“I am very happy with the IAL success”: Alexander Von Hoffmann

             Prof. Dr. Alexander von Hoffmann, Director Steinbeis Transfer Center (STC) Applied Lighting Technology, Nuremberg, sat lighting lectures from Prof. Schmidt Clausen. He received a Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering in 1998 from Darmstadt University of Technology and the Dr.-Ing. degree in 2003 from the Ilmenau University of Technology with Prof. Gall as doctoral adviser. In 1998 he started to work in Volkswagen’s Lighting Development department, focusing on lighting simulations. Since 2006 he is Professor for Mechatronics at University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg.
Driving Vision News: You left VW in 2006 to join university?
“Yes, I joined Ohm-University of applied sciences in Nuremberg to teach students on mechatronic engineering, around 100 students each year. About 30 students per year sit my “automotive lighting” lectures – many of them end up in the automotive lighting industry. Today first “Ohm – Graduates” are employed directly in lighting departments at Opel, Daimler, and Audi. I regularly meet with the automotive industry to better know their needs – about twice a year I go to companies to train their engineers in house in lighting. I think our graduates could bring also a lot of knowledge to French companies like Valeo, Renault or PSA.”
DVN: Other tasks?
“Yes, I am director of STC (Steinbeis Transfer Center) Applied Lighting Technology. Steinbeis is a Foundation to support technology transfer to the industry. It helps me a lot in my research work at university with a very efficient administration able to immediately hire people when needed. There are around 1,000 transfer centers all over the world and I am responsible for one of these transfer centres. “
DVN: An example of transfer?
“I publish in Steinbeis Edition a series of books on light simulation. These books serve for my students of master lecture “optical simulations” as literature, but are also frequently ordered by industry – thats the most universal kind of transfer. I consider the most efficient kind of transfer, if employees of my transfer center are working on a research project for industry and become employed after this project by our client. This constellation we had recently in several projects and was always very much to the joy of everyone involved.”
DVN: You are the Technical Advisor of IAL, Intelligent Automotive Lighting congress. What distinguishes this congress from ISAL and VISION?