Ladies and gentlemen,

Honoured guests at Startup Autobahn’s EXPO 8!

And to you, dear Hannah, many thanks for the invitation to say a few words of welcome.

Nothing’s quite as sure as change! This may be a truism, but it definitely applies to businesses in the technology sector. Such companies have always been subject to changes driven predominantly by technological progress. This of course remains the case during the digital transformation, and perhaps it can now be said that if innovation is the engine, digitisation is the fuel!

The digital transformation is powering changes in many companies. Processes within companies are altering. But it is not always easy for established firms to introduce the necessary changes immediately. Sometimes the changes needed are of a specialised nature and only of temporary significance, because they relate to specific projects. In such cases, it can be a good solution for the established firm to collaborate with innovative start-ups. These can provide the specialised technological know-how and, at least as importantly, contribute to business success by assisting with innovative structures and working methods.

Start-ups are drivers of digital innovation. They are predestined to develop new products, services or digital business models. Sometimes it is better for a large, well-established company to pursue its business activities in cooperation with one or more start-ups rather than building up and maintaining the same know-how within its own organisation.

It is in my opinion important to promote exchange between the various players in the business community, so that ultimately both sides – established firms and new enterprises – benefit from collaborating with each other. It is through exchange that companies become aware of innovative solutions, and knowledge and experience can be transferred. Exchange advances the digital transformation as a whole and makes a key contribution to shaping our digital future. I am thus very glad that there are events such as this, which support cooperation between agile young tech firms and established industrial concerns. It is by working in concert with one another that we can add a new dimension to Germany’s image as a location for technological progress.

I wish you all an interesting event and many stimulating insights on our joint path to a digital future.

Dorothee Bär

The topic of sustainability has gained a lot of importance in recent years, also in the automotive industry. The main energy and fuel source of the future is the key anchor point of creating a sustainable mobility ecosystem. Electric vehicles are dominating the media and every car manufacturer is heading that direction bringing BEV and PHEV to market. Hydrogen has also gained a cult following, re-emerging in the news, supported by large corporations, and fuelled by governmental initiatives. Which of these 'new' fuel sources will play a more significant role in the future automotive sector? Which segment will focus on electricity or on hydrogen? Are there any additional potentials created by looking past fossil fuels and towards sustainable energy sources?

Topic Intro

• Christoph Acker, Strategy & Innovation at Porsche

**"The Value and Future of Eco-Friendly Hydrogen" Focus: Energy Storage **

• Hydrogenious – Dr. Daniel Teichmann, Founder and CEO
• Hyundai – Edvin Eriksen, Head of Hyundai CRADLE Berlin

"Scenario Management at Scale for AD Development" Focus: Safety of Autonomous Vehicles

• Foretellix – Roy Fridman, VP Business Development & Sales
• DXC – Philipp Wende, Automotive Innovation Lead
• DXC – Marek Jersak, VP Autonomous Drive Solutions
• DXC – Ulrich Wurstbauer, Head of CoC Simulation AD Solutions

The general interview topic will be on the Future of Urban Mobility and how it will take on new Dimensions. Additionally, we will focus our questions around current topics and most importantly on the importance of Open Innovation Platforms. Plenty of new innovations have emerged reimagining urban mobility. People are migrating into cities, creating a higher demand for new mobility solutions. Volocopter is a great example and frontrunner in taking urban mobility into the skies.  Under our current circumstances many questions have created new concerns how urban mobility will be shaped in the future. Especially, as people have been leaving New York like never before. Will this happen in other megacities as well? Will aerial urban mobility still be necessary? Or are our concerns incorrect and we will be convinced otherwise?

Making Use of AI for Damage Detection Focus: Computer Vision

• Monk AI – Stanislas Miquel, VP Sales & Operations & Abou Laraki, Co-Founder and CEO
• Porsche – Antoon Versteeg, Innovation Manager
• Bosch – Simone Bosatelli, Manager, Bosch Management Consulting

"Accelerating Software Development for Heterogeneous Computing" Focus: Software Optimization for Application-Specific Hardware

• Silexica – Dr. Kai Neumann, Director of Engineering
• ZF - WABCO – Eva Kalix, Software Architect; Ravi Tallapragada, Global Head of Software
• ZF - WABCO – Thomas Wolf, Manager Technological Research & Innovation Management
• ZF - WABCO – Gandert Van Raemdonck, Global Head of Technology Scouting

Software defined cars - transporting your living room into the car

Topic Intro

• Philipp Wende, Automotive Innovation Lead at DXC

"Real-Time Dynamic Force Analysis within the Convertible Roof System" Focus: Advanced Sensor Technology

