Speakers

Dr. Rachel Alemu

PPD, Germany

Rachel Alemu is a lawyer at PPD Germany. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Laws (Hons.) degree from Makerere University Kampala, Uganda, a Master of Laws degree from Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, and a PhD in Law from Ludwig Maximilian University Munich (LMU).

Alemu’s initial legal experience was in government working as an assistant law reform officer at the Uganda Law Reform Commission. It was while working on the law reform project for commercial laws that Alemu picked up an interest in intellectual property and competition law. For the last several years, her career has focused on intellectual property and competition law research and practice. Through her PhD research, Alemu has gained expertise in telecommunications regulation and competition law particularly with regards to developing countries.

More recently, Alemu has shifted her attention to another regulated sector, pharmacy with specific focus on clinical trials. Thus, in her current role as lawyer at PPD Germany, she is concerned with IP protection, anti-corruption laws, and data protection.

Mr. Inge Andersen

Secretary General, Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports

Secretary General of the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (Norwegian NOC) since 2004. Prior to that, Mr. Andersen had a successful career as head coach of both the Norwegian and the Swiss cross country national teams, before he entered the Norwegian bank sector as head of Human Resources at Storebrand Bank and Finansbanken.

Mr. Andersen holds a major in sports science from The Norwegian School of Sports Science.

As the Secretary General of the Norwegian NOC, Mr. Andersen has the daily operational responsibility of the largest non governmental organization in Norway with 2 million memberships and 12,000 sports clubs. The Norwegian NOC is the only sports organization in the world that encompasses the grassroot sports, the Olympic sports, the Paralympic sports, sports for people with intellectual disabilities and sports for people with hearing disabilities.

With such a wide range and diverse set of goals and target groups comes great responsibility with regards to good governance. It is an important task for a Secretary General of the Norwegian NOC to make sure that the whole organization complies with the core values of the Norwegian sports movement on a daily basis.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Ann

Chair, Business Law & Intellectual Property Law, Technical University of Munich

Inventors’ rights under European patent law are strong and protected as property. Nevertheless, patent law is not value-blind. Rather, Art. 53 (a) EPC stipulates that European Patents shall not be granted for inventions, the commercial exploitation of which would contravene public order or morality. And while there is no European standard for public order or morality, there is a set of fundamental and universally binding principles, e.g. human dignity or the right to life.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Ann LL.M. (Duke Univ.)
TUM School of Management, Chair for IP Law
Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC)
formerly Judge at Mannheim Regional Court (IP Panel)

Prof. Dr. Knut Blind

Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS, Innovation and Technology Transfer; Chair of Innovation Economics, Technical University Berlin

Prof. Dr. Knut Blind studied economics, political science and psychology at Freiburg University. In the course of his studies he spent one year at Brock University (Canada), where he was awarded a BA. Finally, he took his Diploma in Economics and later his doctoral degree at Freiburg University. Between 1996 and 2010 he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe, Germany, as a senior researcher and at last as head of the Competence Center “Regulation and Innovation”. In April 2006 Knut Blind was appointed Professor of Innovation Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Berlin University of Technology. Between 2008 and 2016 he held also the endowed chair of standardisation at the Rotterdam School of Management of the Erasmus University. From April 2010 he is linked to the Fraunhofer Institute of Open Communication Systems in Berlin. In 2012, he initiated both the Berlin Innovation Panel and the German Standardization Panel. Besides numerous articles on patents he published further contributions on standardization and further innovation aspects in refereed journals. In 2016 he elected to become a member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech).

