'2026 MFields Festa & Invention Day' held at Yongin research center

About 650 ideas submitted this year; cumulative total tops 6,400 over seven years

Company vows to accelerate push into future mobility market on strength of technology

Hyundai Mobis President Lee Kyu-seok (center) poses with winners of the top idea awards at the "2026 MFields Festa & Invention Day" ceremony. [Hyundai Mobis]
Hyundai Mobis President Lee Kyu-seok (center) poses with winners of the top idea awards at the "2026 MFields Festa & Invention Day" ceremony. [Hyundai Mobis]

Hyundai Mobis held a technology innovation festival bringing together research and development achievements — from employee idea generation to patent creation — to foster a stronger R&D culture across the company.

The autoparts maker announced Monday that it hosted the "2026 MFields Festa & Invention Day" at its technology research center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

The event combined two internal programs: MFields Festa, the company's in-house idea festival, and Invention Day, an initiative to promote intellectual property sharing and inventive activity. This year's edition was expanded in scale to give employees a shared forum to celebrate achievements spanning the entire R&D cycle — from idea generation and advanced technology research to product development, mass production application and patent creation.

Hyundai Mobis operates an internal idea platform called MFields to surface new employee ideas and channel them into business and R&D initiatives. This year, about 650 ideas were submitted, centered on core future mobility fields including electrification, automotive electronics, chassis and safety, and software. Since the platform launched in 2020, the cumulative number of proposals has reached more than 6,400.

At the event, Hyundai Mobis shared the results of employee idea submissions and selected the year's top proposals. Five finalists — chosen through internal recommendations and verification by relevant departments — presented the development background and technical differentiation of their ideas. About 300 employees in attendance cast real-time votes to select the best idea of the year.

Two ideas took top honors this year: an "AVN-AR driving assistance system based on color visualization of surrounding vehicle relative speed," which displays the movements of nearby vehicles in color to help drivers intuitively identify hazardous situations, and a "generative AI-based augmented reality traffic regulation guidance system," which uses generative AI to provide real-time traffic law information tailored to driving conditions.

Hyundai Mobis President Lee Kyu-seok attended the event to present awards and encourage employees. Awards were also given to employees who achieved outstanding results in R&D and intellectual property, including honors for outstanding patents, employee inventions, top designer and IP contribution.

The venue also featured an exhibition space showcasing top ideas, patents and collaboration cases. Hands-on booths displayed prototype versions of selected ideas, allowing employees to experience firsthand how an idea evolves into actual technology, a product and ultimately a patent.

Hyundai Mobis has also been strengthening its intellectual property capabilities. The company filed more than 7,300 new patents over the past three years, of which about 44 percent relate to eco-friendly and future technologies. Its cumulative patent holdings surpassed 10,000 as of the end of last year.

Hyundai Mobis also runs an employee invention performance reward program to encourage inventive activity. Since 2020, the company has selected and recognized outstanding patents applied to mass-produced products, supporting the commercialization and rights protection of R&D outcomes.

"We will continue to expand support so that employees' original ideas and R&D achievements can translate into core technologies and intellectual property in the future mobility sector," a Hyundai Mobis official said.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Mobis held the second edition of its automotive semiconductor forum, "Auto Semicon Korea," at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seoul Pangyo in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday, where it announced plans to develop 13 domestically produced automotive system semiconductors.


likehyo85@heraldcorp.com