Speaker Line Up

Ferri Abolhassan is a member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom AG and CEO of T-Systems. He holds a PhD in computer science from Saarland University and has more than 30 years of experience in the IT sector including various management roles at SAP, IDS Scheer and Telekom Deutschland. With T-Systems & Deutsche Telekom Ferri Abolhassan boosts digital sovereignty and AI applications for industry by building Germany’s first AI factory, the Industrial AI Cloud in Munich. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and until recently was a member of the Expert Commission “Competition & AI” of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs.

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Prof. Dr. Kai Arras received his Dr. degree in 2003 from EPFL in Lausanne. He was a postdoctoral researcher at KTH Stockholm and the University of Freiburg, and in 2007 received a DFG Junior research group leader grant to lead an independent research group in social robotics. He was a Juniorprofessor at the University of Freiburg, and since 2023 has held the Cyber Valley endowed full professorship for Autonomous Systems at the University of Stuttgart. In parallel, he pursued an industrial career through founding and transferring technology to start-ups, worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Evolution Robotics in Pasadena, California, and served as Head of Robotics Research at Bosch.

Sylvain Baillet, PhD, FRSC, is Director of Research & Innovation at University of Montreal Health Centre (CHUM), Director of the CHUM Research Centre, and Full Professor of Neuroscience at U of Montreal. A physicist with an international career in Europe and the USA, he holds the Tier-1 Canada Research Chair in Neural Dynamics of Brain Systems. His work advances time-resolved brain imaging and predictive modeling, including the use of AI models to probe predictive processes underlying perception and cognition. He develops widely used neuroimaging methods, open-source software, and data resources. He previously served as Associate Dean at McGill University and was elected Chair of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.

Jürgen Bajorath is Professor and Chair of Life Science Informatics at the University of Bonn and Chair for Life Sciences and Health at the Lamarr Institute. Previously, he held positions at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, New Chemical Entities, and the University of Washington in Seattle. Jürgen has extensive international expertise in pharmaceutical research and computational drug discovery and drug design. His work focuses on cheminformatics, Machine Learning and the development of computational methods for drug discovery in order to accelerate the identification and design of new therapeutic compounds.

Christian Bauckhage is Professor of Computer Science (Pattern Recognition) at the University of Bonn, Lead Scientist for Machine Learning at Fraunhofer IAIS and director of the Lamarr Institute. His national and international experience in academia and industry in the field of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence spans more than 20 years. Christian is a renowned expert in pattern recognition, data mining and intelligent systems and has co-invented four patents. His current work focuses on hybrid learning systems, the potentials of Quantum Computing and Quantum Machine Learning to open up previously unsolvable processes in AI and Machine Learning as well as multi-agent systems.

Daniel Becker holds a PhD in theoretical physics (quantum computing and spintronics) and has a background in algorithmic trading. For over five years now, he works at Fraunhofer IAIS in the department AI Assurance & Assessments (AAA), where he leads the AI Assessment Operations team (AAOps). As part of this position, Daniel leads and contributes to various  applied research and industry projects focussing on safeguarding of AI systems, automation of assessment workflows, and AI trustworthiness in general, both from a technical and auditor perspective.

Maren Bennewitz is a Professor of Humanoid Robots, Vice Rector for Digitalization at the University of Bonn, Principal Investigator at the Lamarr Institute and a member of the Executive Board of the Cluster of Excellence PhenoRob – Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production. A renowned expert in AI-driven Robotics, her research focuses on robots operating in human environments, with emphasis on human-robot interaction. She has developed innovative Machine Learning solutions, among them navigation, manipulation and active perception techniques for legged and wheeled robots and the generation of foresighted, personalized robot behavior.

Hubertus Breier is Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTO) and Member of the Board at LAPP Holding SE. He is responsible for global R&D, product management, quality, IT, and operations. With a background in mechanical engineering and an MBA from the University of Augsburg, combined with extensive leadership experience in technology-driven industries, he brings a strong blend of technical and strategic expertise. His career spans leadership roles in production, development, sales, and global management, shaping his holistic view on technology. He approaches AI as a strategic lever for business transformation, enabling scalable and sovereign value creation.