Dr. Kay Firth-Butterfield

Vice-Chair, The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems, Executive Director, AI Austin

Kay Firth-Butterfield is a Barrister and part-time Judge who has worked as a mediator, arbitrator, business owner and professor in the United Kingdom. In the United States, she is the Executive Director and Founding Advocate of AI-Austin which is a non-profit dedicated to the responsible design, development and use of AI and the socially beneficial use of AI in the community, specifically in Healthcare, Education and ethical governance. She is the former Chief Officer of the Lucid.ai Ethics Advisory Panel. Kay is a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas, Austin and Vice-Chair, The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems Additionally, she is a Partner in the Cognitive Finance group and an adjunct Professor of Law. Kay is a humanitarian with a strong sense of social justice and has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations. She advises governments, think tanks, businesses, inter-governmental bodies and non-profits about artificial intelligence, law and policy. Kay co-founded the Consortium for Law and Policy of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Texas and taught its first course: Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies: Law and Policy. She thinks about and works on how AI and other technologies will impact society and business. Kay regularly speaks to international audiences addressing many aspects of these challenging changes. Twitter: @KayFButterfield

Prof. Dr. Gordon Cheng

Professor and Chair of Cognitive Systems, Technical University Munich

Professor Cheng (b. 1968) researches the fundamental understanding and construction of cognitive systems. He studies ways to combine widely diverse capabilities in multipurpose high-performance robots and develops natural communication mechanisms in order to improve the application friendliness of robots.

Professor Cheng studied information sciences at Wollongong University (Australia) and was awarded a doctorate in systems engineering in 2001 at the department of systems engineering of the Australian National University. He founded the department of humanoid robotics and computational neuroscience at the Institute for Advanced Telecommunications Research in Kyoto (Japan), where he was Department Head from 2003 to 2008. In addition, from 2007 to 2008 he was a project manager at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (Japan) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, where he was responsible for the Computational Brain project (2004-2008). Since 2010, Professor Cheng has been conducting research and teaching at TUM as full professor of cognitive systems.

He is coordinator of the Center of Competence Neuro-Engineering in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and speaker of the newly established Elite Master of Science program in Neuroengineering (MSNE) of the Elite Network of Bavaria.

Mr. Günter Conrad

Chairman, Con-First GmbHMr

Conrad is a top management strategy consultant working with his clients on transforming their enterprise to be relevant in the future.

He served in Andersen Consulting/Accenture for twenty-seven years until 2001 and then founded his own company to work with his clients in reviewing their strategic positioning and in charting their future course.

During the past twenty years he has been developing and implementing enterprise transformation plans with his clients. His present research topic deals with effective leadership styles of entrepreneurs and executives in extraordinary turbulent times, moving from motivational to inspirational leadership to respond to the urgent call for aligning leaders’ actions with the universal rules of this world.

Prof. Dr. Andreas de Bruin

University of Applied Sciences, Munich / Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München

Andreas de Bruin was born in Delft, the Netherlands. After he finished his study in Industrial Engineering and Management in Rijswijk he studied Biopsychology in Leiden. 1993 he went to Munich, Germany to pick up a third study in Anthropology and received his PhD 2003.

He then became to be an advisor in the field of education and professor for Aesthetic Education 2006. His main fields of research and teaching are mindfulness and meditation. Here he especially is studying the effects on the physical, emotional, cognitive and social level. Besides this he teaches classical music, painting and high giftedness.

Andreas de Bruin is working at the University of Applied Sciences Munich. He is an initiator and board member of a special research and education cooperation with the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München for the exchange of expertise between the two universities and – among other things – support collective research and publications, bundle fields of studies and open new ways for students to finish their thesis.

De Bruin is practicing meditation since 1991 intensively and founded the Munich Modell “Meditation at University” in 2010. He is now teaching meditation classes in nine fields of studies at four faculties. Recently he has started a new project “meditation and art” that deals with consciousness listening to classical music and consciousness looking at paintings of the Great Masters.

Prof. Dr. Giovanna de Minico

Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Naples Federico II

My speech will focus on a current challenge: is an Internet Bill of Rights still possible? My talk will be divided into two parts.

The first outlines which hypothesis of regulation would be more suited to Internet: the binding one or the self-regulation one, keeping in mind the ethical question which is being examined by this panel.

The second part of my speech will delve into the basic legal issues addressed by the Italian Internet Bill of Rights, drawing from my direct involvement in its drafting as a member of the Boldrini Commission.