• Forciot Oy – Tytti Julkunen, CMO & Chairman of the Board
• Webasto – Richard Seidl, Concept Engineer

"Speech Recognition - Telling Your Car What To Do" Focus: Speech Analytics

• Hi Auto – Roy Baharav, CEO & Co-Founder
• Porsche – Marius Schach, Development Engineer; Hadar Pode, Director Porsche Digital Israel

We provide a sneak preview under the hood of Telekom mobility data analytics R&D, which is currently implemented in the real lab of the Hamburger Hochbahn for the National Platform Future of Mobility in Hamburg (link), specifically the use of the International Data Spaces standards (IDS, DIN Spec 27070) for the new European GAIA-X hypercloud. The problem: There are billion-dollar opportunities in mobility, yet the big hurdle is data. Think Uber, which benefits from reusing existing assets, like other people’s cars even drivers. Uber’s capital is not tied up in cars like Car2Go/ShareNow. Instead, it is investing in data to orchestrate a service offering. A gigantic opportunity lurks in urban transport where empty seats dramatically exceed occupied ones - most commuters drive alone; many buses remain empty for long periods of the day. Derived from this, the question arises how to fill the empty seats? The solution is simple in theory: Use data to match demand with supply, like Uber … or how Google is auctioning off ad spaces. In practice it is a lot more complicated. In a nutshell: Often data doesn’t speak the right language, is not using the same metrics (think Celsius versus Fahrenheit) … and some parties don’t even talk to each other like competitors to protect the customer connection. We will briefly illustrate how there is value in intermodal mobility and how it can be released using data.

Bringing the Mobility Blockchain Platform to Life with the Help of 51nodes, Ontology and Riddle&Code

• 51nodes – Jan-Paul Buchwald, Managing Director
• Ontology – Ran Ding, Consultant at MM1; John Izaguirre, Ontology Europe Ecosystem Lead
• RIDDLE&CODE – Sebastian Becker, CCO
• Spherity – Georg Jürgens, Director Industry Solutions
• Daimler – Dr. Harry Behrens, Head of Daimler Mobility Blockchain Factory
• Daimler – Yun Xi, Senior UX/UI Designer & Design Thinking Coach

Emily is the Founder of Beryl, the UK’s leading micromobility company. Beryl sell their micromobilty operating system to major operators (London’s Santander Cycles) and operate their own bike, e-bike and e-scooter systems. Currently in 6 UK cities, launching NYC soon, they typically operate under funded, long-term and exclusive contracts. Having designed and built their entire micromobility system in-house (hardware, software, operations) it allows them to be a city’s fully-integrated, long-term, micromobility partner. 

"Healthy Choices – Monitoring Individual Pollution Exposure" Focus: Air Quality & Weather Forecasting

• Breezometer –_ Itai Rosenzweig, Director of Strategic Alliances & Partnerships_
• Bosch – Tal Dekel, Innovation Manager; Tarek Zaki, Project Manager

"Taking Control of the Air You Breathe" Focus: Air Quality & Weather Forecasting

• Climacell – Ayala Rudoy, Director of Enterprise Sales
• Porsche – Marco Brinkmann, Digital Marketing & Global Brand Communities

Aimed at Relevant businesses in the CAM sector, or who have a product relevant to the sector

The UK Connected and Automated (CAM) Roadmap to 2030 is an indispensable tool for CAM businesses, investors and legislators worldwide. With a live demonstration and an interactive topic discussion, Zenzic will showcase how the Roadmap is shaping the future of CAM and highlight how organisations are able to use it as a working tool. The session will demonstrate how start-ups and corporates can navigate their way through the Roadmap, forging partnerships and identifying key opportunities to enhance their business strategies.

Zenzic’s Head of Technology, Mark Cracknell, will be joined by Michael Vardi, Co-founder and CBO of Valerann – pioneers of the smart road industry; and Simon Morley, Bosch Lead for ConVEx – a data exchange facility focused on mobility.

Tentative Agenda (CEST):

14:00 – 14:05 Welcome & Introduction of speakers

14:05 – 14:15 Demonstration of the UK CAM Roadmap by Zenzic

14:15 – 14:40 Panel Discussion

14:40 – 14:55 Audience Questions and Interaction

14:55 – 15:00 Closing and exchange of contact details

Esport racing experienced an impressive boost in public attention in recent months. Nevertheless, it is a niche within classic esports. Why is that? How do we change that? OverTake.gg shows an approach to unite a highly fragmented community, from professional simracers to casual gamers up to the classic (offline) motorsport fans, thus making virtual racing more visible.

