Steering committee

Bettina Stark-Watzinger has been Federal Minister of Education and Research since December 2021. She has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2017 and was Chairwoman of the Finance Committee from 2018 to 2020, then Parliamentary Managing Director of the Free Democrats' parliamentary group. After studying economics, Bettina Stark-Watzinger worked for BHF-BANK and, after spending several years abroad in the United Kingdom, as Academic Manager in the Finance, Accounting, Controlling and Taxation Department of the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel. She then served as Managing Director of the House of Finance at Goethe University and as Managing Director of the research center SAFE - Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Wörner has been President of acatech - German Academy of Science and Engineering since 2021. He was Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2015 to 2021 and Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) from 2007 to 2015. Prior to that, the civil engineer with a doctorate was president of the Technical University of Darmstadt, professor of civil engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and held various positions as a civil engineer in practice. Jan Wörner is a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1st class, and holds honorary doctorates from various universities in Europe and Asia.

Professor Quinn is spokesperson at the International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) at the University of Tübingen and Director of the university’s Center for Gender and Diversity Research (ZGD). She is the founder and head of the “Ethics and Culture” work area and the “Security Ethics” research focus. Professor Quinn is chair of the Scientific Program Board Security Research at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Martin Böhm has been a member of the Ottobock Executive Board since 2021 and, as the company's first Chief Experience Officer (CXO), combines the areas of marketing and IT. In this role, he continues to develop the digital user experience, particularly in social media, e-commerce and CRM, thus driving forward the digital transformation and the associated cultural change in the company. His responsibilities include building a data-driven, user- and customer-centric platform that provides personalized solutions for everyday life. Before joining Ottobock, Böhm was Chief Digital Officer at Beiersdorf.

Ralf Klinkenberg is the co-founder and head of research of the predictive analytics software supplier RapidMiner, a company established in 2007 as a follow-up to the RapidMiner open source project which he had co-founded. He received the European Open Source Business Award in 2008 and the European Data Innovator Award in 2016 in recognition of his expertise the fields of data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, machine learning and big data.

Dr. Jaroslaw Kutylowski is the founder and CEO of DeepL SE, based in Cologne. Born in Poland, he started programming at the age of ten and worked as a passionate developer on personal projects that he found useful and suitable for everyday use. He earned a doctorate in computer science with a focus on mathematics and worked for various technology companies. His passion for languages and innovative technologies led him to the world of AI communication. Under his leadership, the team at DeepL developed what they claim is the world's most accurate machine translator. Today, DeepL is used by thousands of companies worldwide across a wide range of industries.

Dr. Hanna Köpcke is Senior Solution Architect at Vistex Inc., a leading global provider of pricing, commerce, licensing and incentive management solutions. In November 2021, the US company acquired Webdata Solutions GmbH, a startup co-founded by Hanna Köpcke and a leading technology provider for AI-based pricing and product decisions in Germany. Hanna Köpcke has also been Professor of Data Management Systems and Distributed Data Management at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences since January 2023.

Juergen Mueller is member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, leading the Technology and Innovation division. As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), he is responsible for managing SAP’s overall platform and technology development including SAP Cloud Platform and SAP HANA. Since joining SAP in 2013, Juergen has served in distinct leadership roles. Starting as the Head of the Innovation Center Potsdam, he soon assumed responsibility for the SAP Innovation Center Network including several locations around the globe in charge of disruptive technologies. From June 2016 on, he served as Managing Director of SAP Labs Berlin, where he was responsible for driving SAP’s innovation footprint in the greater Berlin area. In the same year, Juergen was appointed as SAP’s Chief Innovation Officer. In 2018, Juergen took on additional responsibilities and became Head of the Leonardo and Analytics Engineering unit.

Elke Reichart has been a member of the Management Board of Infineon Technologies AG and Chief Digital Transformation Officer since November 2023. Among other things, she is responsible for the Group-wide digitalization strategy. Elke Reichert holds a degree in Romance Studies and Economics as well as a postgraduate degree in Applied Computer Science from the University of Giessen. She began her professional career in 1991 at Hewlett-Packard Inc. from 2013 to 2017 as Vice President HP Restructuring Program, Corporate Strategy at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto. In 2018, Elke Reichert joined TUI Group AG as Chief Digital Officer.

Frank Riemensperger was Senior Managing Director of Accenture in Germany, Switzerland and Austria until march 2022 and responsible for the market and strategy development in the German-speaking countries. The IT expert is on the Executive Board of BITKOM, Germany’s digital association and of VOICE, the federal association of IT users. He is also a member of the Senate at acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering, Vice-President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany (AmCham), and member of the Baden-Baden Entrepreneur Talks (BBUG).

Dr. Tanja Rückert was appointed Chief Digital Officer of the Bosch Group in July 2021. Prior to that, she headed the Bosch Building Technologies division at the company. Tanja Rückert worked for many years at SAP, where she was most recently responsible for the IoT & Digital Supply Chain business unit and thus for all SAP solutions in the areas of production, supply chain management, asset management, IoT, and Industrie 4.0. She is Vice Chair of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), a board member of Münchner Kreis, and a member of the University Council of Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences.