A veteran Safran engineer has received a prestigious award for his role in helping to develop SIM technology. The Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (“Fraunhofer SIT”) has awarded Hanno Dietrich the SmartCard Workshop Prize 2016.

Dietrich started at Safran as a developer in 1987, working on the software of the first chip-based banking card in Germany as his first major project. From there, he went on to help Safran develop the first SIM card for Deutsche Telekom for the launch of the GSM network in 1992; and Dietrich went on to represent Safran at various industry conferences aiming pertaining to the development of the UICC and USIM technologies used in subsequent cellular networks.

The Fraunhofer SIT award highlights the increasing importance of the SIM card over time, and also points to its continued importance going forward. In a statement announcing Dietrich’s recognition, Safran asserted that “[t]oday the challenge is to conquer the Internet of Things (IoT),” since a plethora of newly connected devices “need a secure element containing a SIM.” To that end, Safran has been promoting its eSIM provisioning solution at events like the Sierra Wireless Innovation Summit and even the TU-Automotive Detroit 2016 auto show. The company clearly aims to maintain its strong presence in the increasingly important field of SIM technology.