#wetechtogether Conference 2021

Dr. Heike Riel

Dr. Heike Riel is IBM Fellow and Director of IoT Technology and Solutions at IBM Research. She is responsible for a research agenda, which aims to create scientific and technological breakthroughs to differentiate IBM’s IoT technology and solutions. This comprises the science and technology for cognitive analytics and IoT, end-to-end IoT applications as well as AI-based solutions for Industry 4.0.

She is a distinguished expert in nanotechnology and nanosciences and focuses her research on advancing the frontiers of information technology through the physical sciences. Her research has contributed to advancements in OLED display technology, molecular electronics and semiconductor nanoscale materials and devices. Her recent research interests include topological states of compound semiconductor nanowires for quantum information processing.

She earned a PhD in Physics from University of Bayreuth (Germany) in 2002 for her research on multilayer organic light-emitting devices for display applications performed at IBM Research – Zurich. From 2008 to 2015 she had been leading the Materials Integration and Nanoscale Devices group. In 2015 she joined the T.J. Watson Research Center to lead the Physical Sciences Department.

She has authored more than 130 peer reviewed publications and filed more than 50 patents. She has received several major awards, e.g. the Applied Physics Award of the Swiss Physical Society, the TR100, she is elected Member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences, and received an honorary doctor by Lund University. In 2017 she was awarded the APS David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics.

Alexandra Haas

Alexandra Haas is responsible for IoT projects for customers in Switzerland and worldwide in the E2E business customer segment. Her team supports customers from a wide range of industry sectors in networking their machines or other assets for smart production, monitoring supply chains or construction sites, and remote monitoring and control of various applications, often based on global public cloud architectures such as Azure or AWS and using analytics and AI.
Previously, Alexandra managed the “Data & Analytics” division at a consulting firm in Zurich. Alexandra holds an M.Sc. in Econometrics from Stockholm University and B.Sc. in Economics Engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

Emmanuelle David

Emmanuelle David is the executive manager of the EPFL Space Center. The EPFL Space Center (eSpace) is an interdisciplinary unit responsible for the federation of space activities at the school and co-lead of a research initiative on sustainable space logistics. Emmanuelle has 10 years experience in space transportation in academia, agency and industry from pre-development projects up to launch operations. She holds Space Engineering degrees both from the University of Technology of Compiegne, France, and the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.

She is engaged in increasing diversity and inclusion in scientific and engineering fields being a mentor program for the Swiss TecLadies and is also a member of the management group from the Swiss TecLadies Network from the Swiss Academy of Science (SATW) (https://www.tecladies.ch/de/blog/). She is a member of Women in Aerospace ( https://www.wia-europe.org/ ) and supports the Space Generation Advisory Council “our Giant leap” initiative (https://spacegeneration.org/our-giant-leap-whats-next).

Petra Donka

As an engineering lead, Petra leads the integrations engineering team at Scandit where they focus on integrating Scandit’s Data Capture SDK with mobile cross-platform frameworks like Capacitor, Flutter, Cordova, React Native, and others.

Scandit is a Zurich based company building mobile computer vision solutions for the modern enterprise. Scandit’s technology enables businesses and consumers to interact with everyday objects by blending the physical and digital worlds using computer vision. Petra’s team develops products that enable Scandit’s customers to create mobile applications with Scandit’s barcode, text and ID capture capabilities to deliver extended real-time information to their employees and users through dynamic AR overlays thereby saving time, reducing cost and improving productivity.

She has been with Scandit for over 5 years now. She started her career with the company as an engineering intern and today is responsible for contributing to the company’s core products as well as helping develop the engineering team’s strategy, management and operations. She’s based in Switzerland and attended the University of Konstanz.

Marion Leslie

Marion is Head Financial Information at SIX and a member of the SIX Executive Board. She is also a member of the BME Board of Directors. As Head Financial Information, Marion leads the SIX global data business, serving financial institutions worldwide with critical data and insights to support their clients.

The British-Australian dual citizen brings a strong industry knowledge and more than 25 years of experience in developing and operating successful businesses in the Financial Information space. She holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in French and German from the University of Cambridge.

Marion was included in the World Federation of Exchanges “Women Leaders List 2021” and was named one of the 100 Most Influential Women in European Finance by Financial News in 2020. In 2017, she was nominated in the Cranfield University Female FTSE 100 Women to Watch Board Report and in 2014 was the winner of the Award for Achievement at the Women in Banking and Finance Awards.

In June 2021 Marion, was appointed to the board of Advance. In addition, she has been a Non-executive Director of the Board for the UK Hydrographic Office, since 2015 and a Trustee at Prostate Cancer UK since 2016.

Eva Schönleitner

Eva is the CEO of Crate.io as of September 2020 and is based in Zurich, Switzerland. Crate.io is the developer and supplier of CrateDB, the purpose-built database optimized for machine data and AI use cases.
Eva, originally from Austria, studied chemistry and mathematics at the Kepler University in Linz and holds an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta, GA USA. She spent 20 years in the USA in sales, marketing and product management roles in the high-tech sector. She gained additional international experience in Central and Eastern Europe in senior management positions and most recently built global digital partnerships at ABB as part of the company’s digital strategy.