Bernhard Christ is an Economic Policy Consultant (M.Sc.) for the IT and health economy at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) Bonn/Rhein-Sieg and the Managing Director of Wirtschaftsjunioren (WJ) Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, a network für young entrepreneurs. His work focuses on consulting, lobbying, and networking for regional businesses in the fields of AI, cybersecurity, digital sovereignty, fiber-optic infrastructure, and digital health. He gained practical experience in the application of AI while working as a Manager in Delivery Operations at Amazon Logistics.

Nicolas Conze is a physician and Head of Data Science at docport GmbH – a network of ~50 GP clinics in NRW building federated AI infrastructure for primary care. He leads FLIP-IT, an EFRE-funded federated learning project in collaboration with IKIM Essen and the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Goal of this project is to establish decentralised AI training across real-world GP practices without centralising patient data. Nicolas holds an M.Sc. in Applied Digital Health from Oxford and continues to practise clinically alongside his technical work.

At SAP, Marcus Danei is responsible for defining and implementing strategic directions for SAP’s language technologies. Marcus has over 30 years’ experience in the software and localization industries, and has worked in a range of areas within SAP, from introducing Arabic as a standard language, through translation production management, defining and maintaining standards for release management and technology, to translation business partner management, software product management and language data management.

Julian Eßer is a research associate in Robotics and AI at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics in Dortmund and scientific coordinator of the Embodied AI research group at the Lamarr Institute. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees (with honors) in mechanical engineering from the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2018 and 2020, respectively, he completed his Ph.D. at TU Dortmund University in 2025 on learning-based control of highly dynamic robots. His research focuses on embodied AI, particularly at the intersection of robotics, reinforcement learning, and physics simulation.

Dr. Andrej Fischer is a member of the Executive Management at Comma Soft AG. Since joining in 2014, he has established the Data Science Consulting practice and currently leads strategic AI and GenAI initiatives across various industries. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Cologne and conducted postdoctoral research in cancer genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. He has been working with AI and statistical data analysis since 2010. Nowadays, he is focusing on how to manage all the transformations that are induced by these technologies.

Daniela Fleck is a terminologist at Philips working on clarity and consistency in language use across complex, multilingual settings. Her work focuses on helping teams make concepts explicit and align on shared definitions as a basis for communication across languages, teams, and channels. In the context of increasing AI use, she draws attention to the role of terminology in supporting more informed design, evaluation, and governance of language‑mediated systems.

Martin Förster is Director of Product at Scopevisio AG, a German cloud ERP and accounting software provider, where he holds company wide responsibility for product management, go-to-market strategy, and the company’s AI agenda. He brings deep expertise in complex enterprise and ERP products: at Wolters Kluwer he led the cloud transformation of a legal practice management solution across seven countries, and he subsequently served as Head of Product Management for Social Housing at Aareon. At Scopevisio he is now driving the shift toward AI-first products, including retrieval-based document intelligence built on customers’ accounting and ERP data.

Dr. Bogdan Georgiev is a Staff Research Engineer at Google DeepMind. Previously, he was a research scientist at the Fraunhofer IAIS and the Lamarr Institute. He obtained his PhD in mathematics from the Max Planck Institute and the University ofBonn.
Dr. Georgiev is fascinated by the possibilities for exploration and discovery introduced by the interplay between AI and mathematics—from differential equations and geometry to optimization and machine learning. Recently, he has been exploring these areas using tools such as specialized machine learning algorithms (PINNs), theorem-proving agents (AlphaProof), and evolutionary coding agents (AlphaEvolve). He is also broadly interested in computing at scale, high-precision numerics, and training dynamics in ML.

