghost-feel it: Race Perception is an app that enhances the driver experience and provides the driver with more information about their driving performance via haptic feedback directly into the driver’s seat. Learning about their performance from the responsive vibrations within the structure of the seat itself, drivers can not only feel like racing car drivers while driving, but can enjoy a safer journey too.
How did you come up with the idea?
Our mission is to enhance all machine-human-communications using the sense of touch. We started in the medical sector to make amputees feel their prosthesis, but we want to enhance products in other industries as well. One of the problems in modern cars is the detachment from the car itself — you don’t feel the speed or road conditions anymore. We want to help recreate the driving experience and give the driver an exclusive brand feeling.
What do you like about the Porsche NEXT OI Competition?
What’s great about the NEXT OI competition is the possibility to quickly show how the future of cars and API communication in the automotive sector can look (or in our case: feel) like due to the emulator. We also like the open-mindedness of the jury: Our idea is not very ‘typical’ for such a contest, but the jury is open to think outside the box and see the potential of our idea — and now gave us the chance to prove them right. There’s one more thing: As an all-girls team it is sometimes hard to be taken seriously in the tech environment. However, in the Porsche NEXT OI competition, we always felt like respected and not once belittled or not taken seriously!
What’s your #nextvisions?
To us, the next big thing is haptic feedback included as a common channel for machine-human-communication. We want to use the full potential of haptic feedback and enhance the human perception doing so.
Way Ahead Technology
The app from Way Ahead Technology tracks, maps and visualizes real driving live and in 3D. It makes sophisticated augmented reality features for Head-Up-Displays and Virtual-Cockpits possible in order to significantly enhance the driving experience. The technology can also transform the driving data into a 3D environment and generate a highly accurate replay for interactive analyzing, comparing and stunning experiences.
How did you come up with the idea?
It all started when Roger, our founder, was not quite happy with the functionality of the lane assistant in his car. So he decided to develop a prototype for a better lane detection system. Working on that, the system got extended with tracking and mapping functionality and became very accurate. More and more, we saw great possibilities for visualization features, especially for real-time and analyzing solutions in augmented and mixed reality.
What do you like about the Porsche NEXT OI Competition?
It’s great to directly work with the APIs and come up with new ideas and concepts that can actually help shape the future driving experience. Also, the competition enables us to come up with solutions that extend the driving and brand experience beyond the car itself. And now we can get in contact with Porsche to present our work in a straightforward and uncomplicated way.
What’s your #nextvisions?
We strongly believe that the combination of virtual and real will play an even more important role in the future and that it’ll strongly influence the future driving experience. The accelerating development and adoption of ever better virtual cockpits and head-up displays will enable new and previously unthinkable possibilities. It will help to drive in poor visibility, to improve driving skills and also to save energy consumption. At last, this will make driving more secure, less exhausting, more efficient and ultimately more fun!
