On 19 June 2026, Carsten Diederichs, Senior Manager at Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection GmbH, presented a significant donation in kind to inIT and the Department of Computer Science and Automation (IAT) at the Technische Hochschule OWL. Prof. Dr. Volker Lohweg, head of the Discrete Systems research group, was delighted to accept the donation.
Long-standing collaboration
Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection GmbH, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, has a long-standing collaboration with inIT and the IAT Department. Carsten Diederichs teaches the module “Embedded Systems Hardware (HE)” at TH OWL’s IAT Department alongside Mr. Carsten Pieper from Fraunhofer IOSB-INA. There, he provides students with an in-depth insight into the programming of FPGAs. These are small evaluation boards, which the students use for practical work. The company, based in Leopoldshöhe near Bielefeld, donated a number of these boards featuring the latest technology to the inIT and the IAT department.
Interview with Carsten Diederichs
inIT:
inIT and the Faculty of IAT on the one hand, and Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection GmbH on the other, have a long-standing collaboration in various technological fields. In your view, what sets this collaboration apart?
Carsten Diederichs:
The research priorities of the IAT Department and the product-oriented research focus of inIT, particularly in the field of industrial image processing, are an excellent fit with the products of Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection GmbH.
This is, of course, partly due to historical reasons; thanks to Prof. Lohweg’s connections to Koenig & Bauer as a former site manager, there is an excellent understanding of the printing industry and its technological challenges.
This means we complement each other very well in the R&D sector. The university and inIT offer opportunities here that may not be available at Koenig & Bauer. This led, for example, to the creation of the joint venture coverno GmbH in the past – more specifically, at the end of 2016.
inIT:
What exactly are you donating in kind to inIT and the IAT Department today?
C.D.:
The IAT Department has received a donation of 15 Terasic DE23 FPGA development boards. The FPGA boards are primarily used in the “Embedded Systems Hardware (HE)” course. The FPGA boards are equipped with the latest Altera FPGA technology and replace the boards currently in use, which are over 10 years old. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is a freely programmable hardware component. Unlike processors (CPUs) or microcontrollers, which execute software, the internal hardware circuitry of an FPGA is programmed itself.
inIT:
Why is it so important to you to support inIT and the FB IAT with this hardware donation?
C.D.:
FPGA technology is particularly interesting in light of current developments in the field of “edge AI” – Artificial Intelligence in industrial devices. For small and medium-sized enterprises, this technology, combined with specially adapted AI models, makes it possible to develop very cost-effective and efficient solutions. With this in-kind donation, we wish to support TH OWL in this area of teaching.
inIT:
Mr. Diederichs, thank you very much for the informative conversation!
Close links between teaching, research and industry
Prof. Dr. Volker Lohweg, who co-founded Koenig & Bauer Vision & Protection 26 years ago and headed the company himself for four years, is delighted that the company is actively and practically supporting the Department of Computer Science and Automation (IAT)b– and thus the students – in their learning progress. He emphasises: “Thanks to this generous donation in kind, we are able to deliver teaching that is at the cutting edge of technology. For this reason, we are grateful to be equipped with the latest, forward-looking technology.”
The interview was conducted by Elke Jaschinski.