Honoring more than 30 years of academic research collaboration with Siemens, UCF awarded the global technology company with the annual President's Partnership Award. President John C. Hitt presented the award to Steve Conner, CEO of Siemens Energy, Inc., who accepted it on Siemens' behalf at an innovation symposium attended by Siemens employees, community and business leaders, and UCF faculty and students.

"We are grateful for Siemens' cutting-edge work to advance the industry and drive innovation," said Hitt. "This long-standing partnership prepares our students for today's challenges and builds the high-tech workforce that will serve our community for decades to come."

Student working in Siemens Digital Grid Lab

Over the course of three decades, Siemens and UCF have partnered to focus on the development of the energy sector. This includes the 2017 launch of UCF's Digital Grid Innovation Laboratory — the first of its kind in the United States; the Center of Innovation for Diagnostics and Prognostics research program; and the Siemens Energy Center, celebrating its tenth anniversary on the UCF campus this year. 

Siemens also recently announced the next phase of its academic partnership with UCF: a major in-kind technology grant of Siemens' Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, with a commercial value of $593 million. The software grant, one of the largest made to UCF, amplifies a similar in-kind grant in 2016 that has already benefitted hundreds of students in UCF's Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research (CATER). The software technology is used by 140,000 companies worldwide, including 75 in the state and nearly a dozen in Central Florida. 

"Orlando was recently recognized as the top city in America for STEM job growth," said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. "That acknowledgement is proof of the impact that partnerships like the one between UCF and Siemens are having as part of our community's shared commitment to creating the jobs of tomorrow, training the next generation of hometown high tech workers and growing our innovation-based economy."

In January, Siemens also established a partnership with BRIDG, the world's first not-for-profit industry-led smart sensor public-private partnership, which includes UCF, in the semiconductor industry. Siemens is providing an in-kind software grant valued at more than $30 million to BRIDG that will enable its digital enterprise site to feature the complete Siemens product lifecycle management (PLM) portfolio.

Read more.