GAMIC was created in 2008 out of a partnership between what is now SAE International and the MI Innovation Alliance. GAMIC’s mission is to identify innovative companies, cultivate new technologies and solutions, and hasten their adoption into the automotive and mobility industries. Historically, in the automotive space, that timeline could take up to 15 years; GAMIC has worked to cut that time in half.
The competition is designed to best source and evaluate new technologies and the companies behind them, and then to introduce those companies to top-level OEM decision-makers. By doing this, those companies are able to bypass the multiple stages of screening and blocking that typically cause the extended time period for new automotive technologies to reach commercialization.
Going into its 16th year, GAMIC has grown from a small, Detroit-based event into an eight-month long, international competition with Quarter-Final rounds taking place in-person and virtually at locations in Metro Detroit; Silicon Valley; Ontario, Canada and Europe.
The event has attracted participants from Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and from across the United States. .
GAMIC partners with more than 200 startup and technology support organizations around the world. In addition, over 50 competition coaches and advisors participate in the event to provide guidance and feedback to the companies which make it to the Semi-Final and Final rounds each year.
The competition has annually awarded over $300,000 of in-kind commercialization services and cash stipends to its award winners, who compete in different categories that match up with the technology innovation sectors that automotive companies are in demand for. As a result, those award winners and finalists have gone on to sign OEM / Tier I contracts; enter serial production; reach licensing, ink strategic partnership or research agreements; and/or raise more than $ 170M USD in investment capital.