Vienna (OTS) – The “Women’s Prize for Digitalization and Innovation” initiated by Infineon Technologies Austria and ORF was awarded for the second time on Thursday, March 7, 2024, on the eve of International Women’s Day. At the ORF media campus in Vienna, young women were once again honored for their outstanding talent in the areas of technology, digitalization and innovation.
The first prize, endowed with EUR 10,000, went to Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Mont. Helene Waldl. Your dissertation “Development of TiAlN based hard coatings applying advanced characterization methods” is about the production, characterization and optimization of hard material protective layers that are used in metal cutting tools, for example. B. be used for car and aircraft production. The most modern characterization methods, such as atom probe tomography, which is unique in Austria, or micromechanical bending tests were used to gain a better understanding of the structure-property relationship of the layers and to develop optimized layers.
Second place (EUR 5,000) went to Dipl.-Ing. Lorena Gril. The master’s thesis “Tensor-on-Tensor Regression for Human Motion Prediction in an Industrial Collaborative Setting,” which was created together with Joanneum Research, is about increasing safety in collaborative workspaces between people and robots in industrial applications. Using a tensor-based approach, a prediction model for future movements is developed based on the movement patterns of past seconds.
Third place (EUR 2,000) went to Tamara Zieher, MSc. The master’s thesis “Usability Optimization for Mobile Menu Design: An Empirical Study of Hand Grips and User Preferences” is about how user interfaces and input options for menu designs on smartphones can be optimized in order to increase user-friendliness in terms of hand grips and hand positions.
Anna Wolff, B.Sc., received the special “Tech for Green” prize for the special consideration of sustainability aspects (EUR 2,000). M.Sc. The master’s thesis “Exploratory Data Analysis with Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU): Enhancing Traditional Data Mining Algorithms with the Use of the TPU on the Example of the k-Means Algorithm” is about the k-means algorithm, which is used to One of the most prominent algorithms in data mining is to accelerate through the use of the TPU while maintaining the quality of the clustering results.
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Mont. Helene Waldl (1st prize): “The ‘Women’s Prize for Digitalization and Innovation’ is an important forum to encourage young women to pursue a career in the MINT sector. This gives us the opportunity to show the industry our skills, but also to convey to other young women how diverse and exciting this career choice can be. I am very happy and would like to thank you very much that my work was awarded first place.”
MMag.a Dr. Susanne Raab, Federal Minister for Women, Family, Integration and Media: “I want every girl and every woman in Austria to be able to shape their life the way they want and imagine it. This is especially true when it comes to choosing a career, because the time of purely male professions is over. Austria needs great female scientists, technicians and innovators and I am therefore particularly pleased to be able to accept the honorary protection for the Women’s Advancement Award for Digitalization and Innovation initiated by Infineon Austria and ORF because it offers young women a great forum to present their outstanding ideas.”
Dipl.-Ing.in Dr. Sabine Herlitschka, MBA, CEO of Infineon Technologies Austria: “Different perspectives demonstrably lead to better solutions – across all industries. That’s why I’m committed to getting women excited about technology and the natural sciences on many levels. Women are no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ in gender discussions, but are now a decisive economic and competitive factor. I am therefore very pleased about the many submissions, especially about the highly exciting presentations with innovative topics that are in tune with the times, and I warmly congratulate the award winners. They all show that technical training makes a key contribution to mastering major challenges such as green and digital transformation. This is encouraging – for more skilled workers, a better future and more and more role models who show others what opportunities are opening up – personally and socially.”
Dr. Harald Kräuter, ORF director for technology and digitalization:
“No other area influences our society and our lives as much, so quickly and so sustainably as the MINT sector. No other area is so attractive, so challenging, so exciting for young women who want to actively participate in shaping the digital world. The great interest, with around 70 submissions, in the ‘Women’s Prize for Digitalization and Innovation’, which we have awarded together with Infineon Austria for the second time, underlines this in the long term. I am deeply impressed by the diversity, inventiveness and expertise of the submitted works and would like to warmly congratulate the award winners.”
Closing event and awards ceremony
As part of a closing event moderated by Mag.a Ute Pichler (ORF Kärnten) at the ORF media campus in Vienna, the “Women’s Advancement Prize” was awarded, under the honorary protection of the Federal Minister for Women, Family, Integration and Media, MMag.a Dr. Susanne Raab for Digitalization and Innovation” was awarded for the second time. First, five finalists nominated by an expert advisory board presented their submitted works to an expert jury, which then selected the prize winners.
The celebratory award ceremony took place immediately afterwards. The awards were presented by MMag.a Dr. Susanne Raab (Federal Minister for Women, Family, Integration and Media), Dipl.-Ing.in Dr. Sabine Herlitschka, MBA (CEO of Infineon Technologies Austria) and Dr. Harald Kräuter (ORF Director of Technology and Digitalization), presented.
The members of the jury made up of experts
The jury consisted of the following members:
Mag.a Silvia Angelo (CEO ÖBB Infrastructure AG), Dr. Henrietta Egerth-Stadlhuber (CEO Austrian Research Promotion Agency), Mag.a Elisabeth Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß (CEO Fronius), Dr. Andreas Heindl (ORF Strategic Planning and Administration), Dipl.-Ing.in Dr. Sabine Herlitschka, MBA (Chairwoman of Infineon Technologies Austria AG), Dr. Georg Krause (CEO msg Plaut Austria GmbH), Axel Kühner (CEO ASK Management), Dr. Harald Kräuter (ORF Director for Technology and Digitalization), Dipl.-Ing.in Carina Lehmal (first place winner of the first women’s sponsorship award, Graz University of Technology), Manuela Lindlbauer, MBA (entrepreneur), Mag. Günther Mayr (ORF Science), Univ .-Prof.in Dipl.-Ing.in Dr.in M.Sc. Sonja Wogrin (Professor TU Graz) and Mag.a Christiana Zenkl (Head of HR Infineon Technologies Austria AG).
About the “Women’s Prize for Digitalization and Innovation”
The prize, which is being offered for the second time by Infineon Austria and ORF, aims to motivate young female talent to deal with technical issues relating to digitalization and innovation as part of their training, to promote their entry into technical careers and to encourage more young women overall to get excited about technology.
Around 70 participants submitted their departmental, bachelor’s, master’s or dissertations in the fields of information and communication technologies, technology and natural sciences, media systems and creative technologies.
Further information is available at extra.ORF.at.