Graduate of the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt receives Bavaria Culture Award

October 28 is a special day for Karthikeyan Chandra Sekaran. That's when the graduate of Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) will receive the Bavarian Culture Award from Bayernwerk AG (Bayernwerk). This year, the award ceremony will take place as a hybrid format starting at 7 pm. In the Eisbach Studios in Munich, 150 guests will be present when Karthikeyan Chandra Sekaran and 31 other scientists receive their honors. The artists Thomas Demand, Gretel and Erwin Eisch, the musicians Reinhard Kammler and Wolfgang Buck, and the actress Luisa Wöllisch will also be honored with the award in the arts category. The evening, which will also be broadcast live on the Internet (www.bayernwerk-live.de/kulturpreis-bayern ) and on regional television, for example on Ingolstadt TV, will be moderated by Nina Sonnenberg.

In his master's thesis in International Automotive Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, the 26-year-old from India conducted driving tests with autonomous vehicles at the THI test site. The motion planning algorithms he developed can autonomously and cooperatively steer vehicles through typical traffic situations. At the test site, the test vehicles transmitted data for cooperation through radio communication. "I am very proud that my work is valued in this way," says Karthikeyan Chandra Sekaran. After graduation, he remained committed to autonomous driving research and THI. He currently works as a research associate at the AN Institute AININ. THI President Prof. Dr. Walter Schober, who is present at the award ceremony, says, "It is an impressive achievement to graduate with such an outstanding research contribution. I am pleased that Mr. Chandra Sekaran will continue to work for THI."

In partnership with the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts, Bayernwerk has awarded the Bavarian Culture Prize since 2005. In the arts category, a jury headed by the Ministry of Arts selects five individuals each year to receive the Kulturpreis Bayern for their contribution to the Bavarian cultural landscape. An additional special prize is awarded by the State Minister for Science and the Arts. In the field of science, outstanding graduates and doctoral students from Bavarian colleges and universities receive the Bavarian Culture Award. The selection is made by the respective university. The prizes in the art category and the special prize are each endowed with 5,000 euros, and in the science category with 2,000 euros each, as well as the bronze statue "Gedankenblitz" ("Flash of Thought") sculpted by the Schwandorf sculptor Peter Mayer.

"The Bavarian Culture Award is an award with decades of tradition. It has always been about thanking people; who enrich our society with their commitment, their work and their enthusiasm for art, culture and science. And that is no less important today than it was when the award was first presented in 1959. On the contrary, the last few months have made us feel how important art, culture and science are to our lives - and above all the people who bestow them on us. The Bavarian Culture Award is also an occasion for us to think about this even more consciously," emphasized Dr. Egon Leo Westphal, Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayernwerk.