German inventor bridges gaps between Korea and Germany

By Choe Nam-suk, vice chairman of The Korea Post media group
There is a German inventor-scientist who has proven to be a firm bridge between Korea and Germany. His name is Wilfred Sturm.
Sturm is a very talented person, and is considered a well-established physicist, inventor and a philanthropist. He has been performing a lot of honorary activities worldwide as well as in Korea.
For more than 30 years, Sturm has been fully dedicated as ‘an ambassador of education and science’—not only in Germany but also worldwide especially in Asia, including Taiwan, China, Thailand and Iran as well as Korea.

Since 2006, he has been very closely cooperating with the Korean Invention Promotion Association (KIPA). He established his 34-year-old student-science-invention-project “Hardware AG” (HAG) in Germany.
He was invited to participate at the Seoul International Invention Fair (SIIF) at COEX as a teacher for realizing innovate inventions, especially for handicapped peoples--like himself with his 80% disability--to make their life easier. Since that time, Sturm was invited annually by KIPA as a representative of Germany as well as an inventor nation. Sturm is very happy for the full cooperation with KIPA and gives his hearty thanks to KIPA President Dr. Lee Joon-seok.

Because of the dedicated commitment, Sturm was awarded in Germany in 2004 with a tile, “Teacher of the Year”, in 2007 with “German Teacher Prize” and in 2011 an “Ambassador of Education in Science of the Year”. His intention is to build up cooperation with international institutions of education for the members to learn from each other.
Every time he spent time in Korea he visited schools and universities to give practical lessons in physics and mathematics combined with magic effects to open the mind for a special viewing of the nature with sometimes strange, unbelievable and phenomenal appearances. One of his manifold skills point him out as a wonderful magician by fascinating the young and old with unbelievable magic effects.

Besides his enthusiastic worldwide activities for bridging gaps between different levels of MINT-education (mathematics, informatics, natural science, technology), his focal point is to overcome barriers between different cultures and religions in order to establish a peaceful understanding among one another other. That´s why he uses every challenge to act in his function as an Ambassador of Education in Science for representing Germany and their special education targets.
This year´s 15th return to Korea was a special happening of celebrated anniversary with many outstanding chain of events.

One of them was the participation at invention fair SIIF 2016. The presented invention “Smart Napkin” is a unique innovation to prevent new born babies from a sudden infant death. Different high-tech sensors in the napkin enable the monitoring of essential functions of a baby i.e. breathing, temperature and others. If critical signals are recorded like abnormal breathing, indication of sudden infant death (SID) or dangerous temperature the observer will be alerted at once by blue-tooth. The awarding by KIPA President Joon-seok Lee with Gold-Medal and 5 international Special-Awards from Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Qatar and Syria shows the phenomenal achievement of his student-science-invention-project (HAG).

Further highlights were the awarding as an outstanding international MINT Ambassador by the principal of DSSI (German School Seoul International) for his dedicated workshops with students and teachers over 10 years and the honor of Iranian IFIA President Alireza Rastegar (International Federation Inventors´ Association) for excellent engagement as IFIA Youth Network Manager.
Another outstanding event was the second meeting with Uli Stielicke, well known in Germany as a former international football player and now head coach of Korea national football team, was an awesome happening for supporting Sturm´s refugees engagement. He presented once more a football and a shirt of Korean national team signed by the team in order to earn some financial support for selling these by auction.

Also meriting attention was the “GHS-Welcome-Dinner” arranged by General Manager Bernhard Brender of the Grand Hilton Seoul. One of the VIP guests was German Ambassador Stephan Auer with his wife. After introduction by a power-point-presentation he was impressed with Sturm´s engagements in helping people worldwide, youths, inventors, refugees, prisoners and disabled and needy persons.
German Inventor Sturm reaffirmed his intention to come back to Korea because he ‘left his heart in Korea.’ He remembers his own experience in the formerly divided Germany, his living in the Communist East Germany until he was 13 years old and the overnight escape with his family lest his father should have been imprisoned.

Every time he comes back to Korea, he recalls his own tragedy and the awful political situation between the two divided parts of the Korean peninsula.