• MQ! Innovation Summit: digital for the first time
  • Board Member for Personnel, Sabine Maassen: “Making ideas into reality, between challenges and opportunities”
  • Digital discussion forums give depth to keynote speakers’ diverse views of future mobiliasty
Experts discuss future mobility at the digital MQ! Innovation Summit

With #neverstopquestioning as the motto, this year once again Audi invited international experts to a digital discussion on the future of mobility. The core questions remain: is there a “mobility quotient” (MQ), like an IQ? And how can it be measured? How will we define sustainable mobility in the future? How can customers’ needs best be integrated into product development? These are just a few of the questions that 1,500 participants from 70 countries, as well as external and internal experts, considered in various digital formats over the past two days.

“In my opinion, it is incredibly exciting to work in tech today. With all the challenges – and opportunities – that we face, there is a lot of space to realize your own visions. Audi is a place where we embrace change”, said Sabine Maassen, Board Member of AUDI AG for Personnel and Organization in her concluding talk. At the two-day event, opened by Audi CEO Markus Duesmann, international keynote speakers provided forward-looking impulses for an intense discussion of various aspects of future mobility. The topics were then explored in greater depth in digital discussion forums, and debated by external experts and Audi’s own experts. The focus was on user experience of mobility services, the potential of artificial intelligence, and battery technologies.

In his keynote, Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, looked at the ethical components of artificial intelligence. He warned about the increasing influence of intelligent algorithms in social media and advocated a conscious use of technology platforms.

Harper Reed, a technologist, entrepreneur and hacker, addressed this challenge: “AI doesn’t learn like humans. It creates alien knowledge. And creates results we don’t expect.”

Anna Nixon, an expert on robotics and co-founder of STEM4Girls (STEM: science, technology, engineering, mathematics) explained the importance of remaining curious – as an adult, too: “It’s not about having the right answers, it’s about asking the right questions. If we are not asking enough questions, we miss out on a lot of information and opportunities.”

Professor Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of the Udacity online academy and Kitty Hawk, a maker of electric aircraft, sees enormous potential for innovation in the future: “Only one percent of interesting things have been invented yet. There are more than 99% that have not even been invented and thought of – the sky is the limit.”

Recordings of highlights of the keynotes and discussions can be accessed at www.the-mobility-quotient.com.

At the MQ! Innovation Summit, leading thinkers from the fields of business and science discuss whether there is a mobility quotient (MQ), like an IQ. This core question has occupied participants since the first MQ! Innovation Summit. The MQ! Innovation Summit was initiated in 2017 with #neverstopquestioning as its motto, and was held on an international basis in Beijing for the first time last year.