Dr. Stefanie Babst has been a member of NATO’s International Staff since 1998.  She is currently the Head of the Strategic Analysis Capability for the NATO Secretary General and for the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee.  In this capacity, she is responsible for preparing comprehensive assessments on potential upcoming crisis situations in geographical and functional areas of relevance and concern to NATO, as well as on their implications for the Alliance. Prior to joining SAC in 2012, she occupied various posts in NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, including that of NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy.

She began her career in 1991 as Assistant Professor for International Security Policy at the Institute of Political Science/Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, moving on to become Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the Federal Armed Forces Command & General Staff College in Hamburg.

Stefanie is an internationally renowned publisher and speaker of international security issues. She is a member of a number of policy groups and security networks, including Women in International Security (WIIS) and the World Economic Forum. In recognition of her professional achievements, she has received several awards.

Andreas Kunze is the CEO and Co-Founder of KONUX. He studied Information Systems at TUM and Stanford University. In 2016, Andreas was the youngest CEO to be on the “40 under 40 entrepreneurs“; list by Capital Magazine. In early 2017, he got selected among Forbes‘ “Top 30 under 30 – Europe” and 2018 selected in the MIT Technology Review list of „Top Innovators under 35 Germany“ and became part of the „European Digital Leaders“ of the World Economic Forum.

His industrial AI company KONUX has raised +$50 million with leading Silicon Valley investors such as NEA and Andy Bechtolsheim. They won the national mobility award „Deutscher Mobilitätspreis“ and the German digital award „The Spark“ in 2016 and was selected into the WEF’s prestigious group of „Technology Pioneers“ one year later. They are one of the fastest growing companies in Europe.

Prof. Dr. Claudia Linnhoff-Popien holds the Mobile and Distributed Systems Chair at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. After her doctorate at the RWTH Aachen, she worked at the Washington University of St. Louis, Missouri, USA, before she was appointed to the LMU in 1998. She is a board member of the Institute of Computer Science, a member of the Munich Circle Research Committee and co-founder of ALOQA GmbH, which was sold to Motorola Mobility in 2010 with one million users – one of the largest exits in the start-up history of German universities. She is also head of the lead project „Mobile Internet Innovation Center“ of the Center for Digitization Bavaria (ZD.B), which is funded by the State of Bavaria. It also provides scientific advice to VIRALITY GmbH. She is author and editor of 14 books and has published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and conference contributions. She is a member of 139 program committees of international workshops and conferences organized by IFIP, ACM, IEEE, Gesellschaft für Informatik and other organizations. Furthermore, she is a consultant for several national scientific institutions and has already led numerous research projects of industry and the State of Bavaria to great success.

Prof. Dr. Paul Lukowicz has been Scientific Director and Head of the Embedded Intelligence Research Unit at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) since 2012 and at the same time holds a chair in the Department of Computer Science at the TU Kaiserslautern. From 2006 to 2012 he was Head of the Chair of Applied Computer Science with a focus on Embedded Systems and Pervasive Computing at the University of Passau and from 2003-2006 he was Professor of Computer Science and Head of the Institute of Computer Engineering and Communication Technology at the Private University of Health Sciences, Medical Computer Science and Technology in Innsbruck. His research focuses mainly on context-specific and portable recognition systems, including pattern recognition, system architectures, models, large self-organizing systems and their applications.

Holger Martens, born on 11.05.1958 in Frankfurt. After training as a commercial specialist, he worked in various companies as a key account manager in sales. In 2002 he founded the company DIGI-TEXX, which is specialized in data acquisition services. In 2009 the company name was changed to DOCUBYTE. Since then, digitization projects have been carried out for large companies in a wide variety of industries. In 2013 DOCUBYTE received the FAST FIFTY AWARD from Deloitte for place 48 among the 50 fastest growing technology companies in Germany. His vision is to „rid companies of paper“ by implementing document management processes „digitally“ in the future.

Andrea Martin is leader of the IBM Watson IoT Center in Munich and is responsible for its scope and market relevance. Before taking over this role in July 2019, she was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for IBM Germany, Austria and Switzerland and President, IBM Academy of Technology. In her role, Andrea Martin uses her experience and global network from more than 25 years in the international services business, which also provides valuable input for her activities as an expert in the Commission for AI of the German Parliament (initiated in September 2018). Andrea Martin has started her career at IBM in 1992 after earning her Master’s degree (diploma) in Applied Mathematics from the University in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Daniel Mattes is an Austrian Internet entrepreneur and business angel. He is the founder and CEO of Artificial Intelligence company “42” and a judge and business angel on the Austrian television show ‘2 Minuten 2 Millionen’, the Austrian version of Shark Tank, which airs on Puls4. His AI market intelligence company “42” focuses on becoming an independent AI authority by analysing the entire AI ecosystem and by providing individual company ratings which are generated with a combined quantitative and qualitative approach by combining big data analytics and an established expert board. 42 is also publishing the AI equivalent of the DJIA index, the “AI-42 Index”, expressing the global growth of the most promising companies in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The company is based in London, UK.

