On November 23, 2021, Professor Dr h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster was accepted as a foreign member of the Engineering Academy of the Czech Republic (Cena Inženýrské Akademie České republiky, EACR) in Prague, which has the German Academy of Engineering Sciences (Acatech) as a partner. EACR also represents the Czech Republic in Euro-CASE, the European association of all academies of technology sciences.
Professor Wolfgang Wahlster of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is known in the Czech Republic as a scientific pioneer of Industry 4.0 and Artificial Intelligence. He has been cooperating with Professor Vladimír Mařík in Prague for many years. As industrial production is a significant branch of the Czech and German economy, this results in an ideal partnership, especially as industrial artificial intelligence will continue to be of central importance as an innovation driver for both countries in the next decade.
Together with Professor Vladimír Mařík, founder of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), he has launched the €50 million Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production (RICAIP).
Wahlster has been chairman of the CIIRC’s International Advisory Board since 2019. He is also a recipient of the CIIRC Medal of Honor and, since 2020, an honorary doctor of the Czech Technical University (CTU) Prague, founded in 1707.
EACR is Wahlster’s second foreign academy membership, following his election as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in 2003. Professor Wahlster has also been elected as a full member of four German academies: the Academy of Sciences and Literature (AdW) in Mainz in 2002, the National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) in Halle in 2004, the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) in Munich in 2004, and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) in Berlin and Potsdam in 2008.