Highlighted Achievements

By 2012, the Institute was the only one at Graz University of Technology with two START Prize Winners. The START-prize is the highest paid award for young researchers with a price money in excess of EUR 1 million. Dieter Schmaslstieg won the award in 2002. Tom Pock won in 2012 with his proposal for bilevel optimization for computer vision.

From left to right: Georg Schett, Michael Jursa, Dieter Schmalstieg, Minister Elisabeth Gehrer, Ferenc Krausz, FWF President Arnold Schmidt, Wolfgang Heiß, and Joachim Schöberl – Photo: Petra Spiola, Vienna

From left (l. to r.): FWF President Christoph Kratky, START awardee Thomas Pock, Minister of Science Karlheinz Töchterle, and the Chair of the International Jury for the START Program Jan Ziolkowski. © FWF The Austrian Science Fund/APA Photo Service/Rossboth

Austria maintains an age-old tradition that rewards scholastic excellence. Until 1918 it was the Emperor who personally witnessed the award of the doctorate to someone who had perfect grades since the age of 14 and all the way though the doctorate. He presented the honoree with a ring. This tradition has transitioned to the President of the Republic, personally attending the promotion ceremony.

The most talented people get attracted to the Institute and its topics. As a result, three graduates have achieved this highest doctoral accomplishment:

Reinhard Danzl

won this honor in 2004 with his thesis on Integrating Shape from Stereo and Shape from Focus.

Andreas Wendel

won his honor in 2013 with a thesis on Scalable Visual Navigation for Micro Aerial Vehicles.

Markus Steinberger

completed his achievement also in 2013 with work on Dynamic Resource Scheduling on Graphics Processors.

Erich Kobler

completed his achievement in 2022.

The formal promotion ceremony is a big deal not only for the high achiever earning the honor, but also for the University. There exists considerable press coverage and media coverage.

Doctoral promotions under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Austria, Dr. Heinz Fischer, at the Aula of Graz University of Technology. Left: Reinhard Danzl (2004) Center: Andreas Wendel (2014, with Governor Franz Voves representing the country’s president) Right: Markus Steinberger (2014)

Feierliche Sub Auspiciis-Promotion an der TU Graz, v.l.n.r.: Erich Kobler, Rektor Harald Kainz, Thomas Schlatzer, Bundespräsident Alexander Van der Bellen und Reinmar Kobler. Bildquelle: Lunghammer – TU Graz

The Institute staff have won 4 so-called Christian Doppler Laboratories [see www.cdg.ac.at]. These are research teams funded by a public-private partnership with industry, with funding for perhaps 10 people over a period of about 7 years. Here is the list:

Prof. Vincent LePetit:

Semantic 3D Computer Vision | Industry: Qualcomm Technologies

Prof. Dieter Schmalstieg:

Handheld Augmented Reality | Industry Qualcomm Technologies

Ass. Prof. Denis Kalkofen:

Wearable Mixed Reality for Scalable Spatial Applications | Industry: https://daqri.com

Prof. Horst Bischof:

Embedded Machine Learning [jointly with Axel Jantsch, TU Vienna] | Industry: AVL-Graz, Siemens