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Speakers
Regain control of technology!
Summit 2023 Speakers
Ulrich Ahle
Gaia-X, CEO
Ulrich is a reputed executive in the IT sector, formerly Vice President and leader of the Manufacturing and Industrie 4.0 System Integration business at Atos in Germany. He is also founder and member of the Board of the International Data Spaces Association in Germany and served 16 years on the Board of the prostep IVIP organization until April 2018. After an apprenticeship as toolmaker at Hella KG, he studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Paderborn. In his career, Ahle hea ld several positions as development engineer, Director of PLM services, sales director and Vice President. He has been part of Nixdorf a Computer AG, Siemens and Atos. From January 2017 to November 2023 Ulrich Ahle was Chief Executive Officer of the FIWARE Foundation headquartered in Berlin, Germany
Alejandra Artero Muñoz
Government of Spain, Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Digital and AI, Director of Communication
Political and institutional Communications Specialist, she is currently the Communications Officer in the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Government of Spain.
Carme Artigas
Government of Spain, Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence
Carme Artigas is a recognized Expert in Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Technology Innovation, with more than 25 years of experience the Technology sector.
She cofounded and was the CEO of Synergic Partners, a Pioneer European Big Data Company, which was acquired by Telefonica group in November 2015.
She continued serving as company CEO until the company’s full integration into the Telefonica Group at the en of 2018. Since 2019 until her appointment as Secretary of State, she was member of several International Advisory Boards.
She was appointed by the University of Stanford (California) as Ambassador ‘Women in Data Science (WIDS)’.
She was recognized by the American business magazine ‘Insight Success’ as the one among the 30 most influential executives with an international projection. She is among the top women in the world in the data business and she has come the public sector to make Spain a leading country in Digital transition and Technology transformation.
Nadia Calviño Santamaría
Government of Spain and Minister for the Economy and Digital Transformation, First Vice-President
Nadia Calviño has been First Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and Minister for Economy and Digitalization since July 2021. Prior to that, she was Second Vice-President and Minister for Economy and Digitalization (March-July 2021), Third Vice-President and Minister for Economy and Digitalization (2020-2021) and Minister for Economy and Business (2018-2020).
From 2014 to 2018, she was the Director General in charge of the Budget within the European Commission. Previously, she held other senior management positions in the European Commission: Deputy Director General with a special responsibility for Financial Services and Deputy Director General in the Directorate General for Competition with special responsibility for Mergers and Antitrust (including cartels).
Before joining the European Commission in September 2006, Ms Calviño was a civil servant in the Ministry for Economy in Spain. She held different positions in the areas of foreign trade, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, economic policy and competition.
Nadia Calviño published a large number of articles and awarded the Master of Digital Award (2021), the “Fernández Latorre” Journalism Prize (2020), the 2012 Women’s Leadership Awards by the Aliter Business School and the 2007 Public Sector Lawyer of the Year by the Iberian Lawyer magazine.
She holds a degree in Economics (1991) from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) and a degree in Law (2001) from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED).
Roland Fadrany
Gaia-X, COO
Roland is the COO of Gaia-X from May 2022 onwards. He establishes effective policies, processes and organisations that promote the Gaia-X vision and mission. With over 20 years of international management and consulting experience in the IT industry, he brings strong leadership and digitalisation knowledge to the team. He has led a global service line, successfully delivered complex, critical programs, and managed multinational development-, delivery- and partner organisations at companies like EDS, HP, A1 Telekom Austria, Microsoft and Detecon. Roland oversaw comprehensive innovation and transformation initiatives in various industries in Europe and the USA. He holds a master’s degree in “Engineering Management” from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. He speaks English and German and lives in Vienna.
Alberto Gago
Government of Spain, Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Digital and AI, International & EU digital affairs Advisor
Alberto Gago, specialised in European Affairs and data economy, studied a Master in European Legal Studies in the Université de Lorraine and a Master International Relations in the University of Birmingham. He was a Policy Officer in the Data Policy and Innovation department in the European Commission. Currently, he is a member of Cabinet of the Secretary of State of Digitalization and AI in Spain and a member of the Presidency Board of European Startup Nations Alliance
Ana García Robles
BDVA, Secretary General
CT Professional with a strong background in engineering, network design, service design, and technology strategy with working knowledge in Telecommunications, Mobile Technologies, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Cities, and Living Labs. Experience in Research to Market implementation and technology application in several business sectors including Urban Innovation, Healthcare, Smart Manufacturing, AgriFood, Mobility, Education, Public Sector, etc. The professional experience developed over 20 years partly in the Telecom Industry and partly managing research and innovation communities, projects, and programmes as well as technology roadmaps with industry, research and policy makers at the European level. Experience both in the private sector and in public-private environments. Over 15 years working in international and multicultural environments, with experience managing technical, multidisciplinary and distributed teams. Extensive experience building strategic alliances with technology vendors and providers, SMEs, research institutions and public authorities (mainly municipal and regional governments) and policymakers. Speaker at public events and conferences. The impact and value of ICT technologies (in particular Data, AI and Mobile technologies) in business and society and innovation ecosystems are strong interests of mine. I would define myself as a Connector and an Implementer. Technology Strategy is my professional passion.
