TRILUX celebrates 10 years of light knowledge at the TRILUX Akademie

Above: 10 years of the TRILUX Akademie – the renowned further training institution celebrated its anniversary with a ceremony.

The TRILUX Akademie was founded in 2011 with the aim of bringing complex lighting knowledge to the market with a high-quality and practice-oriented range of courses and seminars, to anchor it there permanently. Today, with more than 160 events per year and over 165,000 participants since its foundation, the further education institution is one of the largest European training platforms for light and lighting. To mark its milestone birthday, the company hosted an anniversary week with a festive opening event and an informative programme for employees, customers, and journalists – and, fittingly, opened its tenth Akademie location.

Whether basic lighting knowledge or in-depth know-how on smart light, quality of light, or planning tools – with the courses and seminars of the TRILUX Akademie, participants can bring their lighting knowledge up to date in a targeted manner. Since its foundation in 2011, a total of around 165,000 people have taken advantage of the training courses offered at the TRILUX Akademie. The greatest strengths of the events include the high level of practical relevance and the excellent qualifications of the speakers. “TRILUX has been offering employees and customers targeted further training courses since as early as 1949 since 1987 even with its own lecture theatre,” said Heiner Hans, Head of the TRILUX Akademie, summarising the (pre-)history. “In order to be able to concentrate fully on the transfer of knowledge, we took the next logical step towards an institutionalised further training institution in 2011 with the foundation of the TRILUX Akademie,” says Hans. With resounding success.

A round thing – opening of the tenth location in the anniversary year

Since 2015, the TRILUX Akademie has been on an international expansion course – and has successively founded new branches, for example in Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria and the United Arab Emirates. In its anniversary year, the TRILUX Akademie will now open three further locations and will then be represented internationally with a total of ten branches.

Helen Loomes, Innovation, Akademie, TRILUX Group, comments, “The Akademie UK has been in existence since 2015 and has grown from strength to strength and is now widely recognised in the UK. We are regularly asked to participate in roundtables or write articles on Sustainability, HCL, or EN12464-1. Our monthly webinars usually attract a good audience, often reaching 100 people. Still, most useful for our customers are the lunchtime CPD seminars held for individual companies where we present a topic of their choice. Usually, 10 – 15 people gather for lunch, so it is relaxed and allows them to ask questions. This type of meeting, even if it is held online, brings us closer to our customers and creates trust.

Looking forward, we are implementing a new system to help our employees in their learning and make it a higher focus. This training will cover all aspects of our business, whether lighting specific or understanding Microsoft 365. We are also working closely with the other TRILUX subsidiaries to share knowledge, creating more Akademies.”

The three new academies are located at the headquarters of the retail subsidiary Oktalite in Cologne (Germany) and as digital branches in Poland and Spain – and will commence operations in the course of the year. They will be managed by a local contact person on site and offer selected digital seminar content in the respective national language.

“Proximity to the market and customers is firmly anchored in our corporate DNA. With the local academies, we are optimally prepared for the different qualification needs in an internationally very diverse market – and

bring cutting-edge lighting knowledge to the various countries in precisely the form required,” explains Joachim Geiger, CSO and CMO of the TRILUX Group.

Opening event and anniversary week – festive and fact-filled

On 6 September 2021 – almost exactly ten years to the day after the opening of the TRILUX Akademie on 9 September 2011 – the further education institution celebrated its foundation with an event at the headquarters in Arnsberg. A colourful programme with guests focused on the fascination of light, including a keynote speech by futurologist Birgit Gebhardt on the subject of the “Smart working world of the future”.

During the subsequent anniversary week, the TRILUX Akademie offered employees, customers and press representatives a customised digital training programme from 7 – 9 September 2021. Under the motto “It`s all about knowledge!”, participants were able to learn about future technological developments and potential in the lighting market in short online sessions followed by live expert discussions. “Especially in the areas of lighting quality, connectivity and digital lighting design, there is currently a high demand for further training – topics that we are specifically whetting the appetite for with our anniversary special,” is how Heiner Hans sums it up.