News › Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH · TOP 100 seal

Suc­cessful par­ti­ci­pa­tion in the inno­va­tion com­pe­ti­tion · Ranga Yogeshwar con­gra­tu­la­tes the com­pany in June.

Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH (AFS) from Jena has con­vin­ced with its inno­va­tion qua­li­ties and the­r­e­fore recei­ved the TOP 100 seal 2023. Only par­ti­cu­larly inno­va­tive medium-sized com­pa­nies receive this award. On June 23, sci­ence jour­na­list Ranga Yogeshwar will per­so­nally con­gra­tu­late AFS on this suc­cess at the award cerem­ony in Augs­burg. Yogeshwar accom­pa­nies the TOP 100 inno­va­tion com­pe­ti­tion as a mentor.

The com­pe­ti­tion is based on a sci­en­ti­fic sel­ec­tion pro­cess. On behalf of com­pa­me­dia, the orga­ni­zer of the com­pa­ri­son, inno­va­tion rese­ar­cher Prof. Dr. Niko­laus Franke from the Vienna Uni­ver­sity of Eco­no­mics and Busi­ness Admi­nis­tra­tion and his team exami­ned Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH based on more than 100 cri­te­ria from five cate­go­ries: Inno­va­tion-pro­mo­ting top manage­ment, inno­va­tion cli­mate, inno­va­tive pro­ces­ses and orga­niza­tion, exter­nal orientation/open inno­va­tion and inno­va­tion suc­cess. Of par­ti­cu­lar importance is whe­ther a company’s inno­va­tions are just a ran­dom pro­duct or are sys­te­ma­ti­cally plan­ned and thus repeata­ble in the future (fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the test cri­te­ria can be found at www.top100.de/pruefkriterien).

Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH is based in the field of laser tech­no­logy. The com­pany has made a name for its­elf in the field of ultras­hort pulse lasers in par­ti­cu­lar. AFS is a tech­no­logy lea­der in high-power fem­to­se­cond laser sys­tems. »Our employees have pushed the boun­da­ries of what is pos­si­ble in an impres­sive way over the last four­teen years,« says CTO Dr. Tino Eidam. »Our solu­ti­ons range from com­pact laser sources to highly com­plex laser beam­li­nes with mul­ti­ple out­put ports.« All of AFS‹ high-power laser sys­tems are based enti­rely on fiber ampli­fier tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in Jena and are curr­ently delight­ing cus­to­mers in the sci­en­ti­fic sec­tor in par­ti­cu­lar. Since Janu­ary 2022, the com­pany has been part of the Trumpf Group, making it one of the most important and inno­va­tive machine buil­ders in Europe. Expan­sion into the indus­trial mar­ket is the­r­e­fore imminent.

To ensure that all appli­cants have equal oppor­tu­ni­ties, the seal is awarded in three size cate­go­ries: up to 50, 51 to 200 and more than 200 employees. In the anni­ver­sary year of TOP 100 – the cur­rent round is alre­ady the 30th edi­tion of the inno­va­tion com­pe­ti­tion – inte­rest was par­ti­cu­larly high: 550 SMEs applied, 300 of them were suc­cessful and now bear the TOP 100 seal. A maxi­mum of 100 com­pa­nies per size cate­gory can be honored.
»TOP 100 is about the ques­tion of how important the inno­va­tion goal is within the com­pany,« says Prof. Dr. Niko­laus Franke, sci­en­ti­fic direc­tor of the com­pe­ti­tion. »Do rou­ti­nes and habits domi­nate, or is the com­pany capa­ble of ques­tio­ning the exis­ting, thin­king crea­tively and in new ways, and suc­cessfully imple­men­ting them on the mar­ket? We ana­lyze this ability using more than 100 test cri­te­ria,« he explains.

On June 23, all the top inno­va­tors of 2023 will come tog­e­ther in Augs­burg for the award cerem­ony at the Ger­man SME Sum­mit. There, Ranga Yogeshwar will per­so­nally con­gra­tu­late them on their suc­cess in TOP 100.

TOP 100: the competition

Since 1993, com­pa­me­dia has been awar­ding the TOP 100 seal of appr­oval to medium-sized com­pa­nies for spe­cial inno­va­tive strength and above-average inno­va­tion suc­cess. Since 2002, sci­en­ti­fic manage­ment has been in the hands of Prof. Dr. Niko­laus Franke. Franke is the foun­der and direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Entre­pre­neur­ship and Inno­va­tion at the Vienna Uni­ver­sity of Eco­no­mics and Busi­ness. With 26 rese­arch awards and over 200 publi­ca­ti­ons, he is one of the lea­ding inno­va­tion rese­ar­chers inter­na­tio­nally. The men­tor of TOP 100 is sci­ence jour­na­list Ranga Yogeshwar. Pro­ject part­ners are the Fraun­ho­fer Society for the Pro­mo­tion of Applied Rese­arch and the BVMW asso­cia­tion of small and medium-sized enter­pri­ses. The maga­zi­nes mana­ger maga­zin and impulse accom­pany the com­pany com­pa­ri­son as media part­ners, ZEIT für Unter­neh­mer is a coope­ra­tion part­ner. More infor­ma­tion and regis­tra­tion under www.top100.de.
More infor­ma­tion as well as gene­ral gra­phi­cal mate­rial on the TOP 100 com­pe­ti­tion can be found on the Inter­net at www.top100.de/presse or by sen­ding an e‑mail to ed.aidemapmoc@esserp.

About AFS

Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH is based in Jena, the »city of pho­to­nics« in Ger­many. Active Fiber Sys­tems GmbH (AFS) is a tech­no­logy lea­der for high power fem­to­se­cond laser sys­tems. Over the past decade, our employees have been pushing the boun­da­ries of what is pos­si­ble. Our solu­ti­ons range from com­pact opti­ons to com­plex high power fem­to­se­cond laser beam­li­nes with mul­ti­ple out­put ports. All of our high-power laser sys­tems are based enti­rely on fiber ampli­fier tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped in Jena, Germany.

For more infor­ma­tion about AFS, please visit: www.afs-jena.de