Jorma Vitkala was the first and ‘secret’ recipient of The Jorma Vitkala Award of Merit
At next year’s GPD in Finland, the Jorma Vitkala Award of Merit will be awarded for exceptional innovations and achievements in the development and applications of glass.
The Jorma Vitkala Award of Merit was introduced at The Glass Performance Days 2017 “to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the glass industry”. This prize was created for the GPDs 25th Anniversary and Jorma himself was the first recipient.
This award for exceptional innovations and achievements in the development and applications of glass will be continued for future GPDs conference, with future recipients screened through an international nomination procedure which would also involve a selected group of media representatives.
For this purpose, the founders of the prize (GPD’s platinum sponsors, Jorma Vitkala and Glaston) propose to establish an international Nomination Committee that would consist of key personalities from the glass industry and the professional media reporting on the business.
The Award organizers are looking for the proposal and nomination of an outstanding contributor to the development of the international glass industry through innovative products, systems, construction, design or architecture. Nominations would need to be backed up by a brief description of the nominee’s relevant merits and the final choice would be made by the nomination committee as a team.
The Opening Ceremony of GPD 2019 is scheduled for June 26th 2019. While Jorma could not lead the process for 2017 (for the very good reason that he was the ‘secret’ recipient), he has been asked to coordinate the process for 2019.