Heidenheim/Berlin. This year, "Wissensfabrik – Unternehmen für Deutschland e. V.“ (Knowledge Factory - Companies for Germany) is celebrating its tenth anniversary.  To mark the event, a press conference was held in Berlin this Tuesday.

Sigmar Gabriel, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Knowledge Factory and Chairman of the Bosch Supervisory Board Franz Fehrenbach, Voith-CEO Dr. Hubert Lienhard and other prominent representatives from German industry took stock of the last decade and emphasized the importance of the Knowledge Factory for the business location Germany.

"We are part of the Knowledge Factory, because we are firmly convinced that companies such as Voith, together with politics, science and educational institutions, have a duty to make future generations - and therefore Germany - fit for the global competition", said Dr. Hubert Lienhard, President and CEO of the Voith Corporate Board of Management, about the company's cooperation with the Knowledge Factory.

Within the scope of the Knowledge Factory, Voith participates with educational projects and the support of startups. Voith's largest Knowledge Factory project is "NaWi – geht das?“ (Hey - how does it work?), with which the company has been active ever since the scheme started in 2006. As part of NaWi, Voith donated a large number of NaWi experiment kits to primary schools at various company locations. In this context, all relevant schools at the Heidenheim county received NaWi kits from Voith, while the teachers were given training sessions on how to use the teaching materials.

One of the most recent projects of the Knowledge Factory is "Power4School“.  With Power4School the initiative takes up the future-oriented subject "Energy" and allows the pupils to gain a fundamental understanding of the topic. Erwin Krajewski, Training Manager at Voith, played a major part in the development of the project. And the "Werkgymnasium Heidenheim" (Heidenheim Higher Vocational School) has already put the project into practice in the Voith Training Center, together with Voith apprentices and trainers who jointly designed and assembled a wind wheel.

In total, Voith entered into 31 educational partnerships with schools for Knowledge Factory projects and trained over 200 teachers in the use of the donated materials. In addition, experienced Voith managers made themselves available as mentors and shared their knowledge with a total of six business startups. These mentoring programs often ran across several months.

"Voith is proud to be a co-founder and active partner of the Knowledge Factory and so be able to give a strong helping hand to make sure Germany remains a center of knowledge in the future. I’m delighted that many Voith employees devote their time and effort in a wide range of different projects so that the objective of the Knowledge Factory can be achieved. A big thank-you to everyone involved! We at Voith congratulate the Knowledge Factory on its anniversary and hope the initiative continues to have at least as much success in the coming years!” stated Voith CEO Dr. Hubert Lienhard.

On the tenth anniversary of the Knowledge Factory, the company presents its commitment and the initiative itself in greater detail on a special page of the Voith website (http://voith.com/de/insights/10-jahre-wissensfabrik-61365.html) .

The Knowledge Factory - Companies for Germany e. V. was founded in 2005 by Voith and eight other companies with the aim of promoting education and entrepreneurship in Germany. Today the Knowledge Factory has about 120 members. The initiative covers over 2,500 educational partnerships and, over the last ten years, allowed about 700,000 children and young people to participate in projects about natural science and engineering or business education. The Knowledge Factory sees its activities confirmed by the result of a Forsa opinion poll: as the survey indicates, more than three quarters of all people regard it as important that companies also commit themselves socially beyond their business activities.

Voith sets standards in the markets energy, oil & gas, paper, raw materials and transport & automotive. Founded in 1867, Voith employs more than 39,000 people, generates € 5.3 billion in sales, operates in about 50 countries around the world and is today one of the largest family-owned companies in Europe.