Awarded annually since 1990, and out of approximately 16,000 nominations per year, the award is presented to 55 of the most outstanding Diploma/Master’s students at all Austrian universities, universities of applied sciences, and teacher education colleges. The universities, among others, submit nominations.

Two JKU graduates were among this year’s award recipients. DI Jakob Obrovsky (RISC) was presented with an award in recognition of his Master's degree thesis “2-adic Complexity and Related Measures of Pseudorandomness”. His thesis focuses on various measures relating to the quality of pseudorandom number sequences in cryptography and how these numbers relate to one another. Obrovsky remarked: “I am very honored to have received the award and encouraged to continue pursuing research in mathematics.”

Lukas Furtmüller (Department of Radio Frequency Systems at the JKU) is also among the award recipients. His Master's thesis focused on digital microwave radiometers and the limits of their accuracy and resolution. He even constructed his own prototype of a digital multi-channel microwave radiometer. Fürtmuller explained his research, “My thesis involved using a digital radiometer to examine just how precisely we can measure temperature. Using my system, we are not only able to accurately determine the object's temperature, but its spatial position as well.”