Giovanna De Minico, specialized in Civil Law, completed a Ph.D. and post-doc in Public Law. In 2001 professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Naples Federico II. Teaches also Media Law and Regulation at Masters of second level. Research interests include: Independent Authorities, Soft law, TLC and privacy, New methods of regulation, Internet and regulatory issues, Terrorism and Fundamental rights.

Authors of four books and more than 50 essays, published in peer reviewed International Journals; also writer for Italian newspapers (Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Sole 24 ore, Fatto).

Consultant of the Consiglio Superiore delle Comunicazioni; member of the Parliamentary Commission established by President Boldrini for the Bill of rights of Internet, http://www.camera.it/leg17/1177; director of the Interdepartmental European Centre for Media and Society, www.ermes.unina.it; coordinator of the International group on The Constitutions in the age of Internet within the International association of constitutional law, www.iacl-aidc.org/en/iacl. Lawyer at the Supreme Courts. See Federico II’s web site.

Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl

Director, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition

Professor Drexl is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (since 2002), a Honorary Professor at the University of Munich and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Science. As the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), Professor Drexl is responsible for an LL.M. program in IP with international outreach. He was the founding Chair of the Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA) from 2003 to 2013, and he is a Vice-President of the Association Internationale de Droit Economique (AIDE). He acted as a visiting professor at Oxford University, the Libera Università Internazionale per gli Studi Sociali (LUISS) Guido Carli in Rome, the New York University and the Université de Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas. Professor Drexl is an expert in both competition law and intellectual property law. The competition law aspects of IP and international issues of both IP and competition law are among his major research interests.

Mrs. Yvonne Feri

National Councillor, Switzerland

Yvonne Feri is a member of the Swiss National Parliament and local councilor in Wettingen. Yvonne Feri is active in a number of committees and is president of SP Frauen Schweiz.

She started her political career, serving for 10 years until 2008 as a member of the cantonal parliament of Aargau, and was in this capacity an active advocate for family and gender politics.

When her parliamentary term ended in 2008, she became chief executive of the Zürich Teachers Association, a position she held until 2012. At the same time, she continued as a council member for the municipality of Wettingen (population 20.000), taking management responsibility for all health and social security related departments.

During this time, she remained an active member of the Swiss Socialist Party, contributing actively to improve the position and influence of women in the work place and in wider Swiss society. In 2011, she was elected as a socialist member of the Swiss national parliament, representing the Canton of Aargau.

Aside from the day-to-day parliamentary work in the chamber and in committee, she advocates the humanitarian contribution Switzerland can make internationally and seeks to improve the equality and position of working women in Switzerland.

Prof. Dr. Luciano Floridi

Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, Oxford University

Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, where he directs the Digital Ethics Lab (DELab) of the Oxford Internet Institute. He is also Faculty Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute and Chair of its Data Ethics research Group, and Chairman of the Ethics Advisory Board of the European Medical Information Framework. He seats on the EU’s Ethics Advisory Group on Ethical Dimensions of Data Protection, on the Royal Society and British Academy Working Group on Data Governance, and on Google Advisory Board on “the right to be forgotten”. His areas of expertise include the philosophy of information, digital ethics, and the philosophy of technology. Among his recent books, all published by Oxford University Press: The Fourth Revolution – How the infosphere is reshaping human reality (2014), The Ethics of Information (2013), The Philosophy of Information (2011).