Kamales Lardi

Kamales is a bold and strategic thinker in digital and business transformation. She combines over 21 years of deep cross-industry experience with the latest digital and technology solutions. Kamales was recently listed in the “Top 10 Global Influencers & Thought Leaders in Digital Transformation” (Thinkers360). She often says, ‘technology is not a silver bullet solution, a clear value proposition should drive any transformation effort’. This approach resonates well with many business leaders and has helped her stand out in the digital space. Since establishing Lardi & Partner Consulting GmbH in 2012, Kamales has advised many multinational companies across various industries in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Kamales believes in the transformative impact of emerging technologies. She has developed deep knowledge and practical experience in a range of emerging technology solutions, such as blockchain, AI, virtual and augmented reality, 3D-printing, IoT and sensor technologies, and robotics process automation among others. Kamales is a Teaching Fellow and Chairperson of the MBA Advisory Board at Durham University Business School, and she was recently appointed Chair of the FORBES Business Council Women Executives. She is a dynamic and influential speaker and presents regularly at corporate and industry conferences.

Pascal Bouquet

Senior technologist and Enterprise Digital Architect, Pascal has more than 20 years of experience leading global IT organizations, building high performing teams, managing Enterprise Architecture teams, leading digital innovation and delivering large scale, global programs. He joined Novartis and the pharma industry in 2013 and he the head of Technology of data42 since 2018.  data42 is Novartis’ transformational program to leverage its resource of patient, clinical and research data with the ultimate moonshot goal of changing the way we develop medicines. Passionate with the new technologies and with the transformation of the healthcare industry, excited to deploy a mix of Digital, IT technology, semiconductor and pharmaceutical knowledge to drive the acceleration in R&D

Kathrin Egolf

Kathrin is a communications professional and has been with the Office for Equality in this function for over two years. She has been as an assistant curator at Strauhof Museum and has gathered experience in journalism with SRF and Tamedia.

Tanya König

Tanya is a multilingual reporter, moderator, show host, and digital producer and partner at Riverside Productions. She is also video producer and presenter for the platform finance.swiss, a public-private partnership that highlights the latest going-on in Switzerland’s vast financial landscape. And she produces the video podcast “Swizz Art Biz.”

Previously, she worked at Ringier, Swiss National Television (SRF), and CNN Money Switzerland.

Tanya König received her BA degree in Sinology with a minor in political science from the University of Zurich. Before that, she attended the Ringier School of Journalism and received her diploma in 2009.

Ana Maria Montero

Ana Maria is an international broadcast journalist with 20 years of on camera experience who grew up professionally within the CNN family – from intern to anchor desk – working for CNN International, CNN Español, CNN, and HLN, in English and Spanish. In 2017 she joined the CNNMoney Switzerland team as an anchor for their flagship business and finance show, The Swiss Pulse, and the host of the long-format interview shows, The Newsmaker as well as the innovation-driven Tech Talk, and All Inclusive, focused on SDG topics. At present, she independently hosts and moderates a wide range of on- and offline events and content for a diverse list of clients. The pursuit of her own story brought this Cuban, Spanish, American to Zurich, where she lives with her family, and obsesses about making the world a better place for her girls.

Ana Maria Montero

Ana Maria is an international broadcast journalist with 20 years of on camera experience who grew up professionally within the CNN family – from intern to anchor desk – working for CNN International, CNN Español, CNN, and HLN, in English and Spanish. In 2017 she joined the CNNMoney Switzerland team as an anchor for their flagship business and finance show, The Swiss Pulse, and the host of the long-format interview shows, The Newsmaker as well as the innovation-driven Tech Talk, and All Inclusive, focused on SDG topics. At present, she independently hosts and moderates a wide range of on- and offline events and content for a diverse list of clients. The pursuit of her own story brought this Cuban, Spanish, American to Zurich, where she lives with her family, and obsesses about making the world a better place for her girls.

Giulia Schneider

Giulia is Co-Founder and CTO of Fruitful Farming AG. She worked as software engineer and technical consultant for a global tech consulting company and for a global bank. Giulia holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from ETH Zurich and is a certified cloud engineer.

Patrick Albrecht

Patrick is Co-Founder and CEO of Fruitful Farming AG. Patrick has 19 years of experience in Wealth Management, Asset Management and Advanced Analytics in both large institutions as well as financial boutiques, where he worked as: Analyst, Investment Portfolio Manager and Project Manager. Patrick holds a degree in Business Administration as well as Data Science from Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).

At Fruitful we employ AI to make happy plants. That is, we create deep tech for indoor and vertical farms to make food production economically sustainable and resource efficient.

Growing plants in a vertical farm is like cooking a nice dish – it is important to know when to add new ingredients and to be in full control of the environment. Hence, data is key in learning on how to get the best outcomes: minimize resources needed, optimize for time, increase nutritiousness of the produce.

Fruitful employs state-of-the-art data streaming, image processing, and machine learning to ensure quality consistency at scale. We develop and distribute proprietary IoT technologies that allow (tech-minded) farmers to capture all relevant parameters of their growth environment, flexibly adjust conditions and optimize a wide range of plant recipes in real-time. Our unique data is processed within the cloud, analyzed in real-time and used to optimize growth by remotely adjusting the plant growth environment.

Taisha Fabricius

Dalith Steiger

Penny Schiffer

Pasha Pourfallah

Laura Köppen