The CLAAS Foundation awarded international students with the Helmut Claas-Scholarship, bonus prizes and the International Student Prize coming to a total value of 44.100 Euro at an event in Harsewinkel, Germany recently.

Before the official revelation, all four nominees presented their projects and only upon presentation of the award, the candidates found out about the exact prize distribution. Helmut Claas, Chairman of the CLAAS Foundation Board of Trustees, handed out the awards in person and congratulated them on their achievement.


Prize winners, Board of Trustees and Jury at the Claas Foundation ceremony

Scholarships:
The Helmut Claas-Scholarships are awarded to students of general engineering and business management.

• 1. Ufuk Akay (24) was awarded the first prize coming to a total value of 7.200 Euro. He is a civil engineering student at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. For many years, next to his studies, he has been involved in a UN-project called 'Agua es vida' ('Water is life'). This initiative aims to install solar-based field irrigation systems in developing countries. 
• 2. 27-year old student of economics and environment Benedikt Kramer was awarded for his bachelor thesis on the effects of hail damage on yield components in corn. The prize is of a value of 6.000 Euro. He did his bachelor degree at the University of Economics and Environment in Nürtingen-Geislingen and has just commenced his master course at the University of Hohenheim inagribusiness. 
• 3. Yale Brewer from Harper Adams University in the UK received the third prize of a value of 4.800 Euro. During his industrial placement with CLAAS in Harsewinkel he investigated the suitability an industrial bulk material weighing system for grain throughput measurement. 
• 4. The fourth prize of 3.600 Euro went to Ben Bretschneider (25). He is currently doing his diploma course in engineering at the Technical University of Dresden. During his studies he worked with the company AgriCon where he developed a sensor-based scoring system for an automized scoring of characteristics in field tests. 

Bonus prizes:
Apart from the yearly scholarships, three students received a bonus prize of 1.500 Euro each.

• In the category 'Design' Robert Pickavance from Harper Adams University accepted his award. His project deals with the design, manufacture and testing of materials handler attachment for transporting trailed implements.
• Stephan Wunderlich, Technical University of Munich obtained the prize in the category 'Resources'. In his project he investigated the optimisation of fog harvesting technologies to produce water in dry areas.
• Christian Fischer, student of the Albert-Ludwig-University in Freiburg, was awarded with the bonus prize in the category 'Global & Political' for his topic 'Large-scale land acquisitions as an instrument to stimulate developing economies- A neoclassical analysis and the structuring of an institutional frame work'

International Student Prizes
These prizes went to students from the Banat University of Agricultural Sciences Timisoara (Romania), Budapest University of Technology and Economy (Hungary), Wageningen University (the
Netherlands) and Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovak Republic).