Prof. Dr. Christoph Geiger

Director, CEIPI Strasbourg

Christophe Geiger is Professor of Law, Director General and Director of the Research Department of the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) at the University of Strasbourg (France). In addition, he is an affiliated senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (Germany) as well as Spangenberg Fellow at the Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Arts, Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland (US). He specializes in national, European, international and comparative intellectual property law, acts as external expert for the European Parliament and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), has drafted reports on IP for the European and international institutions and taught as visiting professor in several universities. He is also General Editor of the Collection of the CEIPI published by LexisNexis, co-editor of the EIPIN series published by Edward Elgar, co-editor of the CEIPI-ICTSD Publication Series on “Global Perspectives and Challenges for the Intellectual Property System” and member of the editorial board of several journals on IP law. He has published numerous articles as well as authored and edited many volumes in this field, the most recent being “Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property: A Handbook of Contemporary Research” (2012), “Constructing European Intellectual Property: Achievements and New Perspectives” (2013), “Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property” (2015) by Edward Elgar, and “What Patent Law for the European Union?” (2013), “The Contribution of Case Law to the Construction of Intellectual Property in Europe” (2013, in French); “Intellectual Property Law in a Globalized World” (with Caroline Rodà, 2014), “The Intellectual Property System in a Time of Change, European and International Perspectives” (2016), by LexisNexis.

Mr. Christoph Glaser

Director, World Forum for Ethics in Business

Born and raised in Basel, Switzerland, Christoph has served since 2006 as Managing Director for the International Leadership Symposium of the World Forum for Ethics in Business.

As a leadership expert and personal development coach, Christoph has delivered leadership programs in more than 50 countries over 15 years. This rich experience of diverse cultures and an understanding of global social economic and political scenarios has helped him to establish several public-private partnerships for social development.

Since 2009 he acts as CEO for the TLEX Europe (Transformational Leadership) Seminars. Some of the organizations which he has worked with include: Harvard Business School, Accenture, Beiersdorf, Boston Consulting Group, General Electric, Microsoft, Shell and the World Bank Group.

Christoph currently serves on the Boards of a number of Non-Governmental Organizations internationally such as the International Association for Human Values. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy (MPP) from the Humboldt-Viadrina School for Governance and graduated with honors from the Basel Business School, Switzerland.

Prof. Dr. Heinz Goddar

Partner, Boehmert and Boehmert

Heinz Goddar, Prof., Dr., a German Patent Attorney and European Patent and Trademark Attorney, is a partner of Boehmert & Boehmert, with his office at Munich, Germany. Technical background (as well as PhD degree) in physics, with a focus on polymer physics. He teaches Patent and Licensing Law as an Honorary Professor at the University of Bremen, Germany, as a Lecturer at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), Munich, Germany, as a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.A., and the National ChengChi University, Taipei, and as a Consultant Professor at the University of Huazhong, Wuhan, China. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Tongji Global Intellectual Property Institute (TGIPI), Shanghai, China. Prof. Dr. Goddar is an Adjunct Professor and an Honorable Consultant in International Legal Services at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan. He is also a Director at the Global Institute of Intellectual Property (GIIP), Delhi. He is a Past President of LES International and of LES Germany and has received the Gold Medal of LES International. In 2014 he has been inducted into the IP Hall of Fame. Contact and further information: goddar@boehmert.de, http://www.boehmert.de.

Mr. Robert Hansor

Director of Global Sustainability Policy and Systems, Huawei Technologies Co.

Robert is responsible for advancing Huawei’s sustainable development strategy during a period of corporate growth and change. His role is to merge sustainability with business and improve performance in areas such as environmental protection, resource efficiency, sustainable supply chains, health and safety, and stakeholder engagement. In the past 12 months his brief has expanded and he now takes responsibility for Huawei’s bridging the digital divide program. Bridging the digital divide is part of Huawei’s effort to create a better connected world that enables all people to benefit from connectivity.

Robert is based in Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, Southern China. Huawei is a Fortune 500 company with 180,000 people in 170 countries around the world. In 2016, its revenue was US$75 billion.

Before joining Huawei he worked for Lloyd’s Register (UK) and Environmental Resources Management (ERM) (UK) and has been in the Asia region for over 15 years.

Prof. Dr. Reto Hilty

Director, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition

Study of mechanical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich; 1st intermediate exam). Study of law at the University of Zurich, school of law; doctorate in Zurich (1989). Head of department and member of board of Directors at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Berne (1994–97). Postdoctoral lecture qualification in civil, intellectual property, competition and media law at the University of Zurich (2000). Full Professor of technology and information law at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) Zurich (2000 and 2001). From 2002 Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Managing Director 2005–06, 2011–12 and 2017-19) and full Professor (ad personam) at the University of Zurich. Honorary Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, and a number of foreign Universities.

Prof. Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Advisor, Government of India, Faculty, IIT Chennai Indian Institute of Technology

Ashok Jhunjhunwala is an Institute Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras at Chennai, India. He is currently on deputation as Advisor to Minister of Power and MNRE, Government of India.

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala did B.Tech from IITK, MS and Ph.D from the University of Maine and was a faculty at Washington State University from 1979 to 1981, before joining IIT Madras in 1981.

Dr. Jhunjhunwala is considered the pioneer in nurturing Industry – Academia interaction in India towards R & D, Innovation and Product Development. His group (TENET) at IIT Madras has innovated, designed, developed and commercialized a large number of technologies in the area of Telecom, IT, Banking and Energy sectors, especially in solar rooftop and electric vehicles. He conceived and built the first Research Park (IIT Madras Research Park) in India which houses over 65 R & D companies and 100 incubated companies. He leads IITM Incubator which has incubated 120 companies so far.

Dr. Jhunjhunwala has been Chairman and member of various government committees, Boards of education institutions and was Board Member of a number of public and private companies. The companies include State Bank of India, TATA Communications, BSNL, Bharat Electronics, Mahindra Electricals, Sasken, Polaris, NRDC, BIRAC, Intellect, Tejas, TTML, IDRBT, HTL. At each place he has driven innovative and comprehensive changes, especially in the area of technology. He is currently on the Chairman of Technology Advisory Group of SEBI.

Dr. Jhunjhunwala was conferred Padma Shri in 2002, Shanti – Swarup Bhatnagar award, Vikram Sarabhai Research award, H. K. Firodia award, Silicon India Leadership award, Millenium Medal at Indian Science Congress, UGC Hari Om Ashram award, IETE’s Ram Lala Wadhwa Gold Medal, JC Bose fellowship and Bernard Low Humanitarian award. TiE conferred on him the title of “Dronacharya” for his contributions to the cause of entrepreneurship. He is fellow of IEEE, INSA, NAS, IAS, INAE and WWRF. He has also been conferred Honorary Doctorate by University of Maine and Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Dr. Mrinalini Kochupillai

Senior Research Fellow; Program Director, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition

Dr. Kochupillai is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MPI) and a Program Director and faculty member at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), an international LL.M program focusing on EU, US and International intellectual property and competition law. She has also been an independent MIPLC research fellow (2008-2009) and a doctoral fellow with the International Max Planck Research School for Competition and Innovation (IMPRS-CI) from 2009-2013 during which time she completed her PhD titled ‘Promoting Sustainable Innovations in Plant Varieties.’ Mrinalini obtained her B.A. LL.B (Hons.) degree from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, in 2003, and an LL.M. in Intellectual Property, Commerce and Technology from the University of New Hampshire School of Law (formerly the Franklin Pierce Law Center) in 2006. She has been a faculty member at the European Business College, Munich (2013-14), an adjunct faculty at the Franklin Pierce Law Center (University of New Hampshire), and a guest faculty at various institutes in India. She has also served as a consultant (India expert) to the International Technology Transfer Institute at the University of New Hampshire. Her research areas include patents and plant variety protection, especially in developing countries. Her current research is broadly titled ‘Ethics in Innovation’, with a focus on studying the philosophical and cultural foundations of eastern versus western approaches to innovation, including diverse means of promoting, protecting, adopting and disseminating innovations, and further aims to determine whether the current definitions and understanding of ‘innovation’ as a term and concept are inclusive enough to embrace a wide diversity of culture and country specific innovations.

Mrs. Rajita Kulkarni

President, World Forum for Ethics in Business

Rajita is a humanitarian, an educationist, a writer, a leadership guide and a global leader. She is the President of the World Forum for Ethics in Business and a Board member in a number of non-governmental organizations at a national and international level.

