Jennifer Baker

Moderator

Better known as Brusselsgeek, Jennifer has been a journalist in print, radio and television for 20 years, the last 10+ specialising in EU policy.

She has worked across a wide range of media, from editing a national daily paper in Malta, to reporting on European affairs for Middle Eastern television, and has a wealth of experience in navigating the political quagmire of the EU. As well as an address book packed with insider sources and contacts in Brussels, Jennifer is skilled at translating EU policy-speak into understandable English.

Regularly listed as one of the top influencers in the EU bubble, Jennifer was awarded #1 Tech Influencer 2019 by ZN, was listed by Politico as one of the Top 20 Women Shaping Brussels in 2017, and was named by Onalytica as one of the world's Top 100 Influencers on Data Security 2016. She is also a GLG expert Council Member providing advice on EU Policy, and was an original member of the Expert Council of the Good Technology Collective.

Jennifer regularly features as an EU expert on BBC radio, Euronews, SkyNews and others, and hosts Brussels’ must-watch weekly roundup show TOTW for Euractiv. She has written for some of the biggest names in media, including ArsTechnica, Computerweekly, TheNextWeb, and The Register.

For more information please see: www.brusselsgeek.com, linkedin.com/in/brusselsgeek, wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Baker_(journalist)

Director General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology), European Commission

Opening Keynote

Roberto Viola is Director General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology) at the European Commission.

He was the Deputy Director-General of DG CONNECT, European Commission from 2012 to 2015.

Roberto Viola served as Chairman of the European Radio Spectrum Policy group (RSPG) from 2012 to 2013, as Deputy Chairman in 2011 and Chairman in 2010. He was a member of the BEREC Board (Body of European Telecom Regulators), and Chairman of the European Regulatory Group (ERG) in 2007.

He held the position of Secretary General in charge of managing AGCOM, from 2005 to 2012. Prior to this, he served as Director of Regulation Department and Technical Director in AGCOM from 1999 to 2004.

From 1985-1999 he served in various positions including as Head of Telecommunication and Broadcasting Satellite Services at the European Space Agency (ESA).

Roberto Viola holds a Doctorate in Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA).

Kurt Sievers

President & CEO of NXP Semiconductors and President of AENEAS

Keynote speech

Kurt Sievers has served as president and chief executive officer of NXP since May 2020.

As a member of NXP’s executive management team since 2009, Kurt has been instrumental in leading the definition and implementation of NXP’s strategy for “secure connections for a smarter world.” Prior to being elected CEO, Kurt served as president of NXP and oversaw all of the company’s business lines. In 2019, Kurt led the successful acquisition of Marvell’s Wi-Fi Connectivity Business Unit, enabling NXP to deliver complete, scalable processing and connectivity solutions to customers across NXP’s focus end markets. In 2015, he played a key role in the merger of NXP and Freescale Semiconductor, which created one of the world’s leading semiconductor companies and a leader in automotive semiconductors and secure edge processing.

Kurt joined NXP in 1995, progressing through a series of sales and marketing, product definition and development, strategy and general management leadership positions across a broad number of market segments.

Stefan Finkbeiner

CEO and General Manager of Bosch Sensortec GmbH

Panel Session "Create impact for Europe with the Chips Act"

Stefan Finkbeiner was born in 1966 in Freudenstadt, Germany. He received his Diploma in Physics from the University of Karlsruhe in 1992. He then studied at the Max- Planck-Institute in Stuttgart and there received his PhD in Physics in 1995. Dr. Finkbeiner was appointed as CEO of Bosch Sensortec in 2012. He joined the Robert Bosch GmbH in 1995 and has been working in different positions related to the research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of sensors for more than 20 years. Senior positions at Bosch have included Director of Marketing for sensors, Director of Corporate Research in microsystems technology, and Vice President of Engineering for sensors. In 2015, Dr. Finkbeiner was awarded with the prestigious lifetime achievement award from the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group.

Annemarie Große Frie

Head of Research and Predevelopment at Siemens AG

Panel Session "Create impact for Europe with the Chips Act"

As Head of Research and Predevelopment, Annemarie Große Frie leads one of two central R&D departments at Siemens. With her teams – which are spread across Europe, Asia and the USA -- she works on diverse topics such as modeling future Energy systems or innovating the next generation of power electronics. Another focus of her work is developing “smarter things” to make the internet of things a reality, for example by equipping charging stations with computing and communication protocols to flexibly integrate them in modern power grids. Integrated Circuits and electronics are also a strategic priority for her teams.

