Events at the department

Hasso Plattner to receive an honorary doctorate from ETIT department in February 2020

Awards and other events of the past years

New election of the executive commission

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Ulrich Lemmer (Dean)

The KIT Department Council ETIT elected Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Uli Lemmer as the new Dean in its first meeting on 28.10.2020. Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Bernhard Holzapfel (Vice Dean) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marc Hiller (Dean of Studies ETIT) were confirmed in office.

As Dean, Prof. Lemmer (LTI) succeeds Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fernando Puente León (IIIT), who died suddenly in the summer. Prof. Holzapfel (ITEP) and Prof. Hiller (ETI) were confirmed as Vice Dean and Dean of Studies, respectively.

We are pleased that this composition preserves continuity in the department leadership. The KIT Department ETIT would like to thank the previous executive commission and the team of the department management for their work over the past two years.

The KIT Department ETIT and the divisonal management of division 3 warmly congratulate the new department management on their election and wish them every success for the upcoming challenges!


Schroff-Kolleg: New hall of residence for students

Ingrid Schroff, Olaf Dössel und Susanne Schroff legen Grundsteine Tanja Meißner, KIT
Ingrid Schroff, Olaf Dössel and Susanne Schroff at the laying of the foundation stone for the Schroff College

With the ceremonial laying of the first foundation stone by Professor Olaf Dössel (IBT), chairman of the Studentenwohnheim e.V., as well as Ingrid Schroff, chairwoman of the Schroff Foundations and honorary senator of KIT, and Susanne Schroff, deputy chairwoman of the foundation, work on the Schroff Kolleg began on Wednesday, August 26, 2020.

"We create affordable and good living space and enable intercultural coexistence of all students," said Dössel in his welcoming speech. In total, the new residence hall offers space for 103 students. It is being built in the Hagsfelder Allee and is about one kilometer away from the KIT Campus South, the dormitories of the Hans Dickmann College (HaDiKo) are in the immediate vicinity. The Schroff Foundations are supporting the construction project with one million euros. Construction work is scheduled to be completed in spring 2022.

At 68 years old, the Studentenwohnheim e.V. is one of the oldest dormitory providers in Karlsruhe as well as the largest private provider of housing for students in Germany. So far, the association operates dormitories with a total of 1,276 rooms at four locations in Karlsruhe, 999 of them at HaDiKo alone. Because they provide cheap accommodation, the facilities are particularly popular with foreign students - around 35% of them currently live there.

What is special and unique about the association in Germany is that the students largely manage the halls of residence themselves: Organisational tasks such as the allocation of rooms and the planning of upcoming renovations are taken on by the residents themselves.

Dean Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fernando Puente León deceased

Bild KIT
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fernando Puente León

The KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology mourns the death of its Dean Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fernando Puente León, who passed away completely unexpectedly for us on July 1, 2020.
The news of his death has deeply affected and shaken us all.

Prof. Puente León had been the Institute Director at IIIT since 2008 and had a significant impact on IIIT during this time. Under his leadership, numerous research papers and doctoral theses were written on diverse topics of signal and image processing, measurement technology, and human-machine interaction.

In teaching at the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, he was responsible for several courses, including "Signals and Systems" and "Measurement Technology". Beyond KIT, he enjoyed an excellent reputation as a dedicated scientist, for example as editor of the journal "tm - Technisches Messen" and as author of several technical and textbooks.

We are losing an extremely committed and outstanding colleague, scientist ,and university lecturer who worked tirelessly for the interests of the department and its students.
Our deepest sympathy goes to his family and his relatives and friends in these difficult days.
He will be sorely missed.

The Professors of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology
The Department Board and the entire team of the Deaprtment Office and the Dean's Office

Obituary of the journal tm - Technisches Messen

Summer semester 2020 starts online

Bildschirm mit KIT-Logo und "Lehre"/"Lecturing"- Aufschrift KIT
The study program starts with digital teaching offers.

On 20 April 2020, study operations will resume with purely digital offerings. Information on individual ETIT courses will be made available on the ILIAS platform. Students are requested to inform themselves on ILIAS and via the institute websites and not to come to campus for the time being. Face-to-face classes will only be reintroduced gradually, in line with the regulations to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Further information on the start of the summer semester in the KIT press release.

Have an eye for colors: printable light sensors

Lichtsensor Noah Strobel, KIT
Organic light sensors with color-selective detection produced by ink-jet printing with semiconducting inks.

Light sensors, which are already indispensable in many applications such as cameras, light barriers, and motion detectors, could also play a role in telecommunications in the future. KIT scientists at the InnovationLab Heidelberg have succeeded in taking a decisive development step in data transmission utilizing light: printable light sensors that can see colors. Visible light communication (VLC) uses the interior lighting in buildings for optical communication. This technology offers several advantages in terms of security, speed and accessibility compared to current methods such as WLAN or Bluetooth. "Our research contributes to this technology by combining the advantages of a specific type of materials, namely organic semiconductors, and their fabrication with printing techniques," said Dr. Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa of the Light Technology Institute (LTI).

