Two members of the Software-Cluster strategy board honored for merits in technology transfer

Darmstadt/Dietzenbach - The Society for the Advancement of Technology Transfer (GFFT) honored two members of the Software-Cluster strategy board today, that had a professional career filled with outstanding contributions promoting the transfer of their research findings to commercial products and services: Professors Scheer and Wahlster. In the context of the 5th Annual Meeting on March 18, 2011 in Dietzenbach, the society presented an honorary membership to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster, scientific director and CEO of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Also presented with an honorary membership was the BITKOM President, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer.

With this prestigious honor, the GFFT highlights Prof. Wahlster's extraordinary efforts on the road from scientific discovery to economic innovation. As CEO since 1988, he has established DFKI as one of the world's major research centers for the computer sciences. In doing so, he many times was able to take the latest research findings, especially, in the area of multimodal user interaction and language comprehension systems, and successfully bring them from the research lab to the market place. Together with industry partners, a great many products have been developed that have firmly established Germany's leading position in selected fields of I&C technology. Professor Wahlster, who holds a chair in computer science at Saarland University, has been a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects the Nobel Prize winners for physics and chemistry since 2003. He is also a member of the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences, acatech and the academies in Mainz and Berlin-Brandenburg.

Professor Scheer was made an honorary member for his singular record of lifetime achievement. First and foremost, with this honor, GFFT recognizes his incomparable success in the realization of sustainable flow of knowledge from basic research through applied research to technological realization, application, and global marketing. Prof. Scheer taught at Saarland University from 1975 to 2006 and in 2002, he founded one of the leading institutes for information systems in Germany, which today is an integral part of DFKI. In 1984 he founded the international software development and consulting firm, IDS Scheer and, in 1997, established another company called IMC, where he is currently serving as chairman of the board. As the founder of Scheer Group as a network of businesses, Professor August-Wilhelm Scheer is financially engaged in the separate companies. Since 2007, Scheer has served as president of the high-tech association BITKOM and as vice president of BDI. He is also a member of the senate of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the senate of the Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften, and an active member of the research alliance of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Professors Scheer and Wahlster both sit on the strategy board of the software cluster, the leading edge cluster for software innovation designated by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The software cluster supports and promotes research institutes and SME IT companies that are developing the next generation of enterprise software in a paradigm shift in the software industry to open service oriented software platforms and networked software providers.

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