AI-enabled
Tech Foresight Summit

Mike is the founder & CEO of ITONICS, a vibrant and fast growing software and solutions company in the innovation management space. Mike has 15+ years of experience in innovation and technology management, IT strategy and management, entrepreneurship and academic teaching and research. After more than 5 years in strategy and IT consulting he designed and managed the innovations & research department in a Fortune500 company.

In 2009 Mike founded ITONICS, a company specialized in consulting and software solutions for strategic foresight, innovation management, trend and technology management and innovation roadmapping. He since then grew ITONICS from 5 to more than 50 employees and serves clients like Audi, Benteler, Brose, Cisco, Continental, Daimler, Intel, Osram, PepsiCo, Siemens or Total Oil&Gas with integrated innovation management solutions. Between 2010 and 2016 he was teaching and researching as professor in information systems/ technology management at FOM Hochschule fuer Oekonomie und Management in Nuremberg and at various other universities like European Business School or Steinbeis Berlin.

Chris is an innovation and machine learning enthusiast, speaker and the CCO of ITONICS, a vibrant and fast-growing software and solutions company in the field of growth strategy and innovation management. Since joining ITONICS in 2011, he has led a team of innovation experts and international projects across multiple industries helping companies to enable, shape, and grow their corporate foresight and  innovation management activities.

Chris has more than 8 years of comprehensive experience in managing the fuzzy front-end of innovation. His profound expertise includes automated environmental scanning with big data analysis, corporate foresight, trend and technology management, startup scouting, as well as the identification and prioritization of profitable growth and investment strategies.

Sven Taubert is an aerospace engineer working at Lufthansa Technik where he leads the Corporate Foresight and Market Intelligence team. He and his team are responsible for worldwide trends, technology scouting and competitor analyses. He joint Lufthansa Technik, the world's leading provider of MRO services, four years ago.

Prior to his current position, he was responsible for a strategic cabin research program and site manager of the Lufthansa facilities at the Center of Applied Aeronautical Research in Hamburg, Germany.

Previously, Sven was working in research and technology on behalf of Airbus. He gained experience in various fields like 3D printing, digitalization, internet of things, artificial intelligence, connectivity, interactive surfaces and human centered design. He studied at the University of Stuttgart, Germany and Tokyo University, Japan. He holds an aerospace engineering diploma.

Dr. Tanja Jovanovic is innovation manager and innovation researcher with more than seven years of experience in business model innovation, digitization and innovation tools. Tanja holds a Ph.D. in economics, or rather innovation management, with a broad experience in publishing research, holding workshops and execution of corporate projects. As head of technology and innovation management at Bayern Innovativ, she is responsible for technology and innovation management services and the further development of technology transfer.

Having a background in Data Science, Data Management as well as Innovation Management, Claudia Pohlink seamlessly connects business and Data Science aspects of Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Claudia’s team at T-Labs, the research unit of Deutsche Telekom, drives the adaptation of AI methods such as machine learning (ML) across relevant business areas. Main research focus is on the application of Quantum Computing, in the field of Cyber Security as well as around sustainability use cases. Since T-Labs has established AI as a core innovation area in 2017, the research facility of Deutsche Telekom is one of the most active players in AI in Berlin. In 2019, she was honored as one of the Global Women Leaders in AI."

Vanessa Cann has been Managing Director of the German AI Associationsince 1 May 2020. Her areas of responsibility include member and partner management and association development.

The political scientist previously headed the Artificial Intelligence and Future Mobility platforms at the Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V., where she brought together start-ups with established companies and investors. Vanessa Cann developed her interest in Artificial Intelligence in political consulting, where she advised Fortune500-companies on their digital policies. She is involved as a mentor for start-ups and with Women in AI.

Michael Grottke (Member, IEEE) received the M.A. degree in economics from Wayne State University, USA, and the Diploma degree in business administration, the Ph.D. and Habilitation degrees from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany. He is currently a Principal Data Scientist with GfK SE, Nürnberg, Germany, and an Adjunct Professor with FAU. Before, he spent three years as a Research Associate and an Assistant Research Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, USA.

His researches focus on stochastic modeling, statistical data analysis, and machine learning for topics in information systems, computer science, and business administration, including crowdsourcing, social networks, software quality, and the automatic detection of upcoming technological trends. His research work has been funded by national and international organizations, such as the European Commission, the German Ministry of Education and Research, and NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.

