December 1, 2026

8:00 - 9:15 am

Check in & Welcome Coffee

Participant check-in, networking, and first discussions with clusters and associations.

9:15 - 9:30 am

Opening words by the organisers

Gerd Kielburger

Gerd Kielburger

Vogel  Communications Group

Hannes Robier

Hannes Robier

youspi Consulting

Clemens Lutsch

Clemens Lutsch

swohlwahr

9:30 - 10:15 am

KEYNOTE SPEECH

Cognitive Sovereignty in the Age of Permanent Mutation

A Strategic, Cognitive and Temporal Framework for Navigating Multi Present Realities and Systemic Complexity

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    Organizations are entering a new era in which change is no longer episodic, linear, or predictable. The convergence of Artificial Intelligence, geopolitical instability, climate pressures, technological acceleration, and systemic complexity has fractured the traditional notion of the present into multiple simultaneous temporal realities. Companies now operate across legacy infrastructures, digital ecosystems, and emerging autonomous AI systems at the same time.

    This paper introduces the Metaruption Index, a strategic framework designed to understand and govern this condition of permanent mutation. It proposes that Artificial Intelligence should not be understood merely as a technological layer but as a paradigm capable of reshaping interpretation, reframing decisions, and influencing organizational judgment before actions are taken.

    The framework integrates five original concepts:

    • The Cone of Multiples, a model for navigating diverging futures;
    • The Cognitive Mutation Index (CMI), a measure of how decision framing changes over time;
    • AI Framing Influence, the invisible force shaping plausibility and choice architectures;
    • Residual Judgment, the irreducible human capacity that cannot be delegated to machines;
    • Cognitive Sovereignty, the organizational ability to preserve autonomous judgment in increasingly AI-mediated environments.

    Rather than predicting the future, the Metaruption Index provides a grammar for understanding how futures emerge from the interaction between complexity, technology, and human agency. It offers leaders, policymakers, innovators, and boards a practical framework for transforming acceleration into coherence, complexity into direction, and technological mutation into strategic sovereignty.

Alberto Longo

Alberto Longo

European Commision

10:20 - 11:00 am

DISCUSSION

Society & Industry 5.0 Challenges

Roland Sommer

Roland Sommer

Plattform Industrie 4.0 Austria

Alberto Longo

Alberto Longo

European Commission

Matthias Menke

Allianz

Moderation:

Clemens Lutsch

Clemens Lutsch

swohlwahr

11:00 - 11:30 am

Coffee Break

Networking and visit of the exhibition

11:30 am - 12:00 pm

Abracadabra In-a-box: Questions to ask about an AI system to ensure quality, usability, and yes, fairness

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    The field of AI is booming – also with hype.  This talk will focus on the black-box narrative, and take it apart. From “should we even use an AI system” to “does it work”, and stopping by “what’s happening with my data”, “what’s the environmental footprint” and “is it biased” along the way – questions are not taboo and many answers are well within reach.

     

    Learnings:


    • what are the various technologies that fall under “AI”
    • what are their capabilities, limitations, and risks
    • where to find answers, and how regulations and standards can help
Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

leiwand AI

12:00 - 12:30 pm

Transform the Tomorrow: When Strategy Meets Execution Reality