She helps organizations globally to achieve excellence in governance, finance & administration. She is committed to create global advocacy to inspire individuals and corporations to embrace an ethical way of life. She has been instrumental in leading a number of action-oriented initiatives towards this goal.

Apart from global responsibility of WFEB, her key current projects include the launch of the prestigious Sri Sri University in India, global design & roll out of TLEX & overseeing the administration of over 100 educational institutions. Her expertise lies in leading large, multicultural, multi country, diverse teams to unleash their full potential and fulfil their vision.

She travels the world addressing various international fora to advocate the message of excellence, ethics and human values. Before committing her life to society 3 years ago, Rajita was a banker for 18 years with Citi. She held many international leadership positions in her career, last of which was Asia Pacific Head for Customer Advocacy & Training for the Retail Assets Business. Considered an expert in her field, she designed 85 management exercises and learning tools released in a book Focus Forward.

She has won 17 awards for professional excellence in her field and has clocked over 1 million man-hours in training and development of over 100,000 participants.

Mr. Jo Leinen

Member of European Parliament; Member of the Board, World Forum for Ethics in Business; Belgium / Germany

Jo Leinen was born in the Saarland at the German-French border. Leinen began his career as a legal trainee at the Higher Regional Court Koblenz and soon after became a well-established lawyer in Freiburg/Breisgau. Before becoming an MEP, Jo Leinen was Minister for the Environment in the State Government of Saarland, Germany from 1985-1994.

From November 1994 until September 1999, he played the triple role of Chairman of the Committee for European Affairs in the State Parliament of Saarland, Germany and member of both the Committee of the Regions and Congress of Regions of the Council of Europe.

He served as Vice President of the European Movement International (EMI) from 2003 to 2011, before becoming its President in November 2011. 

Since July 1999 Mr. Leinen has been a Member of the European Parliament. He was a Member of the Convention for the Elaboration of a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the EU.

From 2004 to 2009 he was President of the Constitutional Affairs Committee and from 2009 to 2011 he chaired the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

He is a full member in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and a substitute member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs and of the EP’s Working Group on EU-UN relations.

He is also a full member of the Delegation for the relations with India and a substitute in the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Prof. Dr. Christoph Lütge

Peter Löscher Chair for Business Ethics, Technical University of Munich

Prof. Dr. Christoph Luetge holds the Peter Loescher Endowed Chair of Business Ethics at Technical University of Munich. He studied business informatics as well as philosophy, obtaining his doctorate in 1999 and his habilitation in 2005. He was visiting researcher in Pittsburgh and San Diego. He has been teaching business ethics at the Universities of Munich, Witten and Braunschweig, before moving to TU Munich in 2010. He has also held visiting professorships in Taipei, Kyoto and Venice.

Prof. Luetge is one of the first ethicists to apply the method of laboratory experiments to ethics. His conception of “order ethics” emphasizes the role of the order framework for ethical behavior. Among his major recent publications are: „Order Ethics or Moral Surplus: What Holds a Society Together?” (Lexington, 2015), „Experimental Ethics” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), the “Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics” (Springer, 2013) as well as 20 other books and more than 120 articles. He has given more than 150 lectures on all continents. In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Heisenberg Fellowship by the German Research Foundation. He has commented on political and economic affairs on Bloomberg, Financial Times and numerous other media.

Ms. Nicoletta Manzini

Project Officer for the World Forum for Democracy, Directorate of Democratic Governance of the Council of Europe

Before joining the Council of Europe, as Project Officer for the World Forum for Democracy, She managed the programme “Between diverse economies and intercultural communities” at the Foundation Mondinsieme (Italy). By assessing the diverse workforce present in local companies, this programme supports these companies in adopting the most impactful diversity management strategies, able to maximize their economic benefits and to meet high ethical standards, also as part of their CRS programmes.

Nicoletta has a Master’s degree in International Relations and Development Cooperation. She previously worked in the microfinance sector, in particular assessing the financial and social performance of rural banks in Ghana.