Annemarie has been with Siemens since 2013, in pervious roles she worked in Corporate Strategy and the Corporate Sustainability Office. Prior to joining Siemens, she was a Project Leader with the Boston Consulting Group, where her assignments in the consumer goods and financial services sectors gave her the opportunity to work on strategy projects around the globe.

She holds a Master in Politics from the University of Oxford and a Bachelors degree in Physics from MIT. She enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors in the mountains with her husband and her sons.

Bart Noordam

Senior Vice President of Strategy and Presidents’ Office at ASML

Panel Session "Create impact for Europe with the Chips Act"

Bart, a former professor of physics and dean of the science faculty at the University of Amsterdam, McKinsey consultant and Auditor of Provinces, joined ASML in 2012.Close to his background he started at ASML as Vice President Research involved in pre-devolpment of new technologies for DUV and EUV products.

Few years later Bart was leading the System Integration cluster in Development and Engineering. System Integration is responsible for the introduction of new ASML Products to enable new generations (nodes) in the semiconductor production process by chipmakers such as Intel, TSMC and Samsung.

Since 2020 Bart is leading the Strategy and Presidents Office with teams in Strategy, New Business Developments, Capability Strategy, Corporate Marketing, Field Marketing, Geopolitical Affairs, ESG and the Presidential support organization. Bart supports BoM in its meetings and interactions.

Jean-Luc di Paola Galloni

Corporate Vice President of Valeo, President of Inside Industry Association, Chair of the PMB of KDT-JU

Panel Session "Create impact for Europe with the Chips Act"

Jean-Luc di Paola-Galloni joined Valeo in 2007 as CEO’s delegate and member of the Executive Committee, before becoming Group Corporate VP in charge of Sustainable Development and External Affairs in 2010.

Serving as Vice-Chairman since 2009 for the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC), the main automotive technology platform on collaborative research of the EU Commission, Jean-Luc is also a member of the Board of its cPPP European Green Vehicle Initiative (EGVI).

In 2018 he was elected President of Inside Association (formarly known as Artemis-IA), the European association representing the embedded systems industry and research actors in the KDT Joint Undertaking for which he is the Chairman of the Private Members Board.

Additionally, he is representing the Valeo group in the Board of CLEPA (the European Association of Automotive Suppliers) since July 2018.

Jean Luc’s commitment to establish fair relationships between the automotive industry and international bodies, with a multi-stakeholder approach, is also reflected by his engagement as a member of the Corporate Partnership Board (CPB) of the International Transport Forum (ITF), the formal mechanism of the OECD and associated countries’ transport ministers to engage with the private sector.

Finally, he is also representing Valeo in the selection and investment committee of the Fonds Avenir Automobile (FAA) within the French state-owned Banque Publique d'Investissement (BPI).

Jean-Luc was previously advisor to the CEO of Gaz de France (2002 - 2004) and has research experience in the field of defense, international relations and strategic affairs since he has been a scholar of Harvard University, Ecole Normale Supérieure and Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale.

Luc van den Hove

President and CEO of imec

Panel Session "Create impact for Europe with the Chips Act"

Luc Van den hove is President and CEO of imec since July 1, 2009. Before he was executive vice president and chief operating officer. He joined imec in 1984, starting his research career in the field of silicide and interconnect technologies. Dr. Luc Van den hove has played a critical role in setting up the world’s largest partnership in semiconductor R&D at imec. Leading IC manufacturers, foundries, equipment, and material suppliers, fabless, fablite and system companies are gathered to jointly tackle the roadblocks for continued technology and system scaling, today targeting the 2nm node and beyond.

Luc Van den hove is a member of the Technology Strategy Committee of ASML and member of the board of Proximus. Under his leadership, imec received the IEEE Corporate Innovation Award in 2011 and the Semi sales marketing excellence award in 2018. Dr. Van den hove was elected as an international member of the United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2021. In April 2021, he was appointed chair of the SEMI Europe board.

He has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications and conference contributions.

