Big Five Award 2024 honours the pioneers of metal 3D printing
Award for Dr Dieter Schwarze and Dr Matthias Fockele at the 21st rapid.tech 3D
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Presentation of the Big Five Award_Advisors of the RTeJournal Prof. Dr. Julia Kessler, Prof. Dr. Andreas Gebhardt, Dr. Dieter Schwarze_c_Christian Seeling
The Big Five Award 2024 for outstanding achievements in additive manufacturing goes to the pioneers of metal 3D printing. The award was presented at the gala evening of the 21st rapid.tech 3D.
The award winners are Dr Dieter Schwarze and Dr Matthias Fockele. The two physicists founded the company F&S together in 1990 and decided in 1995 to pursue a new business model – marketing systems for metal 3D printing. Both had already published patents in the field of additive manufacturing of plastics in previous years. Further patent applications for metal 3D printing followed, and in 1999 the first system was delivered to the Karlsruhe Research Centre. This made Fockele and Schwarze among the pioneers of the metallic AM process now known as LPBF. Both remain committed to additive manufacturing. Dr Dieter Schwarze is Chief Engineer at Nikon SLM Solutions, and Dr Matthias Fockele is Managing Director of AM APP GmbH, which he founded.
The Big Five Award was conferred by the well-known RTe Journal, one of rapid.tech 3D’s publication partners. It was presented by advisory board members Prof. Julia Kessler and Prof. Andreas Gebhardt.
The award takes its name from the five major African wild animal species: lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo. The dangers and difficulties in the hunt for the “Big Five” are representative of the challenges in the hunt for innovations in the field of additive manufacturing.
