Three Awards, Two Anniversaries, One Bedrock of the Organization

A look back at the 2018 Steinbeis Night

Two numbers stood out at this year’s Steinbeis Night at the Stuttgart Liederhalle Arts and Convention Center. It was the 15th time that the Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award – the Löhn Award – was bestowed. This prize for outstanding technology transfer projects goes back to 2004. And after 35 years of service, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Johann Löhn, the name behind the award and the founder of Steinbeis, bade farewell in the course of the evening and bowed out of everyday business. A variety of Steinbeis directors, customers, former prizewinners, and partners of the Steinbeis Network attended the Steinbeis Night in Stuttgart.

15 years of the Steinbeis Foundation Transfer Award. 15 years of some amazing partnerships with prizewinners. Year after year, a variety of Steinbeis Enterprises and project partners from industry have shown just how much ambition, commitment, and tenacity goes into their shared projects – and that keeping going is worth it. Numerous winners continue their successful partnership after winning the award, and for some the prize is a starting pistol for embarking on new projects (see the focal topic section starting on page 5).

The prize-winning gene is also in the blood of the 2018 winners, as became clear (even to laypeople in the audience) when Steinbeis showed the award films on the projects at the award ceremony. As for this year’s Transfer Awards, they also went to two deserving projects. One project honored with the Löhn Award was a successful joint venture aimed at promoting communication beyond the walls of companies. The alliance comprising Bosch Rexroth, Festo, Sercos International, Steinbeis Embedded Systems Technologies, and the Steinbeis Transfer Center for Systems Engineering received the award for the development of a diagnostic platform for communication systems used in automation technology. The 2018 Löhn Award was also bestowed in acknowledgement of the development of a real-time control system for car drive chain test beds. The solution, which adds a highly realistic dimension to vehicle testing, was co-developed by Daimler and Traffic Engineering.Simulation. Software, the Steinbeis Transfer Center. For more information on these two projects, turn to the Feature Topic section of this edition of TRANSFER.

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After the award ceremony, all eyes turned to the man on the stage who gave his name to the award. This was the man who as a Steinbeis honorary trustee member of the jury has helped pick countless prizewinners since 2004. Johann Löhn is not only the embodiment of the Transfer Award, he represents everything the Steinbeis Network has become today. He laid the foundation stone for all of this in 1983, subsequently building and expanding the Steinbeis Network on a national and international level. Until 2004 he also headed up the organization as Chairman of the Executive Board. Löhn was president of Steinbeis University since its foundation in 1998, and on withdrawing from office in 2018 he also considered it the right time to step down from day-today duties. Steinbeis executive board members Prof. Dr. Michael Auer and Manfred Mattulat joined trustee board chairman Dr.-Ing. Leonhard Vilser in expressing their gratitude to Johann Löhn in the form of a Steinbeis award in recognition of 35 years with Steinbeis. This award is bestowed in recognition of Steinbeisers who have worked on particularly successful projects, or Steinbeisers of a particular character or attitude, or Steinbeisers who have earned a reputation as a role model of outstanding service. The only question was, how do you delight somebody who already has so many trophies and awards that there’s almost no more place in his trophy case? With a substance that’s simply irresistible for a man like Löhn: marzipan. After the official thank-yous, the audience then expressed its high esteem for Johann Löhn in spectacular fashion and said a long farewell as he descended from the stage – with many rounds of standing ovation.

After the somewhat emotional award ceremony, the evening then turned to the more informal part as the lounge area and bar beckoned. As usual there was then enjoyable music from the Silvio Dalla Brida Band. Some took to the dance floor, while others enjoyed conversation with the many guests from home and abroad as the evening gradually drew to a close.

Contact

Anja Reinhardt
Steinbeis Foundation (Stuttgart)
www.steinbeis-tag.de | www.loehn-preis.de