In autumn Audi AG, in cooperation with the regional procurement office of VW for Eastern Europe and HIPA (Hungarian version of SARIO), hosted in Budapest its pilot Innovation Sourcing Event in Budapest, the first of the series of two events (2nd one was held in Riga for the Baltic states) aimed to identify innovative companies and start-ups that have the potential to develop future-oriented technologies together with the German carmaker.Following a series of shortlisting rounds, the event in Budapest had 15 participants. After contacting numerous potential candidates, SARIO managed to get four Slovak companies into the final pitching round, namely Ardaco, Innovatrics, RVMagnetics and Ixworx. These companies presented their products and competences on a separate "Slovakia Day“ in front of a team of 15 experts (procurement, R&D for Audi and Volkswagen).The aim of SARIO is to follow up on this successful cooperation with a similar event organized in Bratislava as well as to restart cooperation with Audi Hungaria concerning general sourcing activities.
