Stuttgart (/ˈʃtʊtɡɑːrt/; German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʊtɡaʁt] ^ⓘ, Swabian: Schduagert [ˈʃd̥ua̯ɡ̊ɛʕt]) is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,068 (October 2014). Retrieved 17 Feb 2015 while the greater Stuttgart Metropolitan Region has a population of 5.3 million (2008), being the fourth-biggest in Germany after the Rhine-Ruhr area, Berlin/Brandenburg and Frankfurt/Rhine-Main. The city lies at the centre of a densely populated area, surrounded by a ring of smaller towns. This area called Stuttgart Region has a population of 2.7 million.

Stuttgart is spread across a variety of hills (many of them vineyards), valleys and parks – unusual for a German city and often a source of surprise to visitors who primarily associate the city with its industrial reputation as the 'cradle of the automobile'. Stuttgart has the status of Stadtkreis, a type of self-administrating urban county. It is also the seat of the State Parliament and State Government of Baden-Württemberg, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg as well as one of the two co-seats of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

Robert Bosch (23 September 1861 – 12 March 1942) was a German industrialist, engineer and inventor, founder of Robert Bosch GmbH. Bosch was born in Albeck, a village to the northeast of Ulm in southern Germany. He was the eleventh of twelve children. His parents came from a class of well-situated farmers from the region. His father, a freemason, was unusually well-educated for someone of his class, and placed special importance on a good education for his children. As a child, Robert liked to try and invent, he would fuss with little electric or mechanical toys and make something different out of them. He saw potential for himself to become an inventor and later studied quantum mechanics. From 1869 to 1876, Bosch attended the Realschule (secondary-technical school) in Ulm, and then took an apprenticeship as a precision mechanic.