Young engineers give reason to industry optimism
On the occasion of the celebration of the 14th Schöck Industry Forum held in Ulm, the Schöck Foundation „Eberhard-Schöck-Stiftung“ presented the Schöck Bau-Innovationspreis (Schöck Award for Innovation in Building and Construction) to four young civil engineers of the Universities of Aachen, Braunschweig, Karlsruhe and Hannover. This is an award respected by the Federal Foundation Baukultur. The award winners were selected by a top-class jury comprising professors of renowned universities in Germany and the Netherlands. The award for the young generation is supported by Schöck Bauteile GmbH based in Baden-Baden. It is endowed with € 2,500 each.
The award was presented for the thirteenth time
This year, the Schöck Award for Innovation in Building and Construction was presented for the thirteenth time. Felicitas Schöck, member of the supervisory board of Schöck AG and Vice-Chairwoman of the Schöck Foundation, opened the awards ceremony with a short opening speech and explained her father‘s motivation for this commitment. Afterwards, Harald Braasch, Board Member and Chief technology officer of Schöck, moderated the ceremony and provided interesting insights into the vita and the contributions of the respective university graduates. The award winners had the opportunity to provide the audience with a short presentation of some topics of their scientific research.
The award winners of 2013 are Dipl.-Ing. Daniela Vöcker (Leibniz Universität Hannover), Dominik Kueres, M.Sc. (RWTH Aachen University), Dipl.-Ing. Christian Lorenz (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Sebastian Schmidt, M.Sc. (Technische Universität Braunschweig).
Growing number of contributions submitted
„The number of outstanding works is increasing every year,“ Dr. Braasch, speaker of the jury, gladly states. „This might be also due to the rising number of students, after it is widely known that the demand for young engineers in the building sector has no more been met since 2005.“ Chairman of the board of management, Nikolaus Wild, was also satisfied with this development. „Therefore, we need not worry about the young generation in the industry,“ Wild summed up in his opening speech of the Industry Forum.
The awards ceremony was part of the evening event with guests invited from the precast concrete industry. Sales manager, Thomas Lange, guided through the evening. The interesting insights and outlooks in the development of the construction market in Germany, presented by Dr. Christian Kaiser of the market research company Heinze, were followed by the speech of the world-class disabled swimmer, Kirsten Bruhn, on the topic „water does not know limits“, which was a highlight. She is manifold world and European champion as well as German record champion in swimming and won several medals for Germany at the Paralympics 2012. With personality and charisma she reported on her own experience with limits in an emotional speech.
