The heir to Korea’s largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor, said on Thursday that the company’s future is in driving technology innovation for humanity, stressing its rationale behind works for future mobility.

“Cities and mobility services were developed for humans from the very beginning,” said Chung Euisun, executive vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Group at the Mobility Innovators Forum 2019, held in San Francisco.

“That’s why we are making a wide range of efforts to study a human-centered future from a broader humanities perspective.” 

Hyundai Motor Group believes that technology and innovation should be directed towards serving the needs of people, the company said in a statement. Human-centered mobility was also the theme of the year for the forum to explore new mobility concepts aimed at serving the need of people and prosperity of their communities.

As part of its goal, the carmaker has set up an advisory group for its human-centered city project consisting of experts from various fields such as engineering, urban planning and psychology. Since early this year, the organization has been developing a blueprint for future cities. Its research report, “2050 Future City Project,” will be published by next year to serve as a guideline for future smart city development.

The Mobility Innovators Forum 2019 is a conference hosted by Hyundai CRADLE to bring together experts in the field of technology, energy, policy, design, for a wide range of discussion on future mobility.

Speakers included architect Peter Calthorpe, H2Energy chairman of the board Rolf Huber and head of Uber Elevate Eric Allison, as well as Rimac Automobili founder and CEO Mate Rimac and Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan. Executive Vice Chairman Chung was a keynote speaker, the company said.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)