If you look at the calendar, you can see that I was born under the sign of the Taurus. Although I don’t particularly believe in the art of astrology, I think it’s still amazing that one or other of the Taurus descriptions can be applied to my personality. Even if you turn to the Chinese calendar and happen to have the description for the year of the rat handy, you can see this also describes me pretty well.

My parents were both still students at the time I was born, so it wasn’t long before I went to a crèche. Although there is a lot of debate for and against such institutions at the moment, I’m fairly sure it didn’t do me any harm. Then, at three years old I went to the nursery at the former Magdeburg Technical University. With hindsight, it was no bad idea that I should learn social interaction with other children, as there wasn’t much opportunity for this at home being a single child. I looked forward to school from very early on, and from an early age was interested in learning as much as possible.

At six years old school finally started properly. I was schooled at the general polytechnical primary school. My parents both worked so I went to a school that had a crèche during the afternoon. This was the equivalent of the present whole-day schools.

Although because of my performance I could have changed to a specialist language school after Year 3, my parents decided it would be better for me to stay at ‘my’ school. The opportunity to go to a special school for languages or technology arose again after year 8 and 10. I found my way to an advanced general polytechnical secondary school. I think the decision of my parents at the time was absolutely right. During my time at school I gained a wide knowledge of all subjects, including technical and social science subjects, which I could build on without being steered too early in one direction or the other.

My particular interest at school were the natural sciences, so I actually only considered a technical area of study. I laid the basis for such during my time at school through lessons in electronics, pure physics and solid-state physics and my involvement in the school’s computer club.

In the Summer of 1990 I completed a work experience placement at the Faculty of Electronics, at the university in Magdeburg, where I had been working on technical examples of control and instrumentation algorithms. This was primarily concerning saved programmable controls.

This work experience strengthened my decision, and I started to study at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the university in Magdeburg. The foundation study was particularly hard for me as I experienced for the first time that learning can be connected to a lot of work and diligence. Until then it had been fairly easy for me to stay ahead of my classmates. After a short while I got used to the new requirements and could steadily improve my performance. As well as the technical subjects, improving my language skills in Russian and English was also high on my list of priorities.

After successful completion of the foundation study period, my goal was to extend my language skills and get to know new teaching and learning methods. I definitely wanted to spend a semester abroad. Since the International Students Bureau at the university was still being set up at the time, this was up to my own initiative. After a while I found a foundation willing to pay my course fees.

In February 1993 I went to Sheffield and registered for my study-abroad semester at the University of Sheffield Hallam. Electrical engineering was of course the number one priority, but I concentrated on foundation economics and English. Then in late Summer 1993, as a member of the German-Canadian Society. I took part in a working student exchange programme. I went to Vancouver B.C. where I worked for two months for a furniture firm. With a further four weeks available, I travelled independently to get to know the land and people.

After my return to Germany I realised that I had matured a great deal during my months abroad and learnt how to adjust quickly to new challenges and surroundings.

However their was an obstacle in my path back at my home university in Magdeburg. The course at the University of Sheffield was not recognised so I had to pass the courses from two semesters at the same time. I took on the challenge and after a period on intense hard work I could look back on the results with pride. Inevitably it was almost impossible to pass all the exams with excellent results. Never-the-less I managed too get good results and return to the normal course of study.

Encouraged by my semester abroad I planned to complete my engineer’s work placement abroad as well. In August 1994 I went to Sweden and carried out my work placement with Ericsson Telecom AB, Business Unit LOCAL SWITCHING SYSTEMS, Local Design Centre in Nynäshamn. During this time I was investigating filters in the area of telecommunications technology. I love to look back on this period when within an excellent working atmosphere, I was given the opportunity to work independently on improving filter circuits and suggest possible solutions. In this way I extended my knowledge of this specialist area and leant to work independently but with a team orientation towards the realisation of goals. Apart from that I had the opportunity to pick up skills in a new language.

The last part of my degree was the six months spent on my dissertation concentrating on the properties of magno-elastic sputtered layers. The aim was to insert amorph magno-elastic sputter layers as a sensitive element into a torque sensor. After presenting my dissertation, which was judged to be very good, I finished my studies and left the university with a B-Eng. Electronics in October 1995.

At the end of my studies my partner and I fulfilled a long dreamt of wish by starting out on a learning and language based trip to Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It was planned so that she could start her training programme with the Norddeutsche-Landesbank in February 1996 and I could work with the faculty of mechanical engineering, the institute for current technology and thermodymanics at the university in Magdeburg on the research theme ‘Experimental investigations and simulation of two-phase substance mixing with Laser-Doppler-Anemometry. We wanted to use the remaining time to discover new countries, cultures and wonders of nature.

This trip broadened my horizons and I learnt to accept other lifestyles, customs and religions that were completely strange to me and to be open to new things every day.

Back at the university I was occupied with experimental investigations in Laser-Doppler-Anemometry. The processing and computer analysis of the measurement results was now the main priority.

In April 1996 I started working with tti Technologietransfer und Innovationsförderung Magdeburg as a consultant within the European project "Innovation Relay Centre - European contact point for Research and Technology". Since then I had the opportunity to provide the proof of my abilities and experience in various projects and I broadened my knowledge continuously.