Branco Weiss

Branco Weiss, 2009

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

Life

Weiss came from a Jewish family from Burgenland who later settled in Croatia. His father was murdered by the fascists . His mother was from Budapest . With her he came to Italy as a child and later to Switzerland. In Glarisegg he passed the Matura in 1944 . At that time he was living as a nursing student with a teacher for German and French in Steckborn .

From 1947 he studied at the ETH Zurich with a Peter Reinhart scholarship of 3600 francs per year and also worked as a laboratory assistant in an artificial silk factory. He completed his studies in 1951 as a qualified chemical engineer . He then wrote a dissertation on cost-benefit analyzes in the field of filter technology with August Guyer, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry . He then did his first internship at Sandoz in Basel .

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

The University of Basel awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2005 for his exceptional commitment to the establishment of the Institute for Jewish Studies . He received three additional honorary doctorates, from Tel Aviv University (1993), EPFL in Lausanne (1998) and ETH Zurich (1998). From 1985 to 1994 Weiss held lectures at ETH Zurich on “Introductions to Technology Strategies” and “Planning, Founding, Establishing and Managing New Enterprises”. The ETH has been awarding the Branco Weiss Fellowship since 2003. In his will, Weiss bequeathed an estimated CHF 100 million to the Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship. In 2004, he supported the ETH Science City project with 23 million francs.

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

The Branco Weiss Institute for Educational Support in Israel bears his name. It operates twelve schools in the country.

Publications

• Branco Weiss et al. a .: The structural change in the Swiss economy: challenge or crisis? [Lectures given at the Zurich Conference on September 8, 1988]. In: Swiss values . No. 11, Royal Trust Bank, Zurich 1988.
• Branco Weiss (Ed.): Practice of Venture Capital . Verlag Moderne Industrie, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-478-31610-3 .
• Branco Weiss: Entrepreneurship. Ramot Publishing, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 1994, ISBN 965-274-160-4 .
• Jean-Claude Badoux, Dario R. Barberis, Branco Weiss: Seven Years of the SATW Fund - Branco Weiss . An exchange program for young engineers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS and Switzerland; 1992 - 1999 / Sem 'let fonda ŠATN - Branko Vejss. SATW, Swiss Academy of Technical 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 .

literature

• Richard Morais: Swiss Risk - How Branco Weiss is shaking up the cautious Swiss. In: Forbes Magazine . Vol. 139, Issues 10-14, Forbes, New York, NY 1987, pp. 49 ff, ISSN  0015-6914

Web links

Commons : Branco Weiss  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship
• The Branco Weiss Institute
• Short biography and reviews of works by Branco Weiss at perlentaucher.de
• Christian Baertschi: Branco Weiss. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Obituaries

• Branco Weiss is dead. In: Basler Zeitung . November 1, 2010.
• The power of curiosity in practical life. On the death of the entrepreneur and patron Branco Weiss. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 1, 2010.
• His money went to universities, entrepreneurs and artists. In: Tages-Anzeiger . November 1, 2010.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matthias Daum: Do good and calculate sharply. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . April 13, 2010.
2. ↑ Marita Haibach: University Fundraising: A Handbook for Practice. Campus, Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 978-3-593-38587-7 , p. 180 ( books.google.de ).
3. ↑ Martin Meyer: The power of curiosity in practical life - To the death of the entrepreneur and patron Branco Weiss . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 254 . Zurich November 1, 2010, p. 31 .
4. ↑ Branco Weiss: Facilitate the toil of human existence . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . August 25, 2010. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
5. ↑ Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 2005.  
6. ^ Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship
7. ^ Roman Klingler: Branco Weiss' posthumous gift . In: ETH Life . October 25, 2012. Retrieved October 27, 2012.
8. ↑ CH / ETH sponsor and entrepreneur Branco Weiss is dead.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Handelszeitung online . November 1, 2010.