We are delighted to share that Dr. Johannes Vrana and US innovation and strategy coach Dr. Ripi Singh have jointly received the prestigious 2025 Kurzweil Award for High Impact in NDE 4.0. Presented during the International Conference on NDE 4.0 in Bengaluru, India, the award honours their exceptional joint contributions to "pioneering, leading and globalising NDE 4.0".

Named after renowned futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil and established in 2022—when Prof. Dr. Norbert Meyendorf and Prof. Dr. Bernd Valeske received the inaugural award for starting the field of NDE 4.0—the Kurzweil Award has become a hallmark of excellence across the global NDE 4.0 community.

The 2025 award celebrates the synergy of Dr. Vrana and Dr. Singh's long-standing partnership in fostering global collaboration, knowledge sharing, and real-world adoption of digital inspection technologies. Dr. Ripi Singh brings extensive expertise in digital transformation and strategy coaching, bridging the gap between academia and industry and championing NDE 4.0 through leadership roles in organisations such as the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT). Complementing this, Dr. Johannes Vrana has been advancing the confluence of NDE, data science, and artificial intelligence since 2017—integrating inspection data into design, manufacturing, and maintenance workflows while shaping the community through international working groups, the global NDE 4.0 conference series launched in 2021, and his book The World of NDE 4.0.

This honour marks another shared milestone for Dr. Vrana and Dr. Singh, following their joint receipt of the distinguished Robert C. McMaster Gold Medal in 2022.