In September 2019 Daniel released the book „IP Assets: An Awakening in the Market? Intangible assets increase to 84% of the S&P 500’s value. Learn how to exploit IP related stock market inefficiencies.”

Prior to 42, in 2010, he founded Jumio, an online authentication company, which became the market leader with 3500+ employees quickly.
Prior to Jumio, in 2005, he founded VoIP company Jajah, which was acquired 2009 for $207 million by Telefónica. In 2007, he was voted 81st most important Austrian citizen by Austrian magazine “News” in the “1000 most important Austrians” list.

Dr. Dieter Nirschl was born in Landshut and holds a doctorate in law. In ADAC e.V. he is responsible for the management areas of membership, tourism and consumer protection.

Dr. Nirschl has more than 25 years of professional experience in the travel, transport and aviation industries. After successfully completing his studies, Dr. Nirschl initially worked for LTU GmbH in Düsseldorf as head of labour law and human resources. In 2001, he moved to the TUI Group in Hanover, where he held various top management positions until 2016, most recently as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) of TUIfly GmbH. He was also a member of the Executive Board of TUI Central Europe. In recent years, Dr Nirschl has worked for the international consulting firm Arthur D. Little. He is married and has two children.

Studied biology and German language and literature for a higher teaching position in Braunschweig; member of the board of students at a grammar school in Wolfsburg. In 1987 she gave up teaching, worked in film productions and at the SFB, from 1988 at RIAS TV in Berlin as an editor and presenter. From 1989 co-presenter on ZDF „heute journal“, from 1994 presenter of the ZDF news programme „heute Nacht“, from 1997 to 2007 presenter of „Leute heute“ and in 2007 the talk show „Alles wird gut“. At the same time various other formats on ZDF and 3sat, also on PHOENIX „Wissenschaftsforum Petersberg“, „Forum Manager“. Various individual projects at ARD. 2007 to 2017 moderation of the talk show „Unter4Augen“ on Bayerischer Fernsehen. Nina Ruge has published 24 books so far. In 2017 she published „Sei du der Leuchtturm deines Lebens. Selbstbestimmt und frei durch innere Führung“.

Nina Ruge’s moderation focuses today on congresses and discussion events in the fields of politics, business and technology.

Jean-Paul is the Chief Scientist of Hubert Burda Media – a global media company. He is the founder and CEO of Cliqz GmbH. He also serves on different board most notably on the Board of Directors of XING AG – a leading online professional network.

He was the CTO and CEO of Burda Digital from 1996 to 2003. Jean-Paul received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Louvain, a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Louvain (Belgium) and a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Dr. Ralf Schneider is Group CIO of Allianz SE and Board Member of Allianz Managed Operations and Services SE. He has been with Allianz for 20 years and is an absolute IT expert who is constantly and innovatively driving digitization in the insurance industry. In 2008, he received the „IT Strategy Award“ from Handelsblatt for his exemplary IT management.

Ralf Schneider studied mathematics and received his doctorate in computer science from Ludwig Maximilian University in 1992. After joining the insurance group, he worked there for two years in sales. This was followed by various positions in the IT business until he was appointed CIO of Allianz Deutschland AG in 2006 and Group CIO of Allianz SE in 2010.

Michal is in the IT industry for over 12 years. Starting as software engineer, he then took  leadership positions designing, growing and running core business functions, making them ready to handle increased scale of operations and elevating their maturity level in order to improve delivered business outcomes.

Today, Michal manages Future Processing, where he focuses on bring the best out of software technology, keeping in mind that clients‘ business strategy and objectives come first. In his work, Michal bases his ability to deliver results on being attentive to people, as to him it has always proven to be a vital factor of a success.

Dr. Volker Wetekam is Bosch’s Corporate Strategy Officer and an Executive Vice President of the group. He oversees corporate strategy, portfolio & business development, organization development and the group’s inhouse consulting functions. Before being appointed Chairman of Robert-Bosch-Venture-Capital, Volker Wetekam was Executive Chairman of Global Knowledge, a globally leading IT Professional Education firm owned by Rhône Capital.

Prior joining Bosch, he served as Managing Director and CEO for GE’s Healthcare and Life-Science operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. From 1996 to 2012, he held key leadership functions at Siemens Healthineers and Agfa Healthcare (e.g. President IT Division, CEO of Agfa Healthcare AG). During those engagements, he lived in Germany, Belgium and the U.S.A. Today, Volker lives in Munich and Stuttgart. He holds two post-graduate degrees (Computer Science, Economics) and attended multiple Executive Management Trainings (North-America, Europe, Asia) at leading academic sites.