He has published more than 40 articles in international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. He is a Fellow of the Dr. Theo and Friedl Schöller Research Center for Economics and Society, Nürnberg, and a member of the German Statistical Society and of ESOMAR. Moreover, he was also a member of the IEEE’s Software Reliability Working Group revising the IEEE Standard 1633 “IEEE Recommended Practice on Software Reliability.” He has received numerous awards, including the Science Award of the State Bank of Bavaria. He has acted as a Guest Editor for special editions of Performance Evaluation as well as the Journal of Systems and Software, and he is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Performability Engineering and the IEEE Transactions on Reliability. (Based on document published on 27 March 2020).

Only those companies that are active today will be successful in the future. In his keynotes, Sven Göth, expert for future living and working environments and Horizon keynote speaker, makes it clear why companies should already initiate change processes and innovations for the future in order to secure the decisive competitive advantages for the coming years. To this end, he brings with him an enormous amount of background knowledge in futurology, management and strategy consulting.

Sven Göth is Founder & CEO of the Digital Competence Lab, a decentralized network of experts. Sven Göth is also active as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Vienna, as an expert advisor, CIO at the Institute of Culinary Art and as an investor in various companies.

René Rohrbeck is Professor of Strategy and director of the chair on “Foresight, Innovation and Transformation” at the EDHEC Business School, France. He holds a doctorate from the Technical University Berlin. In his main research field “Corporate Foresight” he is an internationally recognized thought leader and award winner.

In his research he develops methods for participatory foresight, scenario-based strategizing and conducts regular benchmarking studies on the Future FITness of organizations. René Rohrbeck has developed a portfolio of Executive Education courses on strategic foresight, which he has delivered around the world, both as open programs and customized courses for individual organizations. He teaches Strategy, Strategic Foresight, and Business Model Innovation on different MBA programs.

Didier helps companies innovate and create new ventures. He is a thought leader in developing innovative products, services & platforms. He has developed such opportunities for THALES by disseminating Design Thinking in the organisation. In charge of the THALES Design Center(s), his role is to engage actively the THALES innovation communities with human-centered design, business model innovation, product/service/organisation (re)design. More recently, he has been appointed as the leader of the THALES User Experience Design transformation. His previous experiences include multiple board-level positions, innovation leadership and operational management.

Michael is a Director at PwC where he leads the AI and FinTech Practice. He is an AI Thought Leader & FinTech Veteran with 17 years of international experience having run client engagements on five continents. He spent more than a decade leading engagements with Fortune 500 companies before then disrupting that space with innovative solutions after his Executive MBA at London Business School.

Michael has a broad background across blue chip names such as Morgan Stanley Moody's as well as a range of smaller innovative AI Firms.

Aside from his day job he also takes a keen interest in understanding the latest in innovation by helping AI firms to scale and has been a Mentor and Judge for organizations like Startup Bootcamp, Virgin Money Startup, Cocoon Network, Level 39 and MIT IIC for the last 9 years.

As a well-known Expert in his field, Michael acts as keynote speaker at international conferences and guest lecturer at a number of business schools including London Business School, Mannheim Business School, IMC and others

His "AI in Financial Services" PwC study (with 150 participating experts) was released on May 11 2020 and the "AI Book" to which he contributed as Co-Author was released in print on May 13 2020.

Many of Michael's other articles, past speaking engagements and contributions in regards to AI & FinTech are available via his LinkedIn profile.

Tobias is founding and managing partner of Rohrbeck Heger. As industrial engineer he has a background in business and technology and has been working in industry, public-private-partnerships and closely with scientific institutions and startups in the last years.

Tobias has designed, implemented and headed the EIT Challenge – a distributed pan-European startup and scale-up contest – from its initial idea to the end of a successful first year. Further milestones in his career have been the successful development of large-scale, international innovation and startup contests at Multi-National Corporations, the systematic exploration and planning of new business fields, trend analysis methods and tools, and the roll-out of several innovation and trend radars.

Parallel to consulting, Tobias is also an active researcher and business angel. His research has been published in leading international journals and on conferences such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, ISPIM, and the R&D Management Conference. Through his investment company Tobias advises founders, with a particular focus on IT, logistics and mobility.