Engagement of the brands around their core business
The Zumtobel brand supports light art projects. This provides a means of squaring up to the new challenges of lighting in a particularly creative manner and generates new impetus for the ongoing enhancement and expansion of the product portfolio, as well as driving progress in the Group's corporate culture. This engagement is based on long-term collaboration with prominent international architects, designers and artists within the scope of the brand's close-knit network. In recent years, the Zumtobel brand has implemented projects together with such leading figures as James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Höller, Siegrun Appelt and Keith Sonnier. Along with several centres of architecture, the Zumtobel brand also supports museums and galleries in the realisation of exhibitions and installations, including Kunsthaus Bregenz, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Schirn-Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
Along with these activities there were also smaller local engagements, such as the Zumtobel brand's presentation of a prize for engineering students in Lemgo, Germany, where the company has a production facility. The prize carried a total purse of EUR 1,200. In the course of a project seminar, the five award-winners designed what, from the company's point of view, was the most innovative and cost-effective mounting solution for a professional lighting system.
As a member of LUCI (Lighting Urban Community International), a body that brings together companies, lighting designers, architects, universities and some 60 towns and cities, since 2007 the Thorn brand has been supporting the LUCI LightLinks competition. LightLinks promotes cooperation between cities in countries with high and low per capita income, with the aim of realising urban lighting solutions in the financially challenged locations and thereby contribute to their economic and social development. The initial project concerns illuminating historical landmarks in the City of Jericho on the Palestinian West Bank. The sister city in this case is Lyon in France, where the LUCI network was first initiated.
The sponsorship activities of the Tridonic brand are focused in particular on the field of vocational training and higher education. By way of example, the brand maintains very close relations with educational establishments in the Austrian Tyrol in the vicinity of its components plant in Innsbruck. These include the Höhere Technische Bundeslehranstalt (HTBLA – Technical College) in Fulpmes and the local vocational schools for metalworking and electrical engineering. For over 20 years now, Tridonic has been responsible for equipping the showcases at the HTBLA, organising excursions, offering internships and stewarding final papers for prospective technical college graduates.
For the past two years and more, Tridonic has also adopted a new approach to recruiting skilled staff for the development sector by cooperating with universities in the UK and Switzerland. This involves providing scholarships for selected students whose studies are geared to topics of relevance to Tridonic. The students select topics of interest to Tridonic for their project work and can gain practical experience at the company during university vacations.
