This year, the award for lifetime contribution to the development of Czechoslovak engineering went to Professor František Pochylý of the Eenergy Institute. He personally received the award during a gala evening at the International Industrial Fair. It was this show of technical innovations that captivated him as a little boy and directed him to study technical fields.

The tradition of the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Development of Czechoslovak Engineering dates back to 2006. At that time, the idea arose to regularly award personalities who have made a major contribution to the development of the technical field in which they have worked or continue to operate during their professional lives. The award, which has been won by a number of important personalities of Czechoslovak engineering in the past, was awarded this year to Prof. František Pochylý.

František Pochylý was born in 1942 in Slavkov. In 1966, he graduated from the Department of Hydraulic Machines of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. For the next 20 years, he worked at the research institute of the Sigma Olomouc company. Then he continued as the chief designer of the State Forests Olomouc, and in 1986 he joined the Department of Hydraulic Machines of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology, today the Viktor Kaplan Department of Fluid Engineering. In 1999, František Pochylý came up with a revolutionary idea, the implementation of which created a completely new type of the so-called vortex turbine. The implementation of this turbine makes a significant contribution to the production of electricity from renewable sources. With his research results, František Pochylý has achieved recognition not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad.

"I come from a small village. As a boy, I only saw a lathe in a carpentry workshop or a grain threshing machine. There were no cars in the village, not even tractors, only horse-drawn carriages. And then my father took me to an engineering fair. It was a complete shock for me, I saw so many devices that I was like Alice in Wonderland. At the time, of course, I didn't understand any of it; I just admired it. But it probably had an impact on my becoming interested in engineering," Pochylý recalled last year in an interview.

"Professor Pochylý has always been full of creative zeal, original ideas, and is one of the few experts who is able to combine deep theoretical knowledge with practice at a high level," the organizers said on their website. Nomination for the Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Development of Czechoslovak Engineering Professor Pochylý for 2025 was supported by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology, the Engineering Academy of the Czech Republic, and his home Department of Fluid Engineering. "The Professor is not only an extremely creative scientist, but also a person with a kind and helpful approach to colleagues and students, to whom he has been an example throughout his life. I myself proudly declare myself to be his student," said Pavel Rudolf, Head of the Department of Fluid Engineering.

Professor, congratulations on this wonderful award!