Lucilla Sioli

Director of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry at the European Commission

Introduction on syngergies with KDT

Ms Lucilla Sioli is the Director for "Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry" within Directorate-General CONNECT at the European Commission. She is responsible for the coordination of the European digitisation of industry strategy and for policy development in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). The directorate also supports R&D&I in key digital industrial technologies including microelectronics, photonics, robotics and AI. Lucilla holds a PhD in economics from the University of Southampton (UK) and one from the Catholic University of Milan (Italy) and has been a civil servant with the European Commission since 1997.

Colin Willcock

Chair of SNS-JU Governing Board, Chair of 6G-IA Governing Board

Syngergies on telecom applications

Colin is currently the chairman of the 6G Smart Networks and Services Industry Association (6G-IA) governing board (formally known as 5G Infrastructure Association). He is also the chairman of the European Smart Networks and Services Joint undertaking (SNS-JU) governing board. He has detailed knowledge and experience of the telecommunications industry having worked directly or indirectly with many of the major players over a 28-year period. The roles have included software developer, technical consultant, technical marketing, standardization and management. In addition to line manager roles, he has participated extensively in standardization activities at ETSI, ITU-T and 3GPP, including instrumental work in creating and developing the TTCN-3 testing language. Colin has also been very active in the European research ecosystem, including leading a number of award winning European projects such as TT-Medal, D-MINT and SEMAFOUR. Colin is currently head of Research Alliances at Nokia.

Armin Gräter

Chair of CCAM Association, Director of Digitalisation and Automated Driving at BMW Group

Synergies with Connected and Automated Mobility Applications

Biography of Armin Gräter:

• 1987 Entry into BMW as Diplom-Wirtschaftsingenieur (University Rosenheim) in different roles of development and marketing
• 2005 Project Leader Safety of the BMW Hydrogen7, MINI e and other electric mobility projects, from 2009 leading the Functional Safety Activities of the BMW Group
• 2013 Leader of the Development Strategy on Driver Assistance and Automated Driving
  Leader of the VDA Working Group Automated Driving
• 2015 Chair of the ERTRAC WG CCAM (European Road Transport Research Advisory Council, Working Group on Connected Cooperative Automated Mobility)
• 2021 Chair of the CCAM Association (Public-Private-Partnership with the EU Commission spending 1 billion Euro on research projects 2021-2030) and BMW Director Digitalisation and Automated Driving in Brussels (Governmental Affairs Europe).

Casper Garos

Alternate Member of the IHI-JU Governing Board, Head of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) at Philips

Synergies with digital healthcare applications

Casper Garos is Head of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) at Philips. In this position he is responsible for enabling new innovations and collaborations through PPPs, involving a large network of companies, academic institutions and public authorities. He leads a team of experts that is involved in all relevant European funding programs. Casper is based in the Netherlands.

Casper studied at the University of Leiden, Netherlands and Dalhousie University, Canada, and holds a MA in law/international economics. In 1986 he joined Royal Philips as trade policy expert. Subsequently, he fulfilled global leadership functions in product management at Philips’ Components and Lighting divisions, in various locations in the Netherlands, Austria and the USA. Since 2007 Casper is active in PPPs in the healthcare domain.

Currently Casper is amongst others board member of the Eureka Cluster ITEA, member of the Eureka Industry Community Council, chair of the COCIR Research & Innovation Focus Group, alternate member of the IHI Governing Board, member of the Photonics21 Board of Stakeholders, member of the Business Europe Research & Technological Innovation Working Group, member of the EIBIR Scientific Board and Industry Panel, member of the Medical Delta Societal Advisory Committee and member of the Technology & Innovation Committee of VNO-NCW (Netherlands’ largest employers’ organization).

Linda Gesenhues

Programme Officer at EuroHPC

Synergies with High Performance Computing

Linda Gesenhues is a Programme Officer at the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). Linda has a longstanding interest in HPC and in particular has worked on research on High Performance Computing applications for computational mechanics and fluid dynamics.

Linda graduated from RWTH Aachen University with a Bachelor and Master in Mechanical Engineering. She then went on to complete her bi-national doctoral studies at the High Performance Computing Center at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the Chair for Computational Analysis of Technical Systems at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, researching on large scale finite element simulations of geophysical flows. She continued her career as a research group leader at the Chair for Computational Analysis of Technical Systems focusing on massively parallel simulations of phase boundaries during melting processes. In 2022, Linda joined the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking working mainly on Research&Innovation actions.

