The BECOM INNOVATION AWARD 2023 goes to...

The aim of the award is to strengthen the partnership between HTL Pinkafeld and BECOM; in the future, students will be invited on stage to present their innovative ideas. A total of 31 HTL Pinkafeld students entered, from which ten diploma theses were initially selected. From these, the expert external jury then chose the five finalists. The five best project groups were invited to the BECOM site in Hochstrass for the final evaluation and subsequent awards ceremony.

At the ceremony held in the late afternoon of 23 May 2023, three teams stood out from the rest. They landed on the winners' podium based on their project work, assessed under the criteria of documentation, degree of innovation, engagement, market opportunities, readiness for implementation, complexity of technologies, presentation and overall impression.  The winner's trophy and 2,000 euros went to the project group entitled "Ball Blaster – Conception and Implementation of an Automated Football Machine". Second place and 1,000 euros was secured by the project group entitled "Development and Integration of a Reconnaissance Drone and Landing Platform for a Remote-Control Model Car". And just a few points behind, the group entitled "Pictobot Learning Robot" was delighted to snag third place and 500 euros.

The award ceremony took place in a festive setting, in BECOM’s own production hall in Hochstrass. On behalf of the BECOM management (consisting of Johann, Roman, Johannes Bock and Manfred Hofer), Johannes Bock welcomed renowned representatives from the worlds of politics and business. This was followed by an inspirational lecture given by Dejan Stojanovic on the topic of "The Power of Failure – The Advantages of a Positive Error Culture".

 The awards were presented by Dr. Leonhard Schneemann, President of IV-Burgenland, Mag. Adelheid Adelwöhrer, and the owner and Managing Director of BECOM, KR Ing. Johann Bock.

Regional Minister Dr. Schneemann was delighted with the innovative ideas presented in Burgenland by the young participants, and emphasised that the State of Burgenland is always happy to support bold young entrepreneurs. The director of HTL Pinkafeld, Prof. Lercher, expressed his gratitude for the institute’s long-standing partnership with BECOM as well as with the State of Burgenland.  "We’d like to say a big thank you to the numerous students who took part in our award. I myself was a student at HTL Pinkafeld and know how much work goes into your projects. For this reason, I am delighted to present you with these awards today," emphasised Mr Bock.

As a technical highlight, BECOM presented its "Time-of-Flight Multi Camera System", one of the company’s showcase products. Thanks to the camera system, users can safely measure and reliably analyse people and objects, as well as view 3D images of the scene in real time. Industrial image processing is an increasingly important component of modern production processes.

In industries such as logistics and packaging, for example, the Multi Camera System's 3D images can efficiently and accurately support packaging, box filling, volume detection and stacking.

Top-class jury:

• Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dipl. Wirtsch.-Ing. Wilfried Sihn (Managing Director of Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH and board member of the Institute for Management Sciences, Industrial Engineering and Systems Planning at the Vienna University of Technology)
• Ing. Mag. Hubert Schuhleitner (former CEO of the ZKW Group and member of the supervisory and advisory boards of various industrial companies)
• Matthias Klein (Managing Director at Schubert System Elektronik GmbH and CEO at mk Management&Consulting)
• Jürgen Antonitsch (CEO and owner of Beyond Horizon Thinking and Automotive Cooperations and Technology at Easelink, former CTO of the ZKW Group, member of the supervisory board of various industrial companies)
• Ing. Mag. Johannes Bock (Managing Director of the BECOM Group)

1st prize: "Ball Blaster (DJA)", Andreas Vollnhofer, David Heissenberger, Jakob Schlögl

2nd prize: "Interactive Cave Exploration System", Vanessa Glatz, András Szabolcs, Jan-Fabio Mikikits, Lukas Berger, Simon Stimpfl

3rd prize: "Pictobot Learning Robot", Daniel Taucher, Arben Demaj, Elias Nowak