Oct 27, 2023
Prestigious UNIPRENEURS Founders Award for Prof. Karl Leo
Outstanding professors are honored for their commitment to spin-offs and entrepreneurship at universities
UNIPRENEURS, the initiative to strengthen spin-offs from universities in Germany, honors 20 outstanding professors. TU Dresden presents three award winners this year: Prof. Frank Buchholz, Prof. Gerhard Fettweis and Prof. Karl Leo. With 700 nominations from founders, UNIPRENEURS is the largest award for the promotion of entrepreneurship in higher education and research. The initiative is under the aegis of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. The award ceremony was held in Berlin on September 6, 2023 by the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, and Dr. Anna Christmann, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Startups at the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Partner organizations of UNIPRENEURS are the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the German Startups Association, Bitkom and AddedVal.io.
"The award winners demonstrate that research excellence and start-ups from universities are not opposites, but complement each other perfectly. Their award is a great motivation to continue on this path of success," underlines Andreas Pinkwart, who holds the Chair for Innovation and Technology Management at TU Dresden and attended the award ceremony as an official representative of TUD.
The UNIPRENEURS professors are highly respected authorities at their respective universities and have made significant contributions to the transfer of innovation to industry. The professors represent the highest research achievements in engineering, economics, natural sciences, computer science and medicine. Together, the UNIPRENEURS have supported over 1,200 startups as mentors, advisors or investors. More than half of the professors honored have founded startups themselves.
Award Winner Prof. Karl Leo
The physicist Prof Karl Leo combines as a Pioneer of organic semiconductor electronics scientific excellence with entrepreneurial instinct. The 63-year-old has held the Chair of Optoelectronics at Dresden University of Technology since 1993 and is also the director of the Institute of Applied Physics and the "Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials (IAPP)", an interdisciplinary association for bundling research efforts on organic semiconductors at TUD. He is an internationally renowned expert in the field of organic semiconductors, which is reflected in numerous highly endowed awards and prizes, including the Leibniz Prize (2002), the German Future Prize (2011), the Blaise Pascal Medal (2021) and the European Inventor Award 2021 in the category "Lifetime Achievement". His pioneering work in the field of organic semiconductors led to the development of highly efficient, low-cost organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), which are now installed in smartphone or TV displays all over the world. Leo works with his team to further develop other highly efficient organic semiconductor devices such as solar cells, transistors and sensors. Through his entrepreneurial instinct, Leo turned much of this work into successful spin-offs, contributing significantly to the expansion of Germany's Silicon Saxony high-tech network. He also co-founded the world's largest regional network on organic semiconductors: Organic Electronics Saxony. Since 1999, he has established eight start-ups, including such successful companies as Novaled and Heliatek. For Karl Leo, it is his own inner drive, the intrinsic motivation and at the same time joy of transferring his groundbreaking research results directly into application: "It is simply great when you see your scientific work having an effect in practice. In this way, we can give something back to the society that finances us and we open up many perspectives for young, talented people. The UNIPRENEURS award is a wonderful confirmation for everyone involved from my team, in the companies and of course for myself."
Information on UNIPRENEURS:
UNIPRENEURS has made it its business to promote entrepreneurship at German universities. In cooperation with renowned partner organizations such as the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the German Startups Association, Bitkom and AddedVal.io, UNIPRENEURS was able to launch an unprecedented initiative that honors the best professors for their outstanding achievements in the field of university spin-offs. Already today, about a quarter of all German startups are created in university and research-related environments. The German research landscape has enormous potential; in terms of patents and scientific publications of relevance to the global market, Germany occupies one of the top positions in an international comparison. Entrepreneurial thinking at universities and initiatives for more spin-offs constitute a crucial tool for exploiting this potential.
The UNIPRENEURS initiative aims to identify and reward academic pioneer entrepreneurs. Founders are given the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial creativity through various channels and inspire others. This can be realized through events, business plan competitions, independent entrepreneurial initiatives, application-oriented research or personal commitment in the entrepreneurial field. In the medium term, the initiative is also expected to contribute to anchoring the topic of "entrepreneurial university" more broadly in the management bodies of universities. UNIPRENEURS is intended to make a significant contribution to the implementation of the coalition agreement, the German government's start-up strategy and the future strategy for research and innovation in the area of spin-off culture. https://www.unipreneurs.de/
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