Master Thesis originating from IoP-Context awarded with Berthold Vöcking Master Award 2020
At this year's "Virtual Computer Science Day" on December 4th, 2020, Master's student Erik Buchholz (born 1995) was awarded the Berthold Vöcking Master Award 2020 for his master's thesis "Privacy-Preserving Exchange of Process Parameters", with which RWTH Aachen University honors outstanding master's theses in the master's degree in computer science in memory of the Aachen scientist Vöcking, who died in 2014.
The topic of the master's thesis, originating from the research focus of the Cluster of Excellence Internet of Production IoP in the area of Infrastructure , was supervised by the two cluster scientists Jan Pennekamp from COMSYS and Yannik Lockner from the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV). In his work, Buchholz addresses data protection concerns in an industrial environment. In particular, he proposes a secure data protection platform that enables companies to exchange valuable production data with one another while at the same time taking into account the privacy of customers and providers alike. He demonstrates the applicability of his approach on the basis of two applications (one in the area of the injection molding process at the IKV and a second application in the area of machine tools at the Chair of Machine Tools at the WZL).
Erik Buchholz was also one of four finalists for the Eurobits Excellence Award 2020 (the stream of the award ceremony and the presentation of his master’s thesis can be accessed here via YouTube) and is planning to work as a doctoral student with Prof. Salil Kanhere at UNSW Syndney (Prof. Salil Kanhere, for his part, was a visiting scientist at the IoP in Aachen in 2019 - read more about Prof. Kanheres stay at COMSYS) to continue his research activities.