Honeywell Initiative For Science & Engineering Introduces 2007 Nobel Laureate Professor Albert Fert To VSB-Technical University In Ostrava, Czech Republic

Professor Fert inspires VSB students with a presentation on spintronics.

This is the sixth Honeywell-sponsored Nobel laureate event in the Czech Republic.

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Mar 26, 2013, 08:00 ET

OSTRAVA, Czech Republic, March 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON) today introduced Professor Albert Fert, Nobel laureate in Physics, to the students and faculty of VSB-Technical University in Ostrava as part of its global Honeywell Initiative for Science & Engineering (HISE) program.

Professor Fert is among 22 Nobel laureates that Honeywell has sponsored at universities worldwide since 2006. The event marks the sixth time a Honeywell program has been delivered to a university in the Czech Republic, benefiting thousands of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students and teachers across the country.

Fert was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR), making him one of the pioneers of the digital revolution. GMR brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks, enabling tremendous advances in computer memory by allowing DVDs and other disks to store enormous amounts of data.

With more than 1,000 students in attendance, Fert delivered a lecture on the fundamentals of spintronics, which is a field of science that has arisen from his work on GMR. Spintronics is used for quantum information processing as well as for read heads in computer hard drives.

"We will soon be seeing new applications for spintronics," Fert said. "These include new types of computer memories that have a significant reduction in energy consumption, as well as new applications for radio-wave devices in telecommunications."

Students engaged in a lively discussion after the talk and interacted directly with the professor during his visit.

"We are delighted to host HISE and Professor Fert for this two-day event," said VSB-Technical University Rector Ivo Vondrak. "By providing our students the opportunity to interact and learn directly from a Nobel laureate, we hope to energize and inspire tomorrow's great leaders in engineering and science."

"As a company that invents and manufactures leading technologies, our passion is to pursue innovative ways to make the world safer and more secure, and more comfortable and energy efficient," said Karl-Heinz Bauer, CTO, Honeywell Transportation Systems. "It is important for us to connect students to STEM-related careers so they can tackle the global challenges that all of us will face in the future."

About Honeywell Hometown Solutions
The Honeywell Initiative for Science & Engineering program is part of Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company's corporate citizenship initiative, which focuses on five areas of vital importance: Science & Math Education, Family Safety & Security, Housing & Shelter, Habitat & Conservation, and Humanitarian Relief. Together with leading public and non-profit institutions, Honeywell has developed powerful programs to address these needs in the communities it serves. For more information, please visit: http://citizenship.honeywell.com/.

About Honeywell
Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; turbochargers; and performance materials. Based in Morris Township, N.J., Honeywell's shares are traded on the New York, London, and Chicago Stock Exchanges. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywellnow.com.

Honeywell in the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is the cornerstone of Honeywell's global engineering strategy in Europe. The Prague Laboratory opened in 1993 and the Brno Design Center followed ten years later. In 2006, the Brno Design Center was integrated into Honeywell Technology Solutions' international network of Research, Development and Engineering centers, located in the United States, China, India and the Czech Republic. This center provides support to different business divisions -- Aerospace, Automation and Control Solutions and Transportation Systems, on a global level. Honeywell also has two manufacturing sites, with Aerospace in Olomouc and Environmental and Combustion Controls in Brno. More than 4,000 professionals work for Honeywell in the Czech Republic.