Martine Gouriet
EDF Group, Director of Digital Uses
Pierre Gronlier
Gaia-X, CTO
Pierre Gronlier has been working in the IT industry for the last twelve years, with a particular focus on operationalising and scaling systems in the field of real-time communication and cloud services. With a penchant for science and an academic background in embedded real-time systems and applied mathematics in signal processing and machine learning, he started as a research engineer in video compression before joining Skype and Microsoft in Estonia. He then moved to OVHcloud in France as a Cloud Solution Architect.
Catherine Jestin
Gaia-X, BoD Chairwoman; Airbus, Executive Vice President Digital and Information Management
Executive Vice President Digital and Information Management at Airbus since 1 July 2021 and member of the Company’s Executive Committee. Catherine has previously held the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Airbus since March 2020. In this role, she drove state-of-the-art Information Technology systems and solutions supporting Airbus employees, customers and suppliers. Prior to this position, Catherine was Chief Information Officer at Airbus Helicopters, a role she held from July 2013 to February 2020. Before joining Airbus, Catherine held various positions, between 2007 and 2013, at Rio Tinto in Montreal, Canada, in Information Systems & Technology (IS&T). Catherine also spent 17 years at Accenture and was nominated Partner in 2002, a position she held for five years.
Raquel Jorge
Elcano Royal Institute, Policy Analyst
Raquel Jorge is Policy Analyst at Elcano Royal Institute think tank and coordinates the technology and digital policy and global affairs agenda. She also works as independent consultant. As a former Fulbright Fellow granted by the United States-Spain Fulbright Commission, she holds a Master’s in Security Policy, specialized in technology policy, from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University (Washington, DC).
Laurent Lafaye
Dawex, CO-CEO
French entrepreneur, co-CEO of Dawex, Laurent Lafaye has a recognized track record in the field of the data economy and regularly speaks to decision-makers about the creation of data ecosystems and the challenges of data circulation, from data trading to developing data hubs and data marketplaces.
Co-founded in 2015 by Laurent Lafaye and Fabrice Tocco, Dawex is the leader in Data Exchange solutions to distribute or share data products, with trust, for any business case, allowing organizations to create new ecosystems around data exchange platforms that meet regulatory requirements and address traceability and security challenges. Dawex technology enables economic stakeholders to value the potential of their ecosystem through data exchange. In 2020, Dawex was awarded “Tech Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum, joined the Global Future Council on Data Policy and spoke at Davos in 2022 about creating trust in data exchanges. Dawex is also the initiator of an international standardization program on “Trusted Data Transaction”.
Lars Nagel
IDSA, CEO
Lars Nagel is CEO of the International Data Spaces Association since its foundation in 2016. He is also a member of the Executive Board of Digital Hub Management GmbH, where he manages innovation and technology transfer. He has been a member of the first board of directors of Gaia-X and held the role of COO of Gaia-X AISBL in the first year. Previously, Lars founded and led GlobalGate, a provider of learning environments for industrial and research institutions. Lars studied Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund and graduated with a diploma in Engineering.
Pearse O’Donohue
European Commission, DG Connect, Director of the Future Network Directorate
Alberto Palomo
Gaia-X, Governmental Advisory Board | Government of Spain, State Secretariat for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, Chief Data Officer
Carlo Ratti
MIT Senseable City Lab, Professor
An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a founding partner of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati. He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Jakob Rehof
TU Dortmund, Faculty of Computer Science, Chair for Software Engineering
Francisca Rubio
Gaia-X Hub Spain, General Manager
Daniel Sáez Domingo
Gaia-X Hub Spain, President
Telecommunication Engineer from Polytechnic University of Valencia and Master in Business Administration and Management by EOI Business School. More than 20 years of experience in R&D policies, competitive intelligence and strategy in ICT. President of the Spanish Gaia-X Hub, Gaia-X AISBL member of the Board of Directors since 2021. Daniel is also working for the establishment of the Data Economy in Europe as member of BoD in BDVA, member of the Steering Committee of NESSI, Member of the management board of Planetic since 2007, currently vicepresident and coordinating the Spanish interplatforms group of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. President of the delegate commission of AI4ES, the Spanish excellence network in Data based technology enablers and is the coordinator of the Data Cycle Hub, the Data Innovation Hub, which is coordinating EuHubs4Data, the European Federation of Big Data Innovation Hubs.
