And the Winners are...

As part of the Elektor Live! event staged on November 21, 2009 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, prizes were awarded for the first edition of the Elektor Foundation Award. Over the past months, members of Elektor’s international editorial team examined their local markets and nominated people and companies for the Award. The selection was based not just on erudition in the field, but also on the nominees’ very own ways of using electronics, now and in the past, to make a contribution to society that matters. This criterion was found back in all winners:

• Mr Peter Hossfeld from Holland for rigging up an emergency 80m transmitter during the great flood of 1953;

• the DigitalSTROM organisation from Switzerland for applying chip technology to rigorously reduce the power consumption of household appliances

• Mrs Fatma Zeynep Köksal from Turkey for her network and activities to promote electronics and other technologies in her country;

• Bart Huyskens from Belgium for his tireless effort in working with robots with a view to stimulate young people, and now awarded with rising student numbers for his school.

The registered aim of the Elektor Foundation is “to generate, on a global scale, free publicity and goodwill for projects and people who have accomplished extraordinary achievements towards technology and electronics”.