Paolo Azzoni

Secretary General of Inside Industry Association

ECS SRIA 2023

Paolo Azzoni is the Head of European Technology Programmes at EUROTECH Group and Secretary General of Inside Industry Association. He is responsible for planning and directing industrial research projects, investigating technologies beyond the state of the art in the areas of cyber-physical systems, intelligent systems, machine-to-machine, edge computing, internet of things and digitalization solutions. He has been actively involved in ECSEL initiative and previously in Artemis, since 2006, being member of the Artemis-IA Steering Board, of the Artemis-IA Presidium and the Chairman of the Working Group “From IoT to System of Systems”. He is the chairman of the ECS-SRIA 2023 and since January 2022 Secretary General of Inside Industry Association (former Artemis-IA). Before joining EUROTECH in 2005, he was involved in academic lecturing and research in the areas of hardware formal verification, hardware/software co-design and co-simulation, advanced hardware architectures and operating systems. He holds a Master Degree in Computer Science and a second Master Degree in Intelligent Systems.

Berta Ferrer Llosa

Programme Officer at KDT Joint Undertaking

Workshop on Chips for 6G

Berta Ferrer Llosa is a Programme Officer at Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT JU). She has a master’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering by the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

After several years working in the private sector for different companies in Spain and in Belgium (Alcatel, ST Microelectronics), she moved to the Commission as Project Officer. Berta joined ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking from the very beginning and has continued working in the successive Joint Undertakings (ECSEL JU and KDT JU) since then.

Patrick Cogez

Technical Director at AENEAS

Workshop on Chips for 6G

After starting his career in the French Ministry of Industry, Dr. Patrick Cogez joined STMicroelectronics in 1988, where he designed and implemented the Information Systems of the Crolles R&D and Manufacturing site, and was later appointed Director for Innovation and External Research for the Technology R&D of the Embedded Solutions Sector of STMicroelectronics. He is currently Technical Director of AENEAS, a not-for-profit Industrial Association representing its members in the ECS value chain and aiming at fostering Research and Innovation and creating an effective funding landscape.

Patrick graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées in France, and holds a M.Sc. degree in Operations Research and a PhD in Industrial Engineering, both from the University of California at Berkeley. He completed an Executive MBA programme at NEOMA Business School, Paris. He co-managed three PhD theses and co-authored several articles on the management of breakthrough innovation.

Fredrik Tillman

Research Leader at Ericsson AB

Workshop on Chips for 6G

Fredrik Tillman received the Msc and PhD degrees in Circuit Design from Lund University in 2000 and 2005 respectively. After graduation he joined Ericsson Mobile Platforms and participated in the first cellular modem CMOS radio development before moving on to the research branch of the company. Today Fredrik is heading a department at Ericsson Research with focus on integrated radio circuit design for both cellular infrastructure and device connectivity. Besides being responsible for internal R&D activities, Fredrik is active in the European research community and has been the Ericsson driver for multiple collaboration projects within the Horizon 2020 framework.

Mohand Achouche

Director of Hardware Strategy at Nokia Bell Labs

Workshop on Chips for 6G

Mohand Achouche is a strategic advisor on devices / 6G and high speed business relationship within Nokia Bell Labs since 2019. From 2015 to 2019, he was the managing director of III-V Lab a JV between Nokia, Thales and CEA. He contributed to the creation of various III-V Lab’s spin-offs and led multiple industrial transfers.

Mohand received his PhD degree in material science from Paris VII University in 1996. His research activities started at Orange lab in 1993 on Photonic Integrated Circuits for optical communications. During 1997-2000, he was with Ferdinand Braun Institute (Berlin) working on electronic power amplifiers for mobile communications. He joined Alcatel (now Nokia) in 2000 working on various research projects and had many different managerial roles.

Frédéric Gianesello

New RF Business Opportunities at STMicroelectronics

Workshop on Chips for 6G

Fred Gianesello received the B.S. and M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from Institut national polytechnique de Grenoble (Grenoble, France) in 2003 and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Joseph Fourier University (Grenoble, France) in 2006.

