Former apprentice Christopher Fronober was honoured with the award for outstanding achievements in training (opens in new tab). The award recognises exceptional commitment, excellent technical performance and a challenging project. The prize is endowed with a total of €5,000, half of which goes to the apprentice and half to the training department.

The award winner completed his training as Computer Science Expert (Subject Area: System Integration) at the Institute of Applied Geosciences (IAG), supervised by Daniel Heß and Tom Schiedek. He graduated in January 2026 with an excellent overall grade of 1.

The award-winning project, ‘IAG Geodata Cloud,’ focused on the development of a central in-house solution for geological data and software. Specifically, the project included

• the development of a central server environment,
• the provision of a Nextcloud server for structured and secure data management,
• the establishment of a GeoServer for the provision of geological maps and other geodata in the form of Web Map Services and Web Feature Services, and
• the creation of a flexible test environment.

The result is a scalable and centrally managed platform that significantly simplifies the handling of large geological data sets and at the same time opens up new opportunities for collaboration and data provision.

The University Computing Centre (HRZ) at TU Darmstadt congratulates on this award and sees it as a strong sign of the high quality of education and the successful interaction between IT, research and administration at the university.