Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut was born in Balingen in 1972. After graduating from the Balingen secondary school, she studied business administration at the University of Tübingen and in 2001, the business graduate earned her doctorate at the University of Würzburg.

Dr. Hoffmeister-Kraut started her career in London at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. This was followed by a position as Analyst at Ernst & Young in London and Frankfurt. Since 1998, she has been a partner of the Bizerba SE & Co. KG, with headquarters in Balingen. She was a Member of the Supervisory Board from 2014 until her appointment as Minister in May 2016.

Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut is also active in the executive committee of the German Protestant Church Congress, in the friends‘ association and parents‘ council of various Balingen schools as well as in the Board of Trustees of the Zollernalb Psychiatry Foundation.

She has been a member of the Baden-Württemberg Landtag (regional parliament) since May 2016 and on 12 May 2016, Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut was appointed Minister of Economic Affairs, Labour and Housing of the State of Baden-Württemberg. On 12 May 2021, Hoffmeister-Kraut was appointed Minister of Economic Affairs, Labour and Tourism of the State of Baden-Württemberg.

Until May 2016, she was also member of the Balingen City Council and the Zollernalbkreis County Council.

Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut is married and has three daughters.

As CEO of IPAI, Moritz Gräter is responsible for one of Europe’s most ambitious innovation ecosystems, with the goal of translating Artificial Intelligence into real-world applications.

From 2015 to 2019, Moritz Gräter served as Managing Director of the innovation platform CODE_n.

Between 2019 and 2022, he led the innovation portfolio of DEKRA DIGITAL as Vice President Innovation & Digitalization. He is also active as a mentor and advisor for startups, including serving on the Advisory Board of instagrid from 2020 to 2023.

Elle Langer is an experienced XR innovation manager for innovative edutainment formats. With her companies, pimento medienproduktion GmbH (TV) and pimento formate (Digital and XR), she has been producing content for well-known clients for many years, and some of her formats have received awards. Her goal is to innovatively convey knowledge about future topics and develop sustainable business models from them.

In addition, Elle was involved in the EU project XReco, which aims to simplify the production and monetization of XR projects.

Since 2024, Elle has been a university lecturer and speaker on XR and AI, Future Skills, and Future Thinking. Together with the „100 Minuten Zukunft“ team, Elle also conducts workshops and events on these subjects to support organizations in their transformation processes.

Dr. Rebekka Reinhard is a philosopher, author, and founder of human, the first German magazine that covers the impact of AI on business, politics, and society with high journalistic standards. Her mission is to encourage transformation for a positive human future.

Dr. Henrik Matthies is the founder and CEO of Honic. Previously, Henrik, among other things, led the health innovation hub of the German Federal Ministry of Health and founded several startups, including Mimi Hearing Technologies, one of Europe’s digital health pioneers.

Stephan A. Paxmann is the Chief Innovation Officer at LBBW. Since 2022, he has been responsible for the state bank’s strategic digitalization and innovation activities. Together with his team, he manages innovation and trend management, analyzes and tests new business ideas with digital solutions, develops the digital roadmap for relevant digitalization initiatives, and supports the banking group in integrating new innovative business models and digital solutions into day-to-day business. In this role, he is also responsible for LBBW’s Generative AI activities and the establishment of the necessary infrastructure and governance.

Prior to his role at LBBW, Stephan A. Paxmann held leadership positions at Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt am Main and New York, as well as at IMG in St. Gallen, where he was Head of German-speaking Consulting Business. From 2007 to 2010, he was Director of International Banking at Allianz SE in Munich and Paris, and was also active in the corporate strategy department of Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt am Main. In 2010, he founded TME AG, a consulting boutique for the digital transformation of banks and insurance companies in Frankfurt am Main, where he served as CEO until 2022.

Christine Sohar (Graz 1986) joined MVRDV in 2016 where she is Senior Associate since 2025. She studied architecture at the Delft University of Technology and at the Technical University of Graz, where she graduated with a Diplom Ingenieur degree (with honors).

After her graduation, which focused on the topic of usage of public space in Hong Kong, she moved to China to join Büro Ole Scheeren an architectural practice, which focus mainly on mixed use and high-rise developments. At MVRDV, she has been working on the concept and design development of various projects mainly in German speaking countries. She has been responsible for developing the IPAI Campus in Heilbronn, and is mainly involved in MVRDV’s projects in Mannheim, which includes the winning competition of Traumhaus, a diverse single-family housing quarter, the housing development “Home” and a timber housing project next to Franklin Mitte.

Sophia is Chief of Staff at Marvel Fusion. She focuses on building strategic partnerships with potential early customers, market development, and fundraising.

Prior to joining Marvel Fusion, Sophia worked at McKinsey & Company, where she specialized in topics such as sustainability transformation and the energy transition. Her work spanned renewable energy strategies, business building in the hydrogen economy, and the future of energy systems supporting a wide range of clients from utilities, oil & gas companies to energy equipment OEMs. Working across the entire energy value chain, she brings the necessary experience to address the complex challenges in her current role. Sophia’s academic background is mechanical engineering, which she studied at FAU Nürnberg and TU Munich with study visits to Vancouver and Singapore. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at the Chair of Management Accounting at TU Munich. Her research delves into the energy-economic, legal, and technical prerequisites necessary for fusion energy to assume a significant role in future energy systems.

Nikolaus Hagl is the Head of Sovereign Cloud Germany at SAP SE and the Chief Executive Officer of Delos Cloud GmbH. Hagl has extensive business experience in the public administration and IT industries.