Dr Gianesello has authored and coauthored more than 200+ refereed journal and conference technical articles. He has served on the TPC for the IEEE International SOI Conference from 2009 up to 2011, on the TPC for IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference from 2017 to 2022 and for IEEE International Electron Device Meeting Conference as Microwave, Millimeter Wave and Analog Technology from 2019 - 2021 as committee member and sub-committee chair.

Dr Gianesello has been working for ST on the development of silicon-based RF and millimeter wave technologies during the past 20 years targeting RF and mmW transceivers and Front-End Module products. He is currently working for STMicroelectronics in Crolles (France) as technical expert providing support to customer and performing business prospection for RF, mmW and optical products.

Huascar Espinoza

Programme Officer at KDT Joint Undertaking

Workshop on Edge AI

Huascar Espinoza is a Programme Officer at Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT JU), where he has been dealing with projects on smart health in particular. He has a PhD in Computer Science, and his main background is on design of safety-critical AI-based systems. Prior to KDT JU, he acted as coordinator of various EU projects in the areas of safety assurance, certification, and robotics technologies. More recently, he started to moderate the preparation of the next KDT JU Work Programme for Call 2023 in the area of Edge AI.

Holger Schmidt

Coordinator Funding Projects at Infineon Technologies

Workshop on Edge AI

Holger Schmidt received his diploma in electrical engineering / telecommunications from the University of Hannover, Germany, in 1993. He has been working for Infineon Technologies AG (formerly Siemens Semiconductors) since 1995 in different positions related to design automation, wireline communication and structured product development processes. Since 2012 he is responsible for collaborative projects on European and national level with a focus on energy and electric mobility. He links business line related innovation at Infineon to funding programs and is heading the group “Enabling & Emerging Technologies” within the Infineon R&D funding organization since 2020. He is industrial advisor of the AENEAS scientific committee. He contributes with technical content to several ECS SRIA chapters and is chapter co-lead for the chapter “Artificial Intelligence, Edge Computing and Advanced Control”. He successfully coordinated the ECSEL projects E2SG and CONNECT and is currently coordinating the PROGRESSUS project, all of them addressing smart grid and objectives of the green deal.

Inessa Seifert

Computer scientist and AI expert at VDI/VDE-IT

Workshop on Edge AI

Dr. Inessa Seifert is a computer scientist and an AI expert at VDI/VDE-IT. She received her doctoral degree with the focus on “Spatial Cognition” from the University of Bremen (Germany). She is leading the EPoSS task force “AI at the Edge” and she is responsible for the strategic liaisons with industrial constituency in the coordination and supporting action “UnlockCEI.EU” funded by the European Commission. She is also involved in networking activities in the framework of the accompanying research for the national Research Program “Smart Data Economy” and “AI Innovation Challenge” funded by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

Michael Scholles

Head of Fraunhofer Center MEOS

Workshop on Integrated Photonics

Michael Scholles received the Diploma in electrical engineering and the Dr.-Ing degree, both from Gerhard-Mercator-University Duisburg (Germany), in 1990 and 1996, respectively. From 1990 to 1995 he has been with the Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronic Circuits and Systems (Fraunhofer IMS) Duisburg, where he was working on biology-oriented signal processing systems and multi-processor systems. Since 1996, he has been with Fraunhofer IMS Dresden, which became Fraunhofer IPMS (Institute for Photonic Microsystems) in 2003. He had numerous management positions at Fraunhofer IPMS including head of “Business Development & Strategy” from January 2011 until June 2018. Since January 2018, he is the head of the Fraunhofer Center “Microelectronic and Optical Systems for Biomedicine” which comprises the interdisciplinary work of three different Fraunhofer institutes including IPMS.

Mike Wale

Professor of Integrated Photonics at University College London and Full Professor Emeritus at Eindhoven University of Technology

Workshop on Integrated Photonics

Michael (Mike) Wale is Professor of Integrated Photonics at University College London and Full Professor Emeritus at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands, where he was previously part-time Professor of Photonic Integration - Industrial Aspects. He is also Honorary Professor of Photonic Communications at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Mike received his B.A., M.A. and D. Phil. degrees in physics from the University of Oxford. He subsequently spent more than 35 years in industry, most recently as Director Active Products Research at Oclaro (now Lumentum), a major supplier of photonic components for optical communications. His experience encompasses many different aspects of research, development and manufacturing of photonic devices and systems, with emphasis on photonic integrated circuit technology. He is author or co-author of more than 250 scientific and technical papers.

