This year’s evening event, which followed the traditional Steinbeis Day, showed what happens when traditions meet visions. Around 600 guests from Germany and abroad were invited to the Beethoven Hall at Stuttgart’s Liederhalle convention center. The evening revolved around honors awarded to long-standing members of the Steinbeis Network, the bestowal of the Löhn Award (the Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award) and the premiere of a Steinbeis film called Early Birds.
Long-term company success always revolves around its employees. We traditionally recognize this at our Steinbeis Evening. As in the past, Prof. Dr. Michael Auer and Manfred Mattulat, both members of the Steinbeis board, thanked a multitude of Steinbeis members for their 20 to 30 years of commitment to the Steinbeis Network.
Three project teams and one special award winner received this year’s Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award – the Lohn Award – in recognition of their contributions to outstanding transfer. The award has been bestowed since 2004 for exceptionally successful projects carried out by Steinbeis Enterprises and their project partners in which they transfer know-how and technology into business. The prize money totals up to €60,000 to go towards future-oriented, innovative projects with a bearing on transfer. The degree of project success is a key criteria for winning the award, based on the quality of the transfer process and the recognizable transfer potential. Special prizes are sometimes also awarded for projects, services, and contributions worthy of particular acclaim. The Lohn Award was initiated in honor of the work of Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Johann Lohn, former chairman of the board and current honorary trustee.
This year, the Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award for outstanding technology transfer projects was awarded to the Steinbeis Transfer Center eyetrial, part of the Institute for Ophthalmic Research in Tubingen, for its collaboration with VISUS GmbH (Herrenberg). This resulted in the development of standardized conditions for testing visual contrast. An award was also given to the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Energy-Efficient Power Electronics for Electrical Drives and Power Storage Systems (Aschaffenburg) and Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH (Darmstadt). The two project partners successfully optimized raw data analysis and the precise measurement of electric drives. Steinbeis Interagierende Systeme GmbH (Esslingen) and Daimler AG (Stuttgart) also received the 2015 transfer award. Their two teams of experts developed an innovative testing environment and software systems for modern driver assistance systems. This year’s special prize was awarded to Prof. Dr. habil. Hans Jobst Pleitner. The Steinbeis Foundation honored Prof. Pleitner for his outstanding contributions to the development of Steinbeis University Berlin, acting as a role model who reflects the very values of science, transfer, and society as a whole.
As all good things come in threes, there was a third highlight at the Steinbeis Evening. The Beethoven Hall was transformed into a movie theater and the curtains opened on a short Steinbeis film called Early Birds. It felt just like a grand movie premiere. The young actors Lilly and Louis Haussermann, who performed in the main roles of the movie produced by Rolf Heiler, also talked about their adventures during filming (more on the movie on page 47).
A Steinbeis Evening never ends without looking forward to the next year: The 2016 Steinbeis Day will take place on 30 September 2016, as usual in the Liederhalle convention center in Stuttgart.
For more information about this year’s Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award winners, simply flip through the next few pages. Entry forms for the 2016 award can be downloaded on the website at the end of January 2016 (www.loehn-preis.de).
Steinbeis Foundation (Stuttgart)
stw@steinbeis.de
www.loehn-preis.de