Only seven teams remain in the Valeo Innovation Challenge to innovate the automotive industry by 2030. That list is down from an initial 1000 teams, representing over 55 countries. This puts the top prize of €100 000 ($128 000 USD) in striking distance for these young and talented university teams. All that remains is a presentation to Valeo’s jury on Thursday October 16th at the 2014 Paris Motor Show.
The Valeo Innovation Challenge is a contest open to teams of engineering students from around the world. The task is to design products or systems to make cars smarter and more intuitive by 2030.
With such an open ended problem, an interesting pattern emerged. Submitted projects appeared to reflect the leading concerns of a team’s country of origin. To illustrate, engineering students from India tend to focus on road safety while North American and European teams focused on carbon emissions and autonomous vehicles. Whatever their specific focus, however, every team aims to make the roads of 2030 safer and more ecofriendly.
The final teams include:
- Clemson University CU ICAR team (USA)
- Karlsruher Institut für Technologie AEM Team (Germany)
- Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Sadec Team (Brazil)
- University of Ottawa’s UOttawa Team (Canada)
- University of Technology Sydney’s UTS Unleashed Team (Australia)
- University of Waterloo’s Three VeMAColleagues (Canada)
- Vellore Institute of Technology Falcons Team (India)
After their presentations at the Paris Motor Show, Valeo’s CEO Jacques Aschenbroich will chair the jury of Valeo execs that will make the final selections. Aschenbroich will announce the winners at Maison de la Recherche in Paris on October 17th.
Good luck to the final seven. Win or lose, you are the future of the engineering industry.