Professor Wale is a member of the Executive Board of the European Technology Platform, Photonics21, and chair of its Core Photonics Working Group.

Ralf Bornefeld

Senior Vice President of Power Semiconductors & Modules at Robert Bosch GmbH, Chair of KDT-JU Governing Board

Moderating the session on Impact of collaborative projects

Ralf Bornefeld is Senior Vice President with responsibility for business line and engineering of Power Semiconductors & Modules at Bosch. He joined Bosch in November 2019.

Before he held various management positions at Infineon Technologies AG: senior director technology in frontend production from 2005-2008, senior director engineering of automotive sensors until 2011 and finally vice president and general manager business line automotive sensors.

Ralf started his career at Elmos Semiconductor in 1992 as a technology development engineer. Afterwards he took several management positions until end of 2004, mostly serving as vice president of R&D and eventually as vice president of business line microsystems.

Ralf Bornefeld was born in Schalksmuehle, Germany, in 1964. He graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from Technical University of Dortmund in 1992.

Yves Gigase

Executive Director ad interim of KDT Joint Undertaking

Presenting at the session on Impact of collaborative projects & the session on upcoming KDT calls and events

Dr. Yves Gigase is the Executive Director ad interim of the KDT Joint Undertaking, before which he held the post of Head of Programmes at KDT JU, and also at the ECSEL JU and the ENIAC JU. Before that he occupied manager and/or researcher positions in several companies active in optoelectronics, electronic consumer goods, consulting and telecommunication.

Yves Gigase holds an MSE in Applied physics and a PhD in Optoelectronics, both from the University of Gent. He completed two postdocs; one at the IBM Research Labs in Zurich and one at the Optical Computing Systems Centre at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is an IEEE member.

Gerhard Döll

Senior Program Manager R&D Cooperation Projects at Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH

Session on Impact of collaborative projects

Gerhard Döll is Senior Program Manager Funding Projects at Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH since October 2017. In this function, he is coordinating the funding projects of the semiconductor manufacturing technology business group of Zeiss.

Before joining Zeiss, Gerhard Döll held various management positions in R&D at OSRAM Germany and China including the function of a Senior Director for Predevelopment of Future Luminaire Technologies.

Gerhard Döll started his career 1992 as a R&D engineer at OSRAM GmbH in Munich, Germany. He graduated with a diploma degree in Physics from the university of Würzburg and a Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from the University of Constance.

Nadja Rohrbach

Programme Director at Xecs

Presenting at the Award session and the Upcoming Xecs calls and events on 25 November

With an academic background in biology and immunology, Nadja spent several years as a scientific officer for a member of the German Federal Parliament. Subsequently she joined the DLR Project Management Agency, initially focusing on Eureka and network projects, before becoming head of the Eurostars group.

In 2018, Nadja was seconded by the German government to the Eureka secretariat in Brussels, where she was appointed central coordinator for the new Eureka Clusters Programme and worked with various bodies to draft the first Multi-Annual and Annual Operational Plans. In September 2021, she joined AENEAS as the Xecs Programme Director in charge of the new Xecs Eureka Cluster, as well as the existing Penta and Euripides² Clusters.

Anton Chichkov

Deputy Head of Programmes Unit at KDT Joint Undertaking

Handing out the KDT Technology Pioneer Award 2022

Anton Chichkov is the Deputy Head of Programmes Unit at KDT Joint Undertaking, following his role as Programme Officer at KDT JU, ECSEL JU and ENIAC JU.

Christopher Frieling

Director Advocacy and Public Policy at SEMI Europe

Session on: Talent shortage, gender imbalance, public defiance towards technology. Can science help us?

Christopher Frieling is Director for Advocacy and Public Policy at the SEMI Europe Brussels Office and Co-Chair of the Executive Board of the Pact for Skills for Microelectronics. Christopher has a background in EU affairs, innovation, and tech policy. Prior to SEMI he worked at the Brussels office of Fraunhofer in several roles including most recently as Senior Advisor. Christopher holds an MSc in Economics of Science and Innovation and a Bachelor of Business Administration.

