Federal President Steinmeier Meets KIT Alumni in Boston

Digitalization, sustainability, innovation, and possibilities of extensive transatlantic exchange were in the focus of the alumni meeting in Boston in early November. Here, graduates and former researchers of KIT, who are now living in the USA, informed themselves about latest research, teaching, and innovation activities of KIT, German-American collaboration, and KIT’s alumni services. They were given the opportunity to present own projects and to discuss future exchange.

“The USA are and will remain an important partner of Germany in research, innovation, and technology transfer, in particular as far as information technologies and digital transformation are concerned,” says Professor Thomas Hirth, KIT Vice-President for Innovation and International Affairs. “Numerous KIT alumni are working in these fields in the USA. Exchange with them is highly important to us.” With KIT LINK, a transatlantic network has been established by KIT to extend its good relations to universities, companies, and alumni in the USA, in particular in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston area.

The highlights of the framework program were two meetings with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had come to Boston to act as patron of the closing event of the Germany Year “Wunderbar together.” After a joint concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, he invited the alumni to a “Meet and Greet” with pretzels and beer. Steinmeier also participated in a panel discussion on ethics of digitalization at the Harvard Law School, to which the KIT alumni were invited as well. The alumni meeting was organized by KIT’s International Affairs Business Unit and funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

le, November 11, 2019