Seoul Wins First Audi Urban Future Award 2014 Science Slam

Earlier this year the Audi Urban Future Award 2014 was announced, calling upon four teams of innovators to create a concept surrounding "The Next Leap in Mobility." At Audi's headquarters in Ingoldstadt, a "Science Slam" was held this Wednesday. At this Science Slam, each of the four teams, representing Berlin, Boston, Mexico City, and Spain, presented their idea on stage for an audience of judges.

Special emphasis has been placed on improving urban mobility for Audi's Urban Future Award 2014. What we've seen today from each of the four teams is ideas that range from the immediate future to the distant future – the whole collection presented in segments of 6 minutes or less.

Each idea presented today was an evolved version of what was presented earlier this year with the introduction of the Audi Urban Future Award 2014. Each presentation was the newest in new for the team presented in a nutshell.

ABOVE: Members of the audience vote on each presentation with a sort of Instant Runoff style, voting with Green, Yellow, or Red cards depending on how well they thought each idea was presented.

Seoul ended up coming out on top of this first segment of the tour – just the first segment, mind you, not the final award which will be given out in October of this year. This is a very good sign for Seoul who will continue to compete with the rest of the teams for the final distinction later this year.

Seoul's presentation concentrated on Korea's hotspot for urban activity: the Gangnam district. Analyzing the behavioral patterns of Gangnam's "trend setters" in order to compare mobility trends to the rest of Asia, the Seoul team aims to find the role of the mobile interface in future smart cities.

This team consists of Sung Gul Hwang, ethnographer & experience strategist; Cho Taek Yeon, ubiquitous city planner; and Yeongkyu Yoo, product designer & creative director. We look forward to seeing more from this concept for organizing a district in which 42 square kilometers currently houses more than a half-million citizens!

Above you'll see the first presentation of the Audi Urban Future Award 2014, including each of the four teams involved. Stick around as we continue to follow this project series through to the end!

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