Competition seeks automotive engineering talent of the future
11 April 2012
The Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award 2012 is calling for university students to enter this automotive industry talent search competition. The 2012 winner will be rewarded with a work experience package comprising one month at each of the contest sponsors – Jaguar Land Rover, McLaren Automotive, Peugeot, Skoda and Toyota – as well as £7500 cash.
Last year's winner, Oliver Brunt
To enter the competition, students need to answer, in no more than 500 words, a brief set by Autocar editor-in-chief Steve Cropley and submit their entry via the Autocar-Courland Next Generation website by 31 August 2012.
The brief states: "Describe an improvement (be it an invention, innovation, a legislative change, a change to corporate policy or the adoption of a new convention) which you believe would be a worthwhile benefit to the UK automotive business. You will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of how such an improvement could be made viable and what the wider implications of it might be.”
Submissions will be welcomed from all disciplines, including – but not limited to – engineering, marketing and communications, design and media. Special credit will be given to the originality of entrants’ suggestions.
The six best entrants will attend a judging day at the home of Autocar, where they will have the chance to present their ideas to a panel of leading industry figures. Three finalists will be invited to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders’ annual dinner on 27 November, where the winner will be announced.
The 2011 winner, Oliver Brunt (pictured), an industrial design student at Northumbria University, is currently in the midst of his work experience prize. He has already completed one month at McLaren and is shortly to start his month at Peugeot. His winning idea combines a new kind of active head-up display, known as SHUD – Social Heads-Up Display – that uses sophisticated graphics and can employ the whole of a car’s screen as its ‘canvas’. The SHUD system conveys a new level of real-time car-to-car communication to provide drivers with a much better standard of information, presented more attractively and without distraction.