Our New Theme: "The new route of efficiency in the Turkish automotive industry:"
“Industrial Mobility”
“At the point reached today, technology is radically transforming not only sectors but also ways of doing business and value chains. The digital revolution taking place in every field, from space exploration to energy, from health technologies to environmental planning, is carrying the automotive industry into a new era as well. Today, the automobile is no longer merely a mechanical product; it is becoming a digital platform that continuously develops with software, data, artificial intelligence, and connectivity infrastructures. Therefore, the sustainability of competitiveness in the global automotive industry will no longer be determined solely by production volume, but by design, software, and technology development competencies.
The Future of Automotive Design Competition anticipates not only the needs of today but also of tomorrow
The Turkish automotive industry holds a significant position in the global market with its strong production infrastructure and export capacity. With this vision, this major entrepreneurship platform, which we launched as the Uludağ Automotive Industry Exporters' Association (OİB) in 2012 and have continued under the name of The Future of Automotive Design Competition since 2019, has become one of the fundamental building blocks of Turkey's high value-added transformation in automotive.
Aiming to carry Turkey to a more advanced point in automotive technologies by bringing together the creativity of youth, the courage of entrepreneurs, and the experience of the industry, The Future of Automotive Design Competition is evolving by anticipating not only today's but also tomorrow's needs. For this reason, as of 2026, the theme of the competition has been determined as “Industrial Mobility.”
In this context, solutions such as autonomous vehicles, fleet management software, teleoperation, digital twins, and energy and route optimization for warehouses, ports, factories, campuses, and logistics corridors will be at the focus of the competition. The goal is to ensure that automotive technologies generate value on a global scale, not only in individual mobility but also in the fields of industrial efficiency and sustainability...
A strong startup ecosystem in 15 years
We held The Future of Automotive Design Competition, which is not merely a competition but a holistic innovation mechanism where ideas turn into projects, projects into companies, and companies reach the global market, with the theme of “Software-Defined Vehicles” on October 23 last year. In The Future of Automotive Design Competition, where we received a total of 407 project applications, the top 5 projects entitled to an award qualified to receive a total of 3.6 million TL in cash prizes, as well as a Patent Registration award and participation in the ITU Seed (İTÜ Çekirdek) Incubation Program. These projects revealed concrete examples of the software-oriented transformation in automotive, ranging from autonomous driving software to ADAS solutions, from connected vehicle platforms to artificial intelligence-based data analytics.
Meanwhile, from 2012 to the present, through The Future of Automotive Design Competition:
• Over 6,000 projects have been evaluated.
• 134 projects have been awarded.
• More than 60% of the supported startups have been incorporated.
• Total employment has exceeded 2,100.
• The total current valuation of the startups has surpassed $520 million.
These startups received investments, exported, expanded into international markets, and expanded Turkey's technology-based automotive capacity.
The awarded projects in The Future of Automotive Design Competition are not limited to cash support alone. Through our collaboration with ITU ARI Teknokent that we have maintained for years, startups are accepted into incubation centers, receive mentoring, training, and office support, meet with investors, and take the stage at the Big Bang Startup Challenge every year. In this context, 530 automotive startups have been supported to date. These startups have received a total of over $54 million in investments, their revenues have reached $28 million, and they provide employment for over 2,100 people.
We thank the Ministry of Trade, the Turkish Exporters Assembly, ITÜ ARI Teknokent, our jury members, and all our stakeholders who contributed to the creation of this vast ecosystem; and we invite all our entrepreneurs who are designing the future today to be a part of this journey.
Zeki Şafak OZAN
Chairman of the Executive Board of The Future of Automotive Design Competition