Milan Vidmar – a visionary on the chessboard of life

This year marks the 140th of the birth of academician Prof. Dr. Milan Vidmar , the founder of the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute. In this jubilee year, we remember a man of many talents and achievements who left a unique mark in electrical engineering, science, education and the world of chess.

He established very early on that the development of the technologically demanding electric power system will require close cooperation of top experts under one roof. With immense energy and vision, he founded the Research Institute for the Electricity Economy – today the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute, which, under his leadership and enthusiasm, laid the foundations of our electricity system, and today is actively involved in addressing the challenges of modern electricity.

He was an electrical engineer, a chess player, a writer, a philosopher, an educator; a man of multidimensional dimensions, exceptional concentration and unrelenting perseverance. His legacy is present in every transformer, in the power grid and in the thinking that drives us to seek new paths and solutions. He has established himself internationally not only as a pioneer and expert in electrical engineering, but also as a chess grandmaster. For more than two decades, he was one of the best chess players in the world. For him, chess was a strategic game of cleverness and deep reflection – values that we preserve and promote at the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute.

He was an outstanding personality who, with his extensive scope of work, built bridges between science, technology and society. At the Milan Vidmar Electric Power Research Institute, we are proud to preserve and continue his vision and to remember his role as one of the most important Slovenian intellectuals of the last century.