BMW Tech Office Asia-Pacific Korea participated in NEXTRise 2024, the largest startup event in Korea, held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the 13th and 14th of this month. BMW Tech Office Asia-Pacific Korea is responsible for ideation, experiential innovation, finding partners in Korea, and technology development for new vehicles and new technologies.
Organised by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and the Korea Development Bank (KDB), Nextrise is an event that brings together startups, investors, corporations, and other industry stakeholders to share innovative technologies and know-how.
BMW Tech Office Asia-Pacific Korea has participated in NextRise every year since 2021, and this year it had a booth alongside four startups that have graduated from the BMW Startup Garage programme: DeepbrainAI, Protopie, Flow and AirConsole.
In addition to sharing their experiences of the prototyping project with BMW with visitors over the two days, the participating companies also met face-to-face with around 200 investors to pitch their new technologies and companies. One of the four participating companies, Airconsol, was a particularly successful application as it was selected as an official partner of the BMW Group after the pilot project. The company is supplying its gaming platform technology to some of BMW's current series production models, including the New 5 Series and New X2.
The BMW Group also shared its know-how in a panel discussion on the future of mobility. Kai Petrick, Head of BMW Startup Garage and New Technology Partnerships at the BMW Group, spoke to the panellists during the session on the 'Mobility Industry of the Future'.
The BMW Startup Garage, which has been running since 2015, is a programme that identifies and supports promising startups for technological innovations in next-generation mobility. The BMW Group does not just provide financial support, but also supports the start-ups by purchasing prototypes of their services and technologies to see if they can be commercialised.
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