Dimitrios Serpanos

President of Computer Technology Institute and Press DIOPHANTUS, Professor at University of Patras

Session on: Talent shortage, gender imbalance, public defiance towards technology. Can science help us?

Dimitrios Serpanos is President of the Computer Technology Institute and Press DIOPHANTUS (CTI) and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras, Greece. He is the Chair of the Scientific Council of INSIDE.

He holds a PhD and MA in Computer Science from Princeton University (1990 and 1988, respectively) and a Diploma in Computer Engineering and Informatics from the University of Patras (1985). His prior appointments include faculty at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Crete, Research Staff Member at IBM Research, T.J. Watson Research Center, and Principal Scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). He has held managerial academic positions as President of the University of Western Greece (2010-2013) and as Director of the Industrial Systems Institute (ISI/ATHENA) for two terms (2016-2021 and 2008-2013).

His research interests include cybersecurity, cyber-physical and embedded systems, and computer architecture. He has published extensively in technical journals and conferences (more than 150), has co-authored or co-edited 8 books, co-authored 12 book chapters and granted 2 US patents.

Professor Serpanos is the Chair of the IEEE CS STC on Smart and Circular Cities.

Ina Sebastian

Vice President for Research and Innovation Policy at Infineon Technologies AG

Session on: Talent shortage, gender imbalance, public defiance towards technology. Can science help us?

Ina Sebastian is Vice President for Research and Innovation Policy in the Public Policy Department of Infineon Technologies AG. In this position, she is involved in the design of German and European research and innovation programmes and technology policy – including the European Chips Act.

Ina holds a PhD in physics. In 2000 she joined Siemens as IT Service Architect. Subsequently, she fulfilled positions as Innovation Manager, and as Senior Consultant for Publicly Funded R&D and External Cooperations at Siemens Corporate Technology. In between, she worked as personal advisor to the president of acatech – National Academy of Science and Engineering – which is the German voice of the technological sciences.

Currently she is, amongst other things, a member of the AENEAS Management Committee and represented in the Governing Board of KDT JU. At the German BDI, she chairs the working group “Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems” and is a member of the working group for “National and European Research & Innovation Policy”. At the German ZVEI, she is a member of the board working group “Digital & Innovation Policy”. And she is board member of the two bitkom working groups for “Semiconductor Ecosystem & Technology” and for “Research & Innovation”.

Suzanne Lesecq

Research Director and European Programme Manager at CEA-LETI

Session on: Talent shortage, gender imbalance, public defiance towards technology. Can science help us?

Suzanne Lesecq has been student at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS), France, where she passed the “Agrégation” in Electrical Engineering in 1992. She defended her PhD in Process Control from the Grenoble Institute of Technology, France, in 1997. She joined the University of Grenoble, France, in 1997 where she has been appointed Associate-Professor from 1998 to 2006 and full-time Professor from 2006 to 2009. At the University of Grenoble, she was head of the Department of Electrical Engineering (Bachelor Degree) and she conducted research on predictive maintenance for industrial processes (model-based and signal-processing-based techniques).

She joined CEA-LETI in mid-2009 where she worked first on power management of multi-processor platforms and of embedded systems, then on Bayesian data fusion for environment perception with application to the automotive domain and to the white cane for Visually Impaired and Blind people. For this later activity, she has been recipient of the French prize “les Etoiles de l’Europe” for the coordination of the H2020 INSPEX project. Since April 2021, she is in charge of EU programs for the system division in CEA-Leti. Her topics of interest are data fusion techniques together with their robust implementation on computing devices, with a particular focus on the agri-food sector and environment perception.

Werner Steinhögl

European Commission

Presenting the upcoming Horizon Europe calls and events

Dr. Werner Steinhögl is Head of Sector for the photonics partnership in the Microelectronics and Photonics Industry unit of the European Commission in Brussels. After entering the Communications Networks, Content and Technology (CONNECT) directorate general of the EC in 2005 he has worked as programme manager in several areas spanning from quantum computing over nanotechnologies to safety-critical computing and cyber-physical systems. Before he had worked for 6 years in the semiconductor industry at Infineon and Siemens in Munich. He holds a PhD in solid state physics acquired at the Max-Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Göttingen, Germany, in 1998.