On 18 and 19 November 2024, the Software Campus community met for the annual summit event in Berlin. Dr Stephan Pfisterer from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research welcomed programme participants and alumni, partners and representatives of the DLR Project Management Agency.
A total of 18 participants presented their research projects as posters, demos and in the science slam (link to the booklet with the projects here). They were encouraged to scrutinise and refine their short slam presentations in advance with science slam coach Ingo Nordmann-Mohn. The popular scientific presentation of the research projects realised at the Software Campus is both a challenging task and one of the highlights of the summit. Of the three finalists Juraj Vladika (TU Munich), Haralampos Gavriilidis (TU Berlin) and Marius Gerdes (KIT), Haralampos Gavriilidis was able to collect the most points from the audience together with the ‘AI Princess’ in the fight against centralised data management. Software Campus partner Holtzbrinck Publishing Group sponsored the prize for this first place: a one-year subscription to DIE ZEIT Digital.
And there were more programme participants and alumni ‘on stage’: Once again, three participants had the opportunity to present their startup or startup idea on stage. Hassan Nassar (Comphey), Philip Heltweg (JValue) and Omar El Nahhas (Stratif.AI) took the opportunity.
Software Campus alumni Ben Hermann, now Professor of Secure Software Engineering at TU Dortmund University, gave an insight into security-critical aspects of software components.
In the panel ‘Beyond Software Campus – opportunities for Transfer, F(o)unding and Collaboration’, industry and research partners discussed with the audience. Silke Munske (Volkswagen), Stefan Melles (DATEV) and Alexander Nouak (Fraunhofer ICT Group) shared their perspectives and ideas for more effective and sustainable collaboration beyond individual research projects.
The Summit was also dedicated to the Communities of Practice that were newly established this year. Here, participants, alumni and partners come together in eight thematic communities. They discussed the biggest and most relevant challenge currently facing their research area from different perspectives and developed ideas on how they can contribute to positive development as a specialist community.
And as at every summit, successful graduates were bid farewell from the programme. The two chairs of the steering committee, Dr Max Riedel (ZEISS) and Prof Dr Jeronimo Castrillon (TU Dresden), handed out graduation certificates to 14 participants.
Pictures: © Stefanie Loos
