Siemens Excellence Award: Blockchain project wins
Siemens has honored two young researchers from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts with the national Siemens Excellence Award. The CHF 10,000 prize goes to Dominik Hirzel from Rotkreuz and Andreas Schmid from Wohlen. With their work "Lokkit", the computer science graduates convinced the expert jury and prevailed against four other nominated teams.
Siegfried Gerlach, CEO Siemens Switzerland, with the two winners Dominik Hirzel and Andreas Schmid, as well as presenter Günther Jauch (from left to right). (Picture: Siemens)
One of the decisive factors for the awarding of this year's Siemens Excellence Award was the innovative approach of the two computer scientists. In an unconventional way, they found a solution that nevertheless meets all the requirements for an uncomplicated and secure locker system.
As part of their bachelor thesis "Lokkit", the diploma students designed a functional locker system that demonstrates the use of blockchain technology in the environment of the Internet of Things (IoT). The work impressively shows how digital contracts can be connected with physical reactions. With the locker system, for example, someone can rent out their premises or similar. After registration, a QR code and a Lokkit-enabled lock are attached to the space. After that, anyone can rent the space without the owner having to be there. The contract is stored digitally in the blockchain and the money, or cryptocurrency, is transferred automatically. The winners implemented the entire product development cycle from idea, use case, technology selection, architecture, software development to hardware construction.They circumvented the low processing speed of classic Ethereum blockchain transactions with a self-developed addition. This allowed them to develop a secure mechanism that enables accelerated audits. With their blockchain solution, the graduands also respond to the current trend and show how the new technology can be used. The advantages of blockchain are decentralized operation, easy integration of new partners, automatic billing and secure communication and execution.
Promoting dialogue through Generation 21
For Siegfried Gerlach, CEO of Siemens Switzerland, the promotion of young talent takes an important position: "With the Excellence Award, we want to motivate young people to work on scientific topics that can be implemented in practice." In addition to scientific achievement, the degree of innovation, social relevance and practical feasibility of the work are the main factors that count in the evaluation of the work. The Excellence Award is part of the "Generation21" education program, with which Siemens seeks dialog with the next generation and promotes young talent in the fields of science and technology.
"With this commitment, we accompany young people in their development and in their training and support them in seizing their future opportunities," says Siegfried Gerlach.