Prof. Dr. Karina Grisse, LL.M., is Professor and Chair of Civil Law, Intellectual Property Law and the Law of Digitalisation at TU Darmstadt. She studied in Bonn and Edinburgh and holds a PhD from the University of Bonn. Following several years of practice as an attorney specializing in copyright, unfair competition and media law, and academic research at the University of Cologne, she joined TU Darmstadt in 2025. Her research addresses the civil law challenges of the digital transformation, focusing on platform regulation, data protection, personality rights, and the contractual and copyright questions raised by AI.

Dr. Johannes Hinckeldeyn is Director Research Engineering at KION AG and is responsible for research and product development projects in the field of intralogistics. Previously, he served as a senior engineer at the Institute of Technical Logistics at TU Hamburg and as Chief Operating Officer at EL Cell GmbH. In that role, he led operational processes as well as the further development of development and production structures. He holds a doctorate in Operations Management and has extensive experience at the intersection of engineering, business, and academia. Through his work in industry, consulting, and research, he combines strategic thinking with strong practical implementation skills.

Timotheus Höttges, born in 1962, has been Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom AG since January 2014. From 2009 until his appointment as Chairman of the Board of Management, he was responsible for Finance and Controlling as a member of the Group Board of Management.

Under Tim Höttges, Deutsche Telekom achieved a landmark move in the U.S. market with the 2020 merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint; at the same time, he significantly accelerated the rollout of 5G and fiber-optics and increased global investments to EUR 19.3 billion most recently. Under his leadership, Deutsche Telekom became one of the world’s most valuable brands.

Prof. Dr. Jörg C. Kalff is a leading German surgeon, academic, and medical innovator, serving as Director of the Department of General, Visceral, Vascular and Transplant Surgery at the University Hospital Bonn. He is the Speaker of the BOSTER – Bonn Surgical Technology Center, an initiative to advance surgical innovation and the integration of emerging technologies into clinical practice.With decades of experience in complex surgical care and translational research, he operates at the intersection of clinical excellence, scientific discovery, and healthcare innovation. His clinical expertise includes advanced surgical oncology, particularly liver, pancreas, and gastrointestinal oncological procedures, as well as transplant surgery.

In addition to his clinical leadership, Prof. Kalff is internationally recognized for his research on postoperative inflammation, intestinal function, and neuro- immune interactions in the gut. Through his work in BOSTER, he is closely engaged in shaping the future of surgery by fostering collaboration between medicine, engineering, and data science, including the application of artificial intelligence.

Michael Kamp is a Principal Investigator at the Lamarr Institute and an Associate Professor for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at TU Dortmund University. He is also affiliated with the Institute for AI in Medicine (IKIM), where he previously led the Trustworthy Machine Learning group. His career includes a decade as a data scientist at Fraunhofer IAIS and research stays at Monash University and CISPA. Michael’s research focuses on the theoretical foundations of deep learning, causal representation learning, and privacy-preserving methods like federated learning, specifically tailored for sensitive applications in medicine and healthcare.

Stefanie Kemp has served as Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) of Sana Kliniken AG since September 1, 2022, leading the Executive Board’s Transformation division and driving the group’s evolution into an integrated healthcare service provider. She began her professional career as a pediatric nurse. Over 35 years ago, she transitioned into the information technology sector via the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to RWE/innogySE, she has worked at Lowell Financial Services, operated her own consulting firm, and held positions at Oracle. She also holds supervisory board mandates, serves as Executive Sponsor of the Rotonda Business Club Düsseldorf, and is actively involved as a mentor for the Women into Leadership e. V. (IWiL) initiative.

Paul Klee is an expert in market surveillance and ICT regulation at the Bundesnetzagentur. He holds a Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) in International Business Administration and Engineering. Within the Bundesnetzagentur, his work focuses on ICT standardization, emergency call systems, and artificial intelligence (AI). Currently, he is part of the task force dedicated to the enforcement of the European AI Act under the national implementing legislation, shaping the future of AI market surveillance in Germany.