After studying business administration at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, the graduate in business management began his career with positions at ArztPartner almeda, Tenovis, and Amadeus IT. Since joining SAP in 2009, he has focused on digital innovations.

Initially, Hagl worked for ten years in various consulting positions in customer service and sales. Since 2019, he has led the Public & Energy business unit and was a member of the management board of SAP Germany. His focus during this time was on understanding customer needs and providing them with the right solutions.

Thorsten Thiel has been a Professor of Democracy Promotion and Digital Policy at the University of Erfurt since 2022. Prior to this, he led the „Democracy and Digitalization“ research group at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin. His research focuses on the regulation of the digital public sphere and the intellectual history of digital sovereignty.

Dr. Christoph Poetsch is Head of AI Quality and Ethics at TÜV AI.Lab, a joint venture founded by some of the largest and most important companies in the certification industry in Germany and beyond. The TÜV AI.Lab is paving the way for trustworthy AI by developing conformity criteria and test methods for AI systems. Dr. Christoph Poetsch’s core tasks at the AI.Lab are in the field of AI quality, AI ethics and systematic groundwork. He holds a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Heidelberg and has completed research and visiting stays at Yale-NUS College Singapore, the University of Notre Dame and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.

Michael Förtsch, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Q.ANT, a deep-tech company pioneering photonic processors for next-generation computing. He studied mathematics and physics, earning his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, where he received the Otto Hahn Medal for his achievements in quantum information processing. Following a research stay at the National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, he transitioned to a strategy consulting role at TRUMPF in 2015 before founding Q.ANT in 2018. Under his leadership, Q.ANT has sparked significant industry interest with its groundbreaking photonic computing solutions, positioning the company at the forefront of sustainable AI and HPC innovation. Förtsch has been recognized as one of Capital’s „Top 40 under 40“ and WirtschaftsWoche’s „30 Executives to Shape Germany by 2030.

Frank Loydl, born in 1965 in Metzingen, has been Chief Information Officer at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt since 2018.

He completed his studies in technical computer science at the Mannheim University of Cooperative Education.

Later he has held managing positions at t-Systems and Volkswagen, among others.

His big mission since his first days at Audi is Next:IT, the transformation of the Audi IT with agile methods, strategic IT partnerships and a new Software Development Center.

After studying computer science and successfully completing his doctorate at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Professor Huber led the research group „Variable Image Acquisition and Processing“ at Fraunhofer IOSB in Karlsruhe from 2009 to 2011. Subsequently, he worked as a Senior Researcher at AGT International in Darmstadt until 2015. From April 2015 to September 2018, Professor Huber was responsible for product development and data science services within the research division of USU Software AG in Karlsruhe. Since October 2018, he has held the professorship for Cognitive Production Systems at the University of Stuttgart. He is also Scientific Director for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence at Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart, as well as head of the research department for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Vision. His research focuses on the topics of machine learning, trustworthy artificial intelligence, image processing, and robotics in a manufacturing environment.

Yasser Jadidi joined Aleph Alpha Research early 2024 as Chief Research Officer, bringing experience in forward-looking AI research and software engineering to Aleph Alpha Research. Prior to this, he led AWS AI R&D in Tübingen, focusing on both scientific research and product integration. Before working at AWS, Yasser founded the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence, where he led the applied AI research department. He holds a diploma in mathematics and completed his PhD in control theory at the University of Stuttgart and ETH Zurich.

Prof. Dr. habil. Thomas Riecke-Baulecke taught for nine years as a senior high school teacher (Studienrat) at a grammar school in Hamburg. He obtained his doctorate in 1994 from the Department of Psychology at Freie Universität Berlin and completed his habilitation in „General Educational Science“ at the University of Bremen in 2001. Since 2002, he has served as the editor of the journal schulmanagement and the book series Basiswissen Lehrerbildung (Basic Knowledge for Teacher Education). He has researched and published on the topics of quality development, school management, teacher working hours, and the didactics of sports and chemistry education.

From 2003 until February 2019, he served as the Director of the Institute for Quality Development in Schools Schleswig-Holstein (IQSH) and as the head of the continuing education programs „Master in School Management and Quality Development“ at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and „Kita-Master“ at Europa-Universität Flensburg. Since March 2019, he has been the President of the Centre for School Quality and Teacher Education in Baden-Württemberg (ZSL) and is a member of the management team for the continuing education program „School Management and Leadership“ at the Hector Institute for Empirical Educational Research at the University of Tübingen.

Roland Bätz is Ecosystem Builder at Make, building trusted partnerships to drive mutual growth. With 2 decades of experience scaling SaaS at Cisco and Splunk and mentoring startups, he empowers partners to leverage Make’s no-code automation and AI to unlock innovation, revenue opportunities, and customer impact.

Hans Torben Löfflad is Engineering Manager for Data & AI at STACKIT, where he is responsible for building STACKIT’s data & AI platform.

STACKIT was founded in 2018 as part of the Schwarz Group and is based in Neckarsulm, Germany. As a European cloud and colocation provider, STACKIT offers highly secure, GDPR-compliant cloud services specially developed for companies with high data protection and compliance requirements. In addition to cloud computing and storage solutions, STACKIT also provides a data & AI platform to drive digital innovation in Europe.

With a strong academic background in mathematics, statistics, econometrics, and numerical methods, he naturally gravitated towards AI. Prior to STACKIT, he built a successful team of AI Engineers, capable of delivering AI products from initial concept to final implementation.

In addition to his responsibilities at STACKIT, Hans is an active member of the IPAI community, where he helps to organize the IPAI community meetup and hackathons, and serves as an IPAI ambassador.