Branco Weiss

Branco Weiss ( born April 23, 1929 in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia; † 31 October 2010 Zollikon ) was a Swiss businessman and patron.

Life

White came from a Jewish family from the Burgenland, which later settled in Croatia. His father was murdered by the fascists. As a child he came to Italy and later to Switzerland. In Glarisegg he laid in 1944 from the Matura.

He studied from 1947 with a scholarship at the ETH Zurich and worked part-time as a lab. He graduated in 1951 from Chemical Engineering. Then he wrote a dissertation on cost -benefit analyzes in the field of filter technology.

White construction of several high-tech companies. The Kontron founded by him in 1959 was taken over in 1974 by Hoffmann -La Roche. As a patron Weiss supported several universities, and many cultural projects.

The University of Basel in 2005 awarded him an honorary doctorate for his exceptional commitment to the establishment of the Institute for Jewish Studies. He received three honorary doctorate from the University of Tel Aviv ( 1993), the EPFL in Lausanne ( 1998) and the ETH Zurich (1998). At ETH Zurich Weiss held from 1985 to 1994 lectures on " introductions to the technology strategies " as well as " the planning, establishment, development and management of new ventures ". The ETH has awarded since 2003, the Branco Weiss Fellowship. In his will bequeathed Weiss estimated 100 million francs to the Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship. The ETH Science City project he supported in 2004 with 23 million francs.

Weiss was an honorary member of the Swiss Association of Engineers and Architects as well as a board member and honorary member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences.

The Branco Weiss Institute for the promotion of education in Israel bears his name. It operates twelve schools in the country.

Publications

• Branco Weiss et al: The structural transformation of the Swiss economy: challenge or crisis? [ International Institute on the Zurich conference on September 8, 1988 ]. In: Swiss values ​​. No. 11, Royal Trust Bank, Zurich 1988 ( no ISBN ).
• Branco Weiss ( ed.): Practice of Venture Capital. Verlag Moderne Industrie, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-478-31610-3.
• Jean -Claude Badoux, Dario R. Barberis, Branco Weiss: Seven years Fund SATW - Branco Weiss. An exchange program for young engineers / interior from the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS and Switzerland; 1992 - 1999 / Sem ' let fonda ŠATN - Branko Vejss. SATW, Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-908235-02-2 ( German and Russian).
• Bruno Fritsch, Branco Weiss: The panel discussion - shaping the future in the chaos of emotional intelligences. A satire. Olzog, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7892-8030-5.