Hubert Tardieu
Gaia-X, Independent Board Member
After 27 years in Sema then SchlumbergerSema then Atos in various positions on Executive Committee including EVP for Global Telecom, Global Finance, Global Consulting& Systems Integration, Hubert Tardieu has been the advisor of Atos CEO helping him to form the vision of what will be our world in 5 years ahead. To help him in this task he formed the Atos Scientific Community in June 2009 which he chaired until October 2020. He is now consultant with his own company. Hubert Tardieu is the author of several books on Information System Design Methodology Merise and in March 2020: “Deliberately Digital: Rewriting Enterprise DNA for enduring success” Tardieu and all. Springer ed Hubert Tardieu has been successively, in 2020 the Interim CEO then in 2021 the Chairman of the Board of the Gaia-X AISBL until June 7. He is currently Independent Board Member in charge of relationships with governments.
Bert Verdonck
Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), CEO
Bert Verdonck leads the Luxembourg National Data Service, a new governmental organisation that solves the hard problems of governance between multiple institutions, the technical challenges of data platforms at scale, and the compliance with ELSI requirements in cross-border settings. In his prior role at Philips, he explored the various health data space initiatives, to improve data sharing for primary care delivery as well as for secondary use and research. During 26 years at Philips, he delivered results in the cloud/edge/data domain, via modern software stacks, healthcare informatics solutions within the hospital and in the home, solving complex data challenges, and leading people in the transformation towards data spaces. He has a PhD in medical image processing from ENST Paris (France) and an engineering degree from KULeuven (Belgium).
Sébastien Picardat
Agdatahub, CEO
As an expert in strategy and organisation in agriculture, Sébastien has solid experience in information technology and institutional relations in the agricultural sector. With a global vision of the agricultural ecosystem, he carries Agdatahub’s ambitions to decision-makers in the institutional and agricultural world in France and Europe.
Jean-Pascal Riss
Schneider Electric, Industrial Automation Influence Leader
Jean-Pascal Riss is leading the strategy of Schneider Electric Industrial Automation BU, based in Paris, specializing in digital transformation and industrial automation. After completing his education in Grenoble and Montreal as computer scientist, he began his career in Boston before transitioning to roles in Shanghai and Paris. In China, he led a team that saw significant growth by creating dedicated product lines for the Chinese market. Returning to France, he oversaw global commercial development activities and assumed leadership in various tech industry associations. Currently, he directs digital transformation strategies with a focus on sustainability, resilience, and performance. Jean-Pascal is a frequent speaker at industry events.
Maximilian Staebler
Gaia-X 4 Future Mobility Project Family
Research Associate at the DLR Institute of AI Safety and Operational Project Manager of the Gaia-X 4 Future Mobility project family. His PhD topic “Automated, scalable and resilient Semantic Interoperability to foster Data Space Meshes” also intersects with the project family and aims to simplify the establishment of interoperable Data Spaces.
Petra Makovec
Gaia-X, Operation Manager
She is the Operation Manager in the COO Team. She has 20 year’s experience in Organisation Development, Portfolio Management and Program Management. Since 2009 she is running her own company delivering various Transformation Projects for clients in different Industries.
Javier Valiño
Eviden, Head of Energy, Climate and Decarbonization Unit – Research & Innovation
Javier Valiño (male) received a double major in Telecommunications Engineering (Telematics and Radio-communications) from University of Cantabria in 2007, with Master thesis in point source detection in collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA) Plank project. He worked as network and systems engineer leading both commercial and research IoT/4G/5t projects in TST. He joined Eviden/Atos Research and Innovation in 2016, as Head of the Energy, Climate and Decarbonization Unit. He is the coordinator of OMEGA-X project.
Sven Löffler
T-Systems, Tribe & Chapter Head
Sven Löffler is a high-level expert in business intelligence and the data economy, with over 25 years of experience in the field. He currently serves as Tribe & Chapter Lead for the Telekom Data Intelligence Hub (DIH), where he is pioneering the development of sovereign, trustful, and user friendly end-to-end data sharing services to enable real-life usage of dataspace technologies.
Christian Bölling
EIT Manufacturing Central gGmbH, Managing Director
Christian Bölling (37) has joined the German entity of EIT Manufacturing, a leading European innovation network for the production technology, in December 2019 as its Managing Director. EIT Manufacturing’s mission is to bring European manufacturing actors together in innovation ecosystems that add unique value to European products, processes and services to inspire the creation of globally competitive and sustainable manufacturing. Prior to joining EIT Manufacturing, Christian Bölling has been working at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) where he held various positions (e.g. Head of Cutting Technology Research) at the Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools. His doctoral thesis dealt with the simulation-based design of tooling solutions. In this context, he was responsible for several projects aimed at IoT solutions for machining processes.