Original publication:

Noah Strobel, Nikolaos Droseros, Wolfgang Köntges, Mervin Seiberlich, Manuel Pietsch, Stefan Schlisske, Felix Lindheimer, Rasmus R. Schröder, Uli Lemmer, Martin Pfannmöller, Natalie Banerji, Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa: "Color-selective Printed Organic Photodiodes for Filterless Multichannel Visible Light Communication." Advanced Materials, 2020 . DOI: 10.1002/adma.201908258.

KIT press release from 19.02.2020

Mourning for Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Heering

Portrait Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Heering
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Heering

The Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and the Light Technology Institute (LTI) mourn the death of the scientist and university lecturer, who passed away on 18 February 2020 at the age of 78.


Prof. Heering earned great merits in research and teaching at the Universität Karlsruhe (TH). From 1967 until his retirement in 2007, he worked at the Institute of Light Technology and was appointed professor in 1987. In his scientific work, he devoted himself to a wide range of topics in lighting technology and optoelectronics. He worked on plasma emitters, optical measurement technology, the use of UV technology ,and the design of power electronic circuits.

Until last year he remained active at the ETIT department by supervising theses and by contributing to lectures.

Prof. Heering was an outstanding scientist and university teacher.

"Wolfgang Heering contributed to the success of the Institute for more than 50 years with his broad expertise and his calm and humorous manner. We mourn the loss of a universally respected scientist to whom LTI owes a great deal," says Prof. Ulrich Lemmer, Director of the Light Technology Institute.

Hasso Plattner receives honorary doctorate from ETIT department

Gruppenfoto mit Hasso Plattner, Dietmar Hopp und Vertretern der KIT-Fakultät ETIT Annika Müller
From left: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Fernando Puente León, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h. c. Jürgen Becker, Dietmar Hopp, Prof. Dr. h.c. Hasso Plattner, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hanselka, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eric Sax and Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Wilhelm Stork

In a festive ceremony on February 17, 2020, the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology awarded an honorary doctorate to the co-founder of SAP SE and alumnus of the former University of Karlsruhe (TH) - now KIT.
Plattner is committed to future-oriented research as well as to the educational and cultural sector, links business and science, advocates for the next generation of leaders, and repeatedly develops innovations to advance digitization.


Plattner completed his studies in communications engineering in 1968 at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) under Professor Karl Steinbuch, one of the pioneers of German computer science. "This is where I acquired my basic knowledge, which still enables me to develop new innovations and ideas today," he says.

The President of KIT, Prof. Holger Hanselka, paid tribute to Plattner not only as one of the most successful entrepreneurs and most committed promoters of start-ups in Germany, but also as a mastermind who recognized the importance of digitization early on and continues to drive it forward intensively to this day.

Dietmar Hopp, also an alumnus of the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and co-founder of SAP, delivered the laudatory speech. "His practical thinking, with which he always correctly anticipated change, has made him a thought leader in SAP software development," said Hopp.

"Hasso Plattner has been extraordinarily successful economically, while at the same time living up to his social responsibility. Thus, he is not only an impressive personality, he is also a role model and motivation for the younger generation," says Prof. Fernando Puente León, Dean of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. Together with Prof. Jürgen Becker, head of the Institute for Information Processing Technology (ITIV), he had initiated the award of an honorary doctorate to Plattner.

Mourning for Prof. Horst Kaltschmidt

The ETIT department mourns the loss of the Honorary Professor who passed away on February 9, 2020 at the age of 84.
Prof. Kaltschmidt studied electrical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and earned his doctorate there at the Institute for Theoretical Electrical Engineering and Metrology.

In addition to his position as head of the Technology Department at Daimler-Benz Aerospace LFK-Lenkflugkörper GmbH, he had been an honorary professor at the University of Karlsruhe and later at KIT since 1984.


At the Institute for Theoretical Electrical Engineering and System Optimization (ITE) of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, he read the very practice-oriented lecture "Space Electronics and Telemetry" until the winter semester 2017/18. He designed all exams of his lecture himself and "didn't miss the fun" of correcting them himself. His lecture was equally popular with Bachelor and Master students and well attended.

"In my more than 30 years of acquaintance with Prof. Kaltschmidt, I have come to appreciate him with his never-ending enthusiasm for technology as an inspiring personality whom I will miss very much," says Prof. Trommer, former head of ITE.

Job profiles: Speed dating with companies

Studierende und Unternehmensvertreter an Stehtischen im Gespräch KIT-Career-Service
Students make contacts in conversation with company representatives

Numerous ETIT and MIT students took advantage of the opportunity to network with industry representatives on January 21, 2020. In 13-minute talks with each company, the students were able to find out about different job profiles and ask questions about starting a career. The subsequent get-together allowed for further exchange. Belden, Leica Biosystems, Littelfuse, Texas Instruments and Trumpf participated in the event. This new, successful format was organized by the KIT Career Service in cooperation with the ETIT department.