Topic Intro

• Felix Köppenkastrop-Lüker, Project Coordination STARTUP AUTOBAHN at Mercedes-Benz AG

"The Smart Convertible Roof System" Focus: Smart Surfaces

• Imagine Intelligent Materials – Dennis Antiohos, Principal Research Scientist
• Webasto – Richard Seidl, Concept Engineer

"From Waste to Resource – A Cinderella Story in the Automotive Industry" Focus: Sustainable New Materials

• UBQ – Sophie Tuviahu, VP of Sales & Business Development
• Motherson – Ridhi Mahendru, Innovation Strategy Manager

The topic of sustainability has gained a lot of importance in recent years, also in the automotive industry. The procurement and subsequent processing of raw materials needed for car assembly of course pose certain sustainability issues. As the car power system has slowly shifted to more environmentally-friendly solutions, so have the actual materials used in the car‘s exterior and interior. New materials are coming into play such as glass or recycled materials transformed into leather or plastic look-a-likes and many more. Will these 'new' materials play a significant role in the future automotive sector?  On the other hand, the current health crisis is definitely changing the dynamics of the industry putting the spotlight rather on hygienic requirements than sustainability. New technologies, such as UV-light solutions and bacteria resistant materials have already started to arise. How will this situation influence the developments in this regard? Can the sustainability focus still prevail in the long-term taking disruptions such as global pandemics into consideration?

"Tracing Sustainability (AKA The Doughnut Project)"

• Circularise – Mesbah Sabur, Founder
• Porsche – Antoon Versteeg, Innovation Manager

"CO2 tracking along the value chain"

• CircularTree – Gunther Walden, CEO & Co-Founder
• Motherson – Iain Fleming, Strategic Purchasing
• Porsche – Michael Weck, Aigerim Shamshidin, Environment & Product Sustainability
• BASF – Andreas Wollny, Digital Innovation

Intro Topic

• Maike Hammer, Program Operations STARTUP AUTOBAHN at Mercedes-Benz AG

"Pioneering a Connected & Wireless Transmission Infrastructure for Meters inside Industrial Buildings"

• Nexmachina – Silvia Montoya, CTO
• Daimler – Juan Jose Vitoria, Engineer at facility management

"Machine Vision & Communication Networks"

• Inspekto – Uri Josefson, Sales Director
• Motherson – Urszula Kosidlo, Open Innovation Manager

"Failure Detection and Prevention through Sound"

• Noiseless Acoustics – Kai Saksela, CEO
• Webasto – Magnus Sviberg, Head of Advanced Engineering

"Wireless Batteries: Unleash the Full Potential of Industrial E-Vehicles and enable the Electrified Economy"

• Wiferion – Florian Reiners, CEO
• Murata – Alexander Schmoldt, Manager Business Innovation & Incubation

At our EXPO Days we always try to answer some of the most challenging questions our corporate partners are currently facing. The circumstances of the last 6 months have uncovered essential flaws in the way supply chains have worked over the last years: The outsourcing of every aspect of the supply chain, just-in-time deliveries and precarious conditions in countries along the production process proved to be unstable mechanisms to keep the operations smoothly ongoing in times of crisis. Due to the complexity of their vehicles, flawless processes along the supply chain are especially important for manufactures in the mobility industry. For this reason, already before the crisis many major industry players became early innovators and constructed Smart Factories to be more adaptable towards supply chain risks in general. With the possibility to produce more and more (vehicle) parts of the process in one location and with the challenges of a globalized production approach becoming more evident, this topic is highly relevant for all players in all kinds of industries.

"A New Vision of Production Planning Processes: Just a Click away?"

• ASCon Systems – Alexander von Klein, Co-founder and Managing Director
• Daimler – Dr. Bernd Luedemann-Ravit, Manager IT Digital Factory
• Daimler – Dr. Oliver Geissel, Manager Digital Transformation Production Planning

"Revealing Hidden Potential with the Help of Data Analytics. An Intelligent Assistant for Assembly Data directly at the Shopfloor."

• DatenBerg – Joachim Kahl, General Manager
• Daimler – Christian Hess, Data Analytics Assembly
• Daimler – Jörg Forstmeier, Innovation Strategist

"Machine Services in the Pocket"

• Senseforce – Michael Breidenbruecker, CEO
• T-Systems – Sascha Weber, Business Development Manager

Cindy Chin is an entrepreneur, venture strategist, and cultural ambassador of the arts and sciences. As CEO of CLC Advisors, LLC, she is an advisor and board member to founding startup teams, a subject matter expert in frontier technologies, opportunity scout for VC and LP partners, a global strategic thought leader, and a sought-after speaker. During the 2020 pandemic period, she recently co-founded a new tech startup, CLIPr, in the virtual meeting/video AI and machine learning space and is its COO & Co-Founder.

