Speaker

Harald Leitenmüller, born in Linz in 1965, is Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Austria. He is committed to ensuring that business and society can responsibly fulfill their creative mandate – through competence and control in the use of digital technologies. His work focuses on technology policies, responsible AI and the competitiveness of the local IT ecosystem. Harald is a Microsoft Responsible AI Champ, certified Professional AI Expert and recipient of the Microsoft Platinum Award. He has been teaching Responsible Innovation, especially Responsible AI, for many years and is currently working intensively on the aspects of Responsible AI Economy and Sovereignty.

He is also Vice President of the Digital Offensive Austria and heads the Department of AI and Technology at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna. He studied communications engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, is married and lives with his family in Brunn am Gebirge.

Harald Leitenmüller, Chief Technology Officer Microsoft Austria GmbH

Dr. Josie-Marie Perkuhn heads the postdoctoral joint project Taiwan as a Pioneer (TAP) at Trier University and is a research assistant in the Department of Sinology. She studied Political Science and Classical Sinology and received her doctorate from Heidelberg University in 2018. She has been a non-resident fellow at the Institute for Security Policy (ISPK) at Kiel University since 2018. Her research topics include innovation in Taiwan and China with regard to global megatrends, foreign policy analysis and China’s role in international relations.

Head of the joint project “Taiwan as a Pioneer” (TAP) / University of Trier

Dr. Ramin Hasani is co-founder and CEO of Liquid AI. Previously, he was a Principal Machine Learning Scientist at Vanguard Group and a Research Affiliate at MIT CSAIL. Ramin’s research focuses on robust deep learning and decision making in complex dynamic systems. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT CSAIL, where he led research on modeling intelligence and sequential decision making. He received his PhD with honors in Computer Science from the Vienna University of Technology, Austria. His PhD thesis and his continued research on liquid neural networks have been recognized internationally with numerous nominations and awards.

Co-founder & CEO, Liquid AI

Andreas Zehetner is an internationally experienced entrepreneur and top management consultant for digitalization, innovation and technology. With a background in electrical engineering and business administration, he supports international organizations of various industries and sizes with a focus on AI/digital transformation, business agility and change management. He plays in a rock’n’roll band and even had a hit in the Austria Top 40. As the musical career did not scale, he founded two companies in the fields of machine learning and advanced analytics. He then worked as an Associate Partner for Transformations at McKinsey for 10 years. Today, Andreas is an Associate Partner at Timmermann, responsible for AI/digital transformation. As an Austrian, he supports the organizations on site with a combination of “big-picture thinking” and “doing”.

Associate Partner, Timmermann

“Clear on the matter, soft on people.” – That is the motto of AI transformation expert Michael Timmermann. At the age of 12, he sold plums, firecrackers and pirated music in the school playground. At 19, he founded his first company with venture capital. He is a psychologist, ex-McKinsey consultant, agility expert, coach and outdoor trainer. Michael is the founder and CEO of Timmermann, one of Europe’s leading change companies. In addition to consulting for transformation projects, this includes Change Communication, Timmermann Digital, New-Work Architecture & Design, the Timmermann Academy and Timmermann Social. The credo “With bright minds and open hearts, we shape change with clients who reeeally mean it” shows Timmermann’s combination of design and implementation – done by a 50-strong team of software specialists, consultants, psychologists, agile coaches, trainers and communicators.

Founder & CEO, Timmermann

Andreas Schumacher is Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at the VTU Group, an international specialist for plant planning and optimization in the life sciences and pharmaceutical sectors. With a doctorate in industrial engineering, he has extensive experience in the field of digitalization: He has been working on the digitalization of value creation for over ten years, which was also the subject of his doctorate. He began his career at Fraunhofer Austria, where he managed numerous digitalization projects for industrial companies.

Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), VTU Group

AI that inspires – immediately implementable. Patrick Ratheiser shows how artificial intelligence not only supports companies, but also creates real competitive advantages. He makes AI tangible: Not theory, but concrete strategies that have a direct impact. From over 250 keynotes, he knows what stumbling blocks await managers – and how to overcome them. His goal: to enable companies to use AI in a targeted manner, make processes more efficient and take advantage of opportunities before others do.

Founder of Leftshift One, Board Member AI Austria

Dr. Julian Raabe is a Partner at McKinsey & Company and leads the AI and Agentic work for customer interactions and operations. He works primarily with companies in the services industry to help them deliver unique customer outcomes and experiences while optimizing their channels and operations with AI and technology. He leads several McKinsey solutions, notably AVA (speech analytics) and Frontline.ai (AI-powered coaching and voice bots) in EMEA.

Partner, McKinsey & Company

Dominik Grafenhofer is responsible for AI and digitalization measures to comprehensively support the operational employees of Sales & Service at Telekom Deutschland. The customer experience in the triangle with efficiency and employee satisfaction always comes first. Before joining Telekom, he worked in consulting and advised large companies in the energy, finance, automotive and financial sectors, particularly on competition economics. To this day, he draws on his time in academia in Austria, France and Germany.

Vice President Lean & Digital Excellence, Deutsche Telekom

DI Dr. Klaus Gebeshuber is FH Professor for IT Security at FH JOANNEUM GmbH in Kapfenberg/Styria. He teaches IT security part-time on the IT & Mobile Security course. He specializes in network security, industrial security, security analyses and penetration tests. After studying electrical engineering/computer technology at the Vienna University of Technology, Dr. Gebeshuber worked for 15 years in the field of industrial software development and automation technology. He is the author of books (Hacking & Security, Exploit!) and holds numerous industry certifications in the fields of IT security, network security and penetration testing.

FH-Prof. for IT-Security, FH JOANNEUM