State Chancellery receives computer scientists from Saarland University

Last week the State Chancellery of Saarland invited nine computer scientists to a reception in order to thank them for their commitment to the competition “Landmarks in the Land of Ideas”. Three Saarbrücken computer science projects in the areas of dependable systems, bioinformatics and cybersecurity were able to prevail among almost 1500 applications. Thus, the Saarland Informatics Campus received the title “Excellent Place in the Land of Ideas” three times this year.

“Special achievements deserve special recognition,” said Ammar Alkassar, Commissioner for Innovation and Strategy at the State Chancellery before an audience of about 25 people. He represented Prime Minister Tobias Hans. So far, there have been 75 Saarland laureates in the nationwide competition: “a number that is impressive,” said Alkassar to the award winners.

After further thank-you speeches, presented by Anke Müller of “Germany – Land of Ideas” and Jürgen Heid as a representative of Deutsche Bank, Alkassar congratulated the recipient personally in the presence of University President Professor Manfred Schmitt.

These included Nora Muscholl, Gregory Stock, Gilles Nies and Professor Holger Hermanns of the Computer Science Department for the project “On the back burner through space”; Lara Schneider, Tim Kehl and Professor Hans-Peter Lenhof of the Center for Bioinformatics for the project “DrugTargetInspector – Computer program for cancer therapy” and Stefan Nürnberger from the CISPA Helmholtz Center of Information Security for the project “VatiCAN – No chance for car hackers”.

A high-caliber jury had previously selected the Saarbrücken projects from among nearly 1,500 submitted applications as three of 100 outstanding projects for the annual theme “Connecting Worlds – Strengthening Cohesion”. The initiative “Germany – Land of Ideas” and Deutsche Bank have been staging the innovation competition together for 13 years. Since 2015, the Saarland Informatics Campus has been an award recipient every year, and has won a total of seven times.

More information:

DrugTargetInspector
https://dti.bioinf.uni-sb.de/
On the back burner through space
https://www.powver.org/optimal-power-in-outer-space/
VatiCAN
http://www.automotive-security.net/vatican

Questions can be directed to:
Lara Schneider
Center for Bioinformatics
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarland University
Tel.: +49 681 302-68614
E-mail: lschneider@bioinf.uni-sb.de

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hermanns
Dependable Systems and Software
Saarland Informatics Campus
Saarland University
Tel.: +49 681 302-5631
E-mail: hermanns@cs.uni-saarland.de

Dr. Stefan Nürnberger
CISPA – Helmholtz-Zentrum i.G.
Saarland Informatics Campus
Tel.: +49 681 85775-4823
E-mail: stefan.nuernberger@cispa.saarland

Editor
Gordon Bolduan
Competence Center Computer Science
Saarland Informatics Campus E1.7
Tel.: +49 681 302-70741
E-mail: gbolduan@mmci.uni-saarland.de