Jens Kleesiek studied medicine in Heidelberg, earning his MD, before completing a PhD in computer science in Hamburg. He is a qualified specialist in radiology and medical informatics. In addition, Jens worked for several years in an executive role in industrial software development. Currently, he is Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (IKIM) at Essen University Hospital and heads the Machine Learning in Medicine department. He holds faculty positions at the University of Duisburg-Essen and TU Dortmund University. His research focuses on clinical pattern recognition and multimodal data integration to improve decision-making at the point of care.

Dr. Patrick Maué began his professional career in artificial intelligence and geospatial data research. For more than twenty years, he has advised organizations and led the implementation of projects in the fields of artificial intelligence, document analysis, and electronic records management. As Executive Principal at AV Software Solutions 360° (AVS), the Competence Center of the Bechtle IT System House Bonn, he leads a team of AI experts and data scientists. His work focuses on public sector projects, ranging from municipalities to federal ministries. His conviction: AI creates its greatest impact by making complex administrative processes more transparent, efficient, and future-ready.

Dr. Michael May is heading the Siemens Data & AI Research. He is based in Munich and heading a global AI department with fourteen research groups in Europe, US, and Asia, driving research and innovation at Siemens in AI and machine learning. The department is carrying out research in Industrial Foundation Models, Physical and Neurosymbolic AI. Before joining Siemens in 2013, Michael was Head of the Knowledge Discovery Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems in Bonn, Germany. Michael was the local chair of the 22nd International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML 2005, and further scientific and industrial conferences in the field.

Romina Medici leads Digital Platforms & Data Strategy at ERGO Group AG, part of Munich Re Group. She oversees enterprise AI and automation platforms, data architecture, and data governance across global insurance markets. Previously, she spent nearly 16 years at E.ON, building a global data platform spanning 40+ business units in 17 countries with a €25M+ portfolio. Her focus: deploying agentic AI systems at scale, with measurable business outcomes. She is developing the Agentic Operating Model — a governance framework for organisations integrating AI agents as workforce members.

Helmut Nagy is VP of Sales Enablement at Graphwise, the vendor behind the Graphwise Platform. Graphwise has offices in Vienna, Sofia, and New York. In his role, he is responsible for Graphwise’s internal knowledge management solutions, certification program, and product portfolio. The Graphwise Platform is used by more than 200 organizations worldwide to build reliable and scalable semantic AI solutions. He is a recognized expert in knowledge management and semantic AI and has collaborated with global organizations to support them in developing and implementing their knowledge management and AI strategies. Helmut Nagy is co-author of “The Knowledge Graph Cookbook” and “DOM GraphRAG: A semantic content architecture for neuro-symbolic RAG.”

Axel Ngonga studied computer science and physics at Leipzig University, where he earned his PhD and completed his habilitation. After leading the Agile Knowledge Engineering group in Leipzig, he became Professor for Data Science at Paderborn University in 2017. He also serves as one of the directors of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Institute and is a Lamarr Fellow. His research focuses on knowledge graphs. He is the thankful recipient of over 30 international awards, including a Next Einstein Fellowship, and the 2024 NRW innovation award for his works on neurosymbolic machine learning. He is also a co-founder of the Tentris GmbH, a deep tech startup that develops the leading-edge tensor-based graph database TentrisDB.

Dr. Andrea Niehaus is director of Deutsches Museum Bonn, part of Deutsches Museum for Science and Technology in Munich. She studied Art History, Archeology and Cultural Studies in Kiel, Munich and Florence. She moved to Bonn to the newly opened museum. Her work focuses on education and science communication. Over the past five years, she and her team handled the transformation into a innovative forum for AI. Behind the motto “Mission AI – experience.understand.participate” lies a fluid, interactive exhibition concept and human-centered education: the so-called “museotainment”: for visitors of all ages.