Mr. Peter Marti

CEO, Marti Communications; Advisory Board, WFEB

Peter Marti has studied communications in Switzerland and in the USA. After a career as a communications consultant, he became President & CEO of Ogilvy group in Switzerland and was head of small countries of the Ogily European network. Later he founded his own communication company in Zurich/Switzerland. He is a member of the Swiss Advertising Association and he was a member of the Art Directors Club in Switzerland.

Peter Marti was elected as „Advertiser of the year“ and won several awards at international communication festivals. During his career, he worked for some major NGO’s such as the World Wildlife Fund, Green Cross International and the Red Cross and also some foundations like the Kantha Bopha Foundation in Cambodia, the “Foundation pour la Formation Hoteliere”and the Dr. Rau Foundation have mandated Peter Marti and his team with their brand reputation work.

Today he is strongly involved in brand reputation development for mid­-sized and bigger global companies. He leads Corpo­rate Social Responsibility programs for these companies and is handling their internal and external communications.

Dr. Pascal Schneider

Head of Qualification, Social Entrepreneurship Academy

Dr. Pascal R. Schneider is a Corporate Communications Expert for groups, companies and foundations since 2002. Since 2006 he has held various management positions for global companies such as Siemens and thyssenkrupp. As Head of Communications of the Eberhard von Kuenheim foundation (BMW Group) he won the KOMPASS award for best communications in 2014. With the thyssenkrupp Communications Team he won as Head of Leadership Communications won the German Brand Award 2017 in the category Best Brand-Relaunch. Focusing primarily on communication strategies and leadership education, he has developed and implemented since 2010 workshops and curricula on branding, the development of messages and cross-media distribution. He has trained over 1.000 communicators and leaders around the globe. 2014 he founded vocem communications – a communication consultant and coaching agency. He is holding a doctor’s degree in political science and joined in 2017 the Munich based Social Entrepreneurship Akademie and acts as Head of Qualification.

Prof. Dr. Ferdi Schüth

Director, Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr

Born on 8th July, 1960, in Warstein/Westfalia. Study of Chemistry and Law, Univ. of Münster, doctorate Univ. of Münster (1988), Postdoc Dpt. Chemical Engineering Univ. of Minneapolis/USA (1988-1989), habilitation in inorganic chemistry Univ. of Mainz (1995), Full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry Univ. of Frankfurt/Main (1995-1998), Director and Scientific Member at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (since 1998), Honorary Professor Univ. of Bochum (since 1999), Vice-President of the Max Planck Society (since 2014).

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Founder, World Forum for Ethics in Business; Founder, The Art of Living

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a humanitarian and spiritual teacher, an ambassador of peace and human values. He is the founder of the Art of Living and the International Association for Human Values. In a mere 34 years, his programs and initiatives have impacted over 370 million people in 155 countries with the premise of core values of respect for all, harmony in diversity, inner peace and service to society.

His two organisations are spearheading sustainable development in underprivileged communities across the world and have reached out to over 40,000 villages across India and are running 422 free schools.

Through his life and work, Sri Sri has inspired millions around the world with a vision of a stress-free, violence-free world. He has founded courses that provide techniques and tools to live a deeper, more joyous life. As an ambassador of peace, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar plays a key role in conflict resolution and spreads his message of non-violence at public forums and gatherings world-wide. Regarded as a neutral figure with a sole agenda of peace, he represents hope to people in conflict. He has received particular credit for bringing opposing parties to the negotiating table in Iraq, the Ivory Coast, Kashmir and Bihar, India among others.

Mr. Sridhar D P

­Founder of iEnabler

Sridhar D P, ­Founder of iEnabler has an industry experience spanning 20 years. He is an expert in legacy as well as contemporary business models. He has expanded his portfolio from high­ performance consulting to the field of innovation. He knows how to balance between creative freedom and execution discipline. He is also a specialist of Innovation in emerging markets, Public Services & Strategy. His academics include studying at prestigious schools like IIM , IISc , NLSIU in India. www.ienabler.co

Mr. Jaan Tallinn

Co-founder, Skype

Jaan Tallinn is a founding engineer of Skype and Kazaa. He founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk with Huw Price and Martin Rees. He is also a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute and philanthropically supports other existential risk research organizations. He is also a partner at Ambient Sound Investments (asi.ee), an active angel investor, and has served on the Estonian President’s Academic Advisory Board.

