From Custom-Fit Car Seats to Motion Sickness-Reducing Technology... Hyundai Motor and Kia Hold Idea Festival

Idea Festival held at Namyang R&D Center
Six teams selected through internal competition present prototypes
Evaluated by expert judges and 100 employees
Winning teams receive prize money and overseas tour opportunities

Employees of Hyundai Motor and Kia turned their ideas for future mobility innovations into real-world prototypes and competed to present them.

The 'I can do this all day' team introduces Hero Recorder, an AI log system designed for commercial vehicles, at the 2026 Idea Festival held on the 19th at Hyundai Motor Group's Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Choi Youngchan

On the 19th, Hyundai Motor and Kia held the final round of the 2026 Idea Festival at the Namyang R&D Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. The festival gives employees a chance to propose creative ideas, build working prototypes and present them.

The Idea Festival has been held annually since 2010 by Hyundai Motor and Kia's R&D Division and Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) Division.

This year's festival was held under the theme "Origins of Innovation" to mark the 30th anniversary of the completion of the Namyang R&D Center, reflect on its history of challenges, and highlight how new ideas can lead to future innovations. In April, the companies began soliciting innovative ideas from employees that would showcase new possibilities for future mobility.

After a preliminary review, Hyundai Motor and Kia provided the six teams selected for the final round with production funds and space to build their prototypes.

At the final round, the six teams each gave a presentation and demonstration: "Tri-fold Luggage Board," which improves trunk space utilization; "Hero Recorder," which captures a commercial vehicle driver's day in a one-minute video; "I-Bridge," smart glasses that help people with visual impairments walk safely; "Pin Print Seat," which changes a car seat's shape to fit a child; "Neulbom," an AI-based system for monitoring the condition of infants and young children; and "Motion Sickness Zero," which reduces motion sickness among passengers using ambient lighting and a rear-seat screen.

The final rankings were determined by five expert judges from different R&D fields and a panel of 100 employee judges, who assessed how well the projects were realized, their originality, technical suitability, customer focus and vision. Winning teams will receive prize money and opportunities to visit overseas exhibitions and production sites.

Ideas developed through the Hyundai Motor and Kia Idea Festival are expected to be applied to mass-production vehicles.

For example, the "Multi-Function Console" idea, which won the top prize at the 2021 Idea Festival, went into production as the "Two-Way Multi-Console" in the Santa Fe. "Day-Easy," which helps people with visual impairments board buses and won the grand prize at the 2023 festival, is evolving into a technology that can contribute to society, with pilot testing underway in collaboration with LG Uplus. The "Software to Improve Trailer Towing Performance," which won the top prize in 2025, has also been applied to the fifth-generation Tucson sold in North America and Europe.

This year, to foster a culture of software innovation and accelerate the AI transition, Hyundai Motor and Kia added "24H Code Race," an in-house hackathon focused on developing Pleos apps, as a sub-program of the Idea Festival.

To prepare for the hackathon, the companies began soliciting employee ideas for in-vehicle app development in July and held the program over two consecutive days and one night, from August 20 to 21.

The hackathon's grand prize went to "TaleSync," an interactive audio story app whose content changes in response to a child's reactions.

"The Idea Festival, now in its 16th year, has been a starting point for Hyundai Motor and Kia to pursue successive innovations in mobility," said Lee Jae-gyu, executive vice president in charge of Vehicle Development 1 at Hyundai Motor and Kia. "We will continue to foster innovation in our R&D culture so that we can lead the future mobility market."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.