Prof. Ingmar Posner leads the Applied Artificial Intelligence Lab (A2I) at the University of Oxford. As founding director of the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), Ingmar’s research is shaped by a vision to create machines that constantly improve through experience. His work has produced seminal contributions to the foundations of robot learning, including large-scale learning from demonstration, unsupervised learning of scene dynamics, object-centric generative modelling, and 3D object detection. His recent work focuses on a novel class of structured, mechanistic world models designed to enable machines to discover re-usable and interpretable insights through observation, action, and interaction. These models help robots, and increasingly scientists, uncover the underlying structure of complex systems to improve generalisation across environments and application domains ranging from robot manipulation to the natural sciences. His research has been recognised with multiple Best Paper Awards at leading international venues such as ICAPS, IROS, and ISER. He co-led the team behind the UK’s first autonomous car, the Oxford RobotCar (now part of the permanent collection of the London Science Museum), and is a co-founder of Oxa, an award-winning provider of autonomous vehicle software. In 2024, the ORI was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize, the highest national honour for UK educational institutions. An ELLIS Fellow, Ingmar currently also serves as an Amazon Scholar.

Jakob Rehof is Director of the Lamarr Institute and a computer scientist specializing in software engineering, verification and Trustworthy AI. He studied Computer Science and Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen and received his PhD from the Department of Computer Science (DIKU). After working at Microsoft Research in Redmond from 1998 to 2006 and visiting Stanford University in 1997, Jakob became Professor of Computer Science at TU Dortmund University in 2006. He also served as director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (ISST) in Dortmund from 2006 to 2021 where he now serves as Director of Research Strategy.

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Christian Temath is Managing Director of the competence platform KI.NRW. He and his team work to strengthen the initiative “AI made in NRW” and to promote the technological sovereignty of North Rhine-Westphalia by making it easier for larger companies, SMEs and startups to get started with AI. As Transfer chair at the Lamarr Institute, Christian also supports collaboration between research and industry. He holds a PhD in business informatics and has extensive experience in technology consulting and the practical application of AI in international e-commerce. His work focuses on facilitating the adoption of AI in companies and organizations.

Prof. Dr. Sahar Vahdati is Professor of AI for Science at Leibniz University Hanover and TIB, Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, where she leads the Nature-Inspired AI for Science Lab. Her research develops theoretical foundations for reasoning and causality in frontier AI models for scientific discovery, with the aim of building transparent, robust, and trustworthy AI for science. She coordinates the EOSC Assistant project, an agentic GenAI Open Research Assistant launching in September 2026. Her broader research agenda explores mind-inspired AI, ARC-AGI, and pathways toward safe AGI.

Seasoned executive with over 25 years of experience in the IT services industry, having held various senior management roles across sales, operations, and business development. Formerly SVP Chief Sales Officer at Atos Germany and CEO of the Materna Group, he has a strong track record in driving growth and transformation. Currently serving as CEO of conet Group, leading around 2,000 professionals in software engineering and digital solutions. He brings extensive board-level expertise in go-to-market strategy, strategic leadership, and organizational development.

Tom Winter is a Corporate Language and Semantic Technologies expert at Deutsche Bahn AG, where he drives the transformation of corporate language into ontology-based, interoperable knowledge structures.He establishes a semantic framework in which terminology serves as a reference layer for enterprise knowledge models. His work enables applications such as machine translation, generative AI, and Digital Twins.After serving as Chairman of the Deutscher Terminologie-Tag e. V. (DTT) until 2025, he continues to contribute as a board member. And he is a member of the Rat für Deutschsprachige Terminologie (RaDT).

Stefan Wrobel is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bonn, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS and Director of the Lamarr Institute. As one of the leading AI researchers in Germany, Stefan has been engaged for many years in scientific, technical and economic aspects of AI, with a particular focus on Data Mining and Machine Learning. His research focuses on intelligent algorithms and large-scale data analysis. Stefan has published widely in international top-tier conferences and journals and is recognized as one of the most influential figures in German AI.

Stay tuned for additions to the line-up in the coming weeks!