He has given a number of high-profile talks highlighting the potential risk from advances in artificial intelligence.

Dr. Axel Walz

Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition

It should be considered as an axiomatic principle that the digital transformation and increasing use of AI requires the incorporation of ethical principles into AI driven, automated processes. The focus of the presentation therefore is to demonstrate and analyze different legal means how to make sure that ethical principles are indeed taken into account by the developers of AI systems. Different solutions shall be considered in this regard, including standard approaches based on national and international legislation as well as contractual regulation, certification and technical standardization.

Axel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. His research focuses on European Civil Law, European and International Economic and Competition Law, Intellectual Property Law, Legal issues of digitalization, Civil Procedure Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Axel is a member of the Max Planck Institute’s data economy research group and has contributed to the IEEE’s Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems. Prior to his academic career, Axel has gathered extensive experience in private practice. After having worked in the EU & Competition department of the law firm SJ Berwin for three years in Munich and London and one year in the IP department of Gleiss Lutz in Stuttgart, Axel held a position as legal counsel and group leader in the IP department of BMW AG from 2009 until 2011, before rejoining SJ Berwin’s IP & Commercial department where he was appointed to partnership in 2014. In private practice, Axel’s work focused in particular on dispute resolution matters (litigation as well as arbitration) in the field of IP and competition law as well as on drafting and negotiating commercial contracts and agreements relative to distribution, licensing and merchandising, R&D, contract manufacturing, service, co-existence as well as technology transfer agreements.

Mr. Klaus Wiedemann

Doctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition

Data-driven innovation, in particular the Internet of Things, allows for the seemingly easy and supposedly unerring evaluation of personality traits through automated processing of personal data. The presentation examines whether the EU General Data Protection Regulation is equipped to tackle the various legal and ethical concerns arising in conjunction with the ever-increasing use of profiling measures and the corresponding automation. In addition to analysing such issues, the presentation tries to contribute ideas on how to adequately address them.

Klaus studied law at the University of Würzburg, at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and at the University of Heidelberg with a focus on public international law. After graduating in 2013 (First State Examination in Law, Heidelberg) he started his Judicial Service Training where he focused on private international law. The training included stages at Linklaters LLP in Frankfurt/Main (litigation department) and at the University of Oxford’s Institute of European and Comparative Law (Great Britain). In 2015, he passed the bar exam (Second State Examination in Law, Stuttgart) and qualified as a German lawyer/Rechtsanwalt.

Since November 2015, Klaus has been a Doctoral Candidate and Junior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. His research interests lie in the fields of data protection and privacy law, with a particular focus on the legal implications of the data-driven economy. His doctoral thesis, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl, deals with the intersection of data protection law and the law on unfair competition.

Mr. Francesco Zaccà

Director in ICT, European Patent Office

Francesco Zaccà is director in ICT at the European Patent Office in The Hague; he has operational responsibility for several teams of highly qualified patent examiners. In the ICT management team he is responsible for strategic external relations with applicants, international institutions, standardisation bodies. He regularly represents the EPO at technical conferences, exhibitions, international symposia.

He has been in charge of business re-engineering projects, member of the steering board of major IT development programmes, advisor to senior management.

He is the chair of the internal jury board for the European Inventor of the year Award, which has reached its 12th edition this year in Venice.

Previously he has been director in Telecommunications, in Medical Technologies, examiner in the Radar field, coordinator for applied research and development in the documentation department. Before the EPO he has been senior researcher in Electromagnetics and Electronic Warfare with a System Engineering consulting firm.

Francesco received his Master in electrical engineering from Pisa University, specialising in telecommunications.