She is also a NASA Datanaut, an open data innovation program to promote data science, coding, and gender diversity that operates within the Office of the CIO at NASA Headquarters. She is a mentor in the Google For Startups Accelerator and Stanford University’s Technology Entrepreneurship and undergrad programs. She was a Co-Founder of Women on the Block, an organization created by blockchain enthusiasts to promote empowerment of women to ensure diversity and inclusion in technology. Cindy was the former Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Program Curator for the Digility Conference and Expo in Cologne, Germany and a member of the faculty of the Startup Executive Academy of Silicon Castles in Salzburg, Austria. In 2018, she was named as one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s “50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs in 2018” along with leaders including SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, General Motor’s CEO Mary Barra, Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek, celebrity chef and founder of World Central Kitchen José Andrés, “Crazy Rich Asians” author Kevin Kwan, Chance the Rapper, Academy Award winning actress and founder of Hello Sunshine’s Reese Witherspoon, and IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty.

Intro Topic

• Franziska Gross, Business Innovation and Startup Relations at DXC

"A Customer Service Expedition – How to Create Moments of Real Happiness"

• voiXen – Sarah Rickes, Customer Understanding Officer
• T-Systems – Florian Pickert, Consultant for Digital Transformation
• T-Systems – Markus Nowack, Senior Solution Sales Manager

"Digital Innovation Broadcast for Global Teams"

• DXC** – **Bernd Gill, Head of Digital Service Innovation; Tom Richter, Innovation Engineer
• Wem.io** – **Chenobu Thong, Managing Director

"Everybody Can Speak Chinese"

• Synthesia – Nadia Eslami, VP Business Development & Patrnerships
• TüV Rheinland – Phillip Meyers, Head of Innovation Academy & LifeCare

"Worker Safety with AI in Video Analytics"

• Zensors – Chris Harrison, Co-Founder
• DXC – Julia Kossowski, Business Analyst for Manufacturing & Consulting
• DXC – Marcel Boer, Agile Development Architect

"Enhancing Worker Safety with Smart Video Analytics"

• Bleenco – Irman Abdić, CEO
• BASF – Andreas Mueller, Senior Specialist Business Expert

What are the narratives that allow the world to embrace new technologies and do artists offer an answer? Harry Yeff walks us through his portfolio of interactive installation, creative use of machine learning and vocal performance to explore how artist's can guide the future of immersive media in travel. 

Jahmeelah “Jam” Gamble is an award winning media personality, sought out keynote speaker, and CEO behind “Slay The Mic”, a program that helps aspiring speakers, content creators, and entrepreneurs transform their voice into their ultimate superpower.

Topic Intro

• Oliver Weber, Senior Business Development Manager at T-Systems

"Remote Support with Smart Devices"

• Oculavis – Martin Plutz, Founder & Managing Director
• Bosch – Kai Brueckner, Buyer; Robert Elflein, IT Process Planner

"Virtual but Natural: Virtual Collaboration of the Future"

• VISPA – Sebastian Göbel, CBDO & Co-Founder
• T-Systems – Sascha Weber, Business Development Manager

Inclusion and diversity go hand in hand with open innovation. It is the different cultures, experiences, perspectives, that enable progress to be made within any organization. Catherine will talk together with Dan Ram on the importance of creating and nurturing more diverse and inclusive workspaces.

It has been proven that many companies are unlikely (or simply, unable) to come up with groundbreaking innovations on their own. Consequently, over the last several years, industries around the world have started opening up their doors to a wider ecosystem, with many companies investing into crowdsourcing activities and strategic collaborations.  It has since then become the standard to engage in open innovation, also more and more due to the increasing global competition. Companies need to stay alert and act agile in order to remain in the game. Therefore, it is no surprise that cross-collaboration with various stakeholders among various industries gained on importance considerably.  The main question is: what is the recipe for success in employing new innovative strategies and collaborating across industries - and how does it affect the global strategies of multinational companies?  Nowadays, these questions are fundamental for businesses. And especially in these turbulent times, open innovation has become more relevant than ever. This panel discussion will reveal the best practices of our partners and how they are realising their innovation objectives together with open innovation platform STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play.