Christian Heise

Project Leader “Economy of Things – Energy Domain”, Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH

Christian explores commercial potential and technologies emerging from advancing digitization. His team focuses on ecosystems which foster true coopetitive setups, i.e. collaborate for operating a decentralized platform, cooperate to evolve the system over time. But encourage creating of excellent products through competing offers.

Christian had worked as an IT strategy consultant with Platinion/Boston Consulting Group in the insurance, consumers goods and energy sector. He had also been a software developer and IT architect with IBM.

Uwe Hermanns

Head of OLP Business Development, HERE Technologies

Uwe has over 20 years of experience in Enterprise Software Development, Product Management and Product Marketing.

Since October 2017 Uwe is Head of OLP Business Development at HERE Technologies. He’s responsible for the market entry and early adopter program of the new HERE Open Location Platform.

Before joining HERE Technologies Uwe spent most of his professional career in the Telecommunications Industry working for Siemens Enterprise Communications, Unify Software and Solutions and cycos AG. His main areas of responsibility in Telecommunications has been CTI solutions, Unified messaging, Unified communications and finally cloud collaboration solutions.

Dr. Irene Lopez de Vallejo

Director of International Partnerships and Business Development of DEX and Founding Team Member of Ocean Protocol

Irene has over 20 years of experience in multidisciplinary applied technology research and international policy development across the fields of robotics, high-value manufacturing, the Internet of Things, and more recently data, AI, and blockchain. With a background in Social Science, Economics, and Architecture, Irene has a long-standing passion to understand the complex relationships underlying societies and technologies.

Irene worked in the Digital Catapult, and is co-founder of GivingStreets, an organization that enables person-to-person donations without cash. She is an advocate for Tech For good and Financial Inclusion, a mentor for Startupbootcamp IoT and IoT Tribe, a jury for IET Awards, and an advisor for Creative Friction.

Irene thoroughly enjoys networking, finding unique people and ideas and bringing them together to solve socio-economic challenges.

Dr. Rolf Riemenschneider

Head of Sector, "Internet of Things" Unit, DG CONNECT, European Commission

Rolf Riemenschneider is involved in the research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 where he manages research and innovation projects and policies in the following areas: Advanced Computing, Cyber Physical Systems, Factories of the Future and Internet of Things. From 2009-2015, he managed the ICT activities of the Public-Private Partnership Factories of the Future (PPP FOF). Since 2015, he coordinates the Focus Area of Internet of Things as part of the cross-cutting activities in Horizon 2020 inside CONNECT and with DG MOVE, DG AGRI, DG RTD, and contributes to the future strategy of the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI).

Before joining the Commission in 2002 Dr Riemenschneider worked as an engineer for consulting and project management on behalf of the German government (Federal Ministry of Education and Science - BMBF) in the Microsystems programme.

Dieter Schule

COO & Co-Founder of MADANA - Market for Data Analysis

Graduating from the RWTH Aachen University in mechanical and business engineering with a major in Entrepreneurship, Dieter helped to build up and shape the local startup scene in Aachen. Coming in contact with the topics of Blockchain and Decentralization in 2014, he was engaged in one of the first German blockchain startups. During his time as a management consultant with the focus on digitalization and process optimization for SME's and big industrial companies, he founded his first start-up with the focus on digitizing clothing. This startup laid the foundation for MADANA.

At MADANA he and his team are building a new approach for a fair data insights market, while securing and preserving privacy.

Sebastian Steinbuß

Director Lead Architecture, International Data Space Association

Sebastian Steinbuß worked for nine years at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Software and Systems Engineering in Dortmund as Scientist in the context of Cloud Computing, Big Data and IoT. Here, he gathered experiences regarding Digitization in Logistics and Service Industries. Since 2017 he is the Lead Architect of the IDSA. Here he is responsible for the technical development of the IDS and the organization of the IDSA Working Groups.

Steffen Kux

Head of Consulting, Slock.it

As an applied mathematician, Steffen started his career 2000 in the automotive industry as a method- and software developer for mathematical and simulation software, with a special focus on applications using mathematical optimization, numerical simulation and artificial intelligence.

Since 2017 he is Head of Consulting at slock.it. Here he’s responsible for various blockchain related projects from proof-of-concept prototypes up to real-life-products, with a special focus on applications that connect IOT and blockchain technology.

Prof. Dr. Monika Sturm

Principal Key Expert, Siemens AG

Monika Sturm joined Siemens Austria R&D department with the focus of artificial intelligence. She worked as project manager for several international research projects. In the following years she managed the business development and marketing group at Siemens Austria for Energy Management. As a next step she took over responsibility for the energy IT business at Siemens Austria. In 2004 she moved to Germany and was heading the regional strategy department for Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution globally. 2008 she took over the management responsibility for Energy Distribution Services for Central East Europe and Siemens metering service business in Europe. Currently she is working as Senior Manager for Sustainable Cities and Principal Key Expert Engineer for Cyber Physical Systems at Siemens headquarter; being globally responsible for defining research road maps and strategic partnerships, screening and evaluating new technologies, managing internal and external R&D projects, especially focused on Blockchain and Connected Mobility.

Since 2002 she has a University teaching position at the Leibniz University Hannover.