Martin Krammer wins the AIT Poster Award 2025

Vienna, 28.5.2025 - The AIT Poster Award of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology specifically promotes entrepreneurial thinking and innovative spirit among young researchers - and thus creates the basis for future spin-offs and technology-driven start-ups. The focus is on research projects with clear application potential and prospects for commercial exploitation.

"Innovative research must have a real impact and enable scalable business models. This is exactly what we are promoting with the Poster Award," emphasizes Alexander Svejkovsky, Managing Director of the AIT. “Our aim is to encourage young talents to further develop their ideas directly in the context of market, application and social benefit and to think about the possibility of a successful spin-off at an early stage.”

Eleven diploma students, doctoral candidates and junior scientists from six AIT centers presented pioneering projects with application potential in digitalization, sustainability, mobility and life sciences at the Poster Award 2025. The best works were honored at an award ceremony on May 27, 2025.

The long-standing collaboration with the Lower Austrian start-up incubator accent and the venture capital fund tecnet equity contributes entrepreneurial expertise and promotes the transfer of research into marketable applications.

"Research results are the basis for future innovations and economic value creation. We support AIT scientists in developing suitable commercialization strategies and identifying suitable financing at an early stage. This knowledge of commercial implementation should be passed on to young talents as early as possible," emphasizes Doris Agneter, Managing Director of the venture capital fund tecnet equity

"Excellent research only develops its full potential when it is communicated in an understandable and targeted manner. As a high-tech incubator, accent helps to transform innovative technologies into viable business models - and thus paves the way from research to successful start-ups," adds Michael Moll, Managing Director of accent Inkubator GmbH.

“As a leading research institution, we are consciously taking an active role in shaping a strong Austrian innovation ecosystem,” explains Svejkovsky. “The Poster Award is an important building block for successfully transferring technological innovations from research to commercial practice.”

First place: Revolutionary approach to reducing iridium in PEM electrolyzers

First place in the AIT Poster Award goes to Martin Krammer from the Center for Energy for his contribution to sustainable hydrogen production. His project presents an innovative method to reduce the use of iridium in proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers by a factor of eight. This technology uses sputter deposition, a high-tech method for producing extremely thin catalyst layers that offer high efficiency and stability despite using less material.

Second place: Miniaturized quantum detector for quantum communication

Emmily Zaiser from the Center for Digital Safety & Security took second place with a compact, cost-effective and powerful balanced homodyne detector. Through clever use of standard components, this new detector is ideal for integrated systems in quantum communication, quantum computing and random number generation and enables broad technological scaling.

Third place: Channel emulator improves reliability of V2X technologies

Anja Dakić, also from the Center for Digital Safety & Security, impressed the jury with her channel emulator, which realistically simulates radio connections between vehicles under laboratory conditions. This enables reliable testing of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies, reduces time-consuming practical tests and makes a significant contribution to road safety and efficient mobility.

Spin-offs as drivers of technological innovation and economic success

“In recent years, we have successfully founded seven spin-offs at the AIT, two in the last year alone, with more in the pipeline,” explains Svejkovsky. "Our spin-off topics range from life sciences and the digital platform economy to innovative solutions for urban development and infrastructure. This spectrum illustrates how application-oriented and wide-ranging our research is."

Cooperation with universities, funding agencies, incubators and industry partners is crucial for the sustainable success of the spin-offs. "We create targeted networks in order to optimize the transition from research to commercial implementation and build successful long-term business models. This networked approach is essential in order to establish innovations from the AIT on the market in an effective and scalable manner," concludes Svejkovsky.