The Eduard Rhein Foundation was founded in 1976 in Hamburg (Germany) by Eduard Rhein. The goal of the foundation is to promote scientific research, learning, arts, and culture. This is done in particular by granting awards for outstanding achievements in research an/or development in the areas of radio, television and information technology.
Awards and honors
The foundation grants the following awards and honor:
Technology Award (30,000 euro)
Cultural Award (10,000 euro)
Ring of Honor (moonstone set in gold) for outstanding work which has been accomplished over a long period of time, the number of living bearers of rings is limited to ten
1980 Vladimir K. Zworykin
1981 Walter Bruch
1982 Max Grundig
1983 Karl Holzamer
1984 Herbert von Karajan
1985 Hugh Greene
1986 Masaru Ibuka
1987 Werner Höfer
1988 Ray Dolby
1992 Rudolf Hell
1994 Count Lennart Bernadotte of Wisborg
1998 Heinz Zemanek
2000 Heinrich von Pierer
2001 Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker
2002 Hans-Jürgen Warnecke
2004 Hubert S. Markl
2007 Valentina Tereshkova
2008 Herbert Mataré
2012 Michael Sohlman
2015 Wolfgang Heckl
1979 to 2006 award winners are listed in the German article.
2007:
Technology Award: Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerhard Sessler for the design of electret transducers, the invention of the foil electret microphone (together with Jim West) and of the silicon condenser microphone (with D. Hohm).
Cultural Award: Prof. Dr. Paul Dobrinski for the publication of scientific and technical works of young scientists.
Ring of Honor: Dr. Dr. Valentina Tereshkova for her contributions in the area of manned space flight.
2008
Technology Award: Siegfried Dais and Uwe Kiencke for invention, international standardisation and propagation of the "Controller Area Network" (CAN), an open, reliable real-time communication system for embedded devices in automotive, medical and automation applications as well as in consumer goods, which today dominates the world market.
Cultural Award: Norbert Lossau for brilliantly written science and technology related articles published in the newspaper "Die Welt". Over a sustained period of time his outstanding contributions are received by the readers as splendidly written, comprehensive in scope yet to read sources of information.
Ring of Honor: Herbert F. Mataré for his invention of the solid state amplifier in 1948, performed independently and parallel to Bell Lab's transistor. Further, in recognition of his important contributions to information technology, solid-state physics and -manufacturing over a period of more than 60 years.
2009
Technology Award: Dr. Martin Schadt Electro-optical core technologies for flat panel displays
2010
Technology Award: Prof. Dr. Jens-Rainer Ohm and Prof. Dr. Thomas Wiegand Contributions to video coding and to the development of the H.264/AVC standard
2011
Technology Award: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hilberg Invention of the radio clock
2012
Technology Award: Prof. Dr. Bradford Parkinson Development of the Global Positioning System (GPS)
2013
Technology Award: Ching W. Tang for inventing the first highly efficient organic light emitting diode and further contributions to the development of organic semiconductor devices.
2014
Technology Award: Prof. Dr. Dr. Kees Schouhamer Immink for contributions to the theory and practice of channel codes that enable efficient and reliable optical recording, and creative contributions to digital recording technology.
2015
Technology Award: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. rer. nat. h.c. mult. Karlheinz Brandenburg, Dr.-Ing. Bernhard Grill and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Herre for decisive contributions to the development and practical implementation of the mp3 audio coding technique.