VDMA - Intellectual freedom basis for innovation

12 Oct '07

2 min read

The Walter Reiners Foundation of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association honoured three successful junior engineers during a ceremony at ITMA in Munich. In a remarkable address to the audience, the foundation's president Peter D. Dornier, Chairman of the Board of Lindauer Dornier GmbH identified intellectual freedom as the basis for creativity and thus for innovation. “It is quite easy to copy a product and to sell it at a lower price. Creativity, however, is something that is hard to copy”, Dornier said in consideration of piracy.

In his speech, Dornier outlined how market conditions for textile machinery manufacturers have changed since the last ITMA in Germany in 1991 due to the collapse of the state-directed economies in Eastern Europe and the rise of a new competitor in the Far East.

While revealing that some conditions like permanent patent infringements, high state subsidies and a business management style that can ignore cost effectiveness and environmental aspects do not apply to the concept of international fair play, Dornier highlighted that only democracy can provide intellectual freedom and so the source for creativity.

“Innovation and new ideas are always the starting point in the developing process of a machine or a service. Combined with academic excellence, creativity is a true and lasting competitive edge”, Dornier concluded.

The creativity award 2007 of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association endowed with 2.000 Euro was awarded to Mr Ayhan Younes of ITB Dresden for new ideas regarding levelling of warp yarn- and fabric tension over the working width at warp knitting machines.

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