Norbert Baumert
Mobility Data Space, Chief Architect
Norbert Baumert is Chief Architect at the Mobility Data Space. Since 2022, he has been in charge of the technical infrastructure of the Mobility Data Space and the coordination of the external partners. Previously, he worked at Nokia Solutions and Networks in Munich. As a business planner, he was responsible for core engineering and subscriber data management.
Eric Ballnath
Google Cloud Data Economy and Ecosystems, Principal Architect
Master in Computer Science by Education,
Manager at Accenture Consulting mostly dedicated to government accounts,
Head of IT at 360T FX Marketplace (a Deutsche Börse Group Company),
Spent the last 10 years in the major hyperscalers designing and building data ecosystems:
Architect Partner Data Solutions at AWS,
Senior Architect Data Solutions at Microsoft / Azure,
Principal Architect Google Cloud Data Economy and Ecosystems
Cristina Brandtstetter
FIWARE, Chief Marketing Officer
Cristina Brandtstetter (f) holds the position of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and is a member of the Board of Officers. She has a strong track record of success in the global Manufacturing and Automation Operations and Central European Lifestyle industries, building out strategic and operational capabilities, leading marketing, B2B partner teams, business development and strategic programmes, and cultivating strong thought leader relationships across multiple specialties. Her 25+ years in software, manufacturing and controlling systems include international operations, CEO and CIO roles, marketing and post-merger leadership roles with Siemens and Siemens acquired companies, and many years’ expatriate assignments in Belgium, Italy, the US and the UK. Cristina holds a degree in business administration and currently pursues an MBA programme in Leadership and Management. Her Marketing sweat spots can be found with internal and market communications, brand development and positioning, community building and impact through events, as well as international strategy and business development
Oliver Ganser
Chairman of the Board Catena-X e.V. , Vice President – Processes, Digitalization, Governance and Catena-X @ BMW Group
Peter Koen
Microsoft, Principal Cloud Standards Architect
Peter is a seasoned veteran with over 25 years of experience in the industry. He has been working on cloud architectures since 2008, participating in the largest and most complex cloud projects that Microsoft customers have been building in Europe and globally over the past decade. Peter was also instrumental in the design and launch of several European Microsoft Azure Regions, through which he gathered a wealth of knowledge about regulation, digital sovereignty and the design of mission critical systems. As of early 2021 Peter has dedicated himself to developing standards for the enablement of data sovereignty. He is a Co-Chair for IDSA Working Groups, and also a contributor and committer to several Eclipse Foundation projects as well as the Eclipse Dataspace Working Group.
Thomas Hahn
Siemens AG Germany, Chief Expert Software
Thomas Hahn is since 2011 Chief Expert Software at Siemens AG.
After studying computer science at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen he joined the company in 1986. Thomas Hahn had several responsibilities in the area of manufacturing such as Head of Software Development for Industrial Automation Systems.
Beyond his activities at Siemens, Thomas Hahn is a member or board member of various bodies, including Openlab CERN and steering committee Plattform Industrie 4.0. He is vice-president OPC Foundation, Vice-Chairperson GAIA-X AISBL, chairman of Labs Network Industrie 4.0, Boardmember of the Bavarian “KI-Rat” and president Big Data Value Association.
Kazuo Nakashima
RRI, General Manager, Industrial IoT
Kazuo Nakashima holds a degree in Physics with a specialization in Quantum mechanics from Kyushu University in 1987. He began their career at Fujitsu Laboratory, conducting material research for Magneto Optical disks. Over the years, he hold various positions within Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Computer Products of America, focusing on software engineering, technical marketing, and application development for Magneto Optical drives.
In 2009, he transitioned to Toshiba Corporation, where he served as a Sales Manager and Director in the Hard Disk Business Unit. His roles encompassed marketing, corporate planning, and digital solutions. He also became involved in the Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI) as a Deputy Secretary General and later as the General Manager of Industrial IoT. Additionally, he contributed to publications such as “MONODZUKURI” and “Digitaler Wandel durch Bildung, Forschung und Innovation.”
Through RRI, they actively engaged in promoting the use of Industrial IoT, robotics, innovation in manufacturing, and standardization, collaborating with stakeholders from various industries. They established partnerships with international organizations such as the German Plattform Industrie 4.0.
Douglas Ramsey
Axial Global Advisors, Managing Partner
Global Business Leader successful in envisioning and swiftly executing international opportunities from concept to double-digit business growth. Creative strategist skilled in generating visionary direction to drive achievement of new business development, account management, and market penetration. Strong ability to identify, establish, and maintain strategic partnerships to generate significant business opportunities. Valued leader adept at building and retaining top-flight teams by instilling the art, science, and execution to culture, leadership, and processes. Deep knowledge in developing and executing inorganic growth strategies through M&A working with PE and VC communities. Business success complemented by strong educational background include Master’s Degree in Economics from University of Wales. Fluent in English and Japanese.