Gala recognizes inspirational work

During the academic celebration week, a number of prizes and awards are awarded from Luleå University of Technology. On Tuesday evening, prizes were awarded to the Alumni of the Year, the Innovator of the Year and the Collaboration Prize of the Year at Vetenskapens hus.

Living lights, beautiful table settings and violin music welcomed the 120 guests to the award ceremony at Vetenskapens hus on Tuesday evening. After mingling and a good dinner, Erik Höglund, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Luleå University of Technology, handed out the awards from the stage.

Alumni are good role models

To draw attention to former students, Luleå University of Technology appoints the Alumni of the Year every year. Alumni are all those who have graduated from a university, and in this case at Luleå University of Technology. The alumni receive the award for their outstanding efforts in their career or that they have otherwise performed something worthy of attention. This year, the prize is awarded for the seventh year in a row.

- Our alumni are important ambassadors for our university and by highlighting good role models, we create pride in our university. The alumni inspire our students to see what opportunities exist after completing their studies and this year we have the pleasure of appointing two winners," says Erik Höglund.

Want to heal football injuries faster

The first prize for Alumni of the Year 2017 went to physiotherapist Fredrik Larsson from Trollhättan. There, he played football for Trollhättan's Boll och Idrottssällskap and started thinking about how he could make football injuries heal faster. This led him to apply for the physiotherapy program in Luleå.

Now he lives in Gothenburg and is currently contracted by IFK Göteborg as a physiotherapist. He is also a physiotherapist for the Swedish men's national football team. Due to an important match in Italy in a few days, he could not attend the award ceremony.

Watch the newly produced video where he talks about his work as a physiotherapist and his studies at Luleå University of Technology.

Appreciated mix of reality and academia

The second prize for Alumnus of the Year 2017 went to Victoria Van Camp, who originally comes from Ytterbyn outside Kalix. After graduating in mechanical engineering at Luleå University of Technology, she has had a very successful career that has led to her being a member of the group management and head of business and product development at the large global technology company SKF. Victoria is involved in several boards and has been chairman of the SKF University Technology Center at Luleå University of Technology. Since 2017, Victoria has been elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in the Mechanical Engineering division.

- It is fantastic to get this award, mostly because my family and friends up here get to see that something became of that little girl. It's also great to see my professor here tonight and it was he who made sure that something became of me.

From her studies at Luleå University of Technology, she remembers the cold and walking across the windy Porsö Bridge, but also the mix of reality and academia.

- In retrospect, I have understood that we had a lot of real problems and real lecturers from industries and society, which was a natural part of the education. The best thing was to go out into working life after the course and feel that there was not much difference," says Victoria Van Camp.

Want to create a safer rescue service

The Innovator of the Year is a new prize that was awarded for the first time. The purpose is to draw attention to innovators and entrepreneurship among students, researchers, teachers and other employees at Luleå University of Technology. The prize went to 24-year-old Daniel Nilsson who studies a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering. During the year, he has started a company with incubation support, working prototypes and interested pilot customers.

With the company Wilda Tracking's positioning technology, the work of complex rescue services in remote environments can be facilitated, increasing the possibility of saving human lives with faster interventions and at a reduced cost.

- The encouragement and support I have received in the innovation drive to try to realize the ideas has been incredibly helpful. Now I will focus on graduating at Christmas and then continue to work with the company and try to create a safer rescue service," says Daniel Nilsson.

Inspiring municipalities to work together

The Collaboration Prize of the Year is awarded to the municipality in the region that has initiated the most number of collaborations between Luleå University of Technology and companies. The prize is awarded for the third year in a row. For the second time, the award goes to Övertorneå municipality and business manager Stig Kerttu was there to receive the award.

- It is fun to work with the university world and the academic world provides great added value. The contacts with students and other university staff have been very helpful over the years.

The prize has its background in the strengthened investment in cooperation with companies in the region that Luleå University of Technology initiated in 2011 and which has taken place in good cooperation with the Municipal Business Units in the region. The initiative has since been strengthened through the structural fund project Business and Academy Collaboration in the Region, which is run by Luleå University of Technology's Innovation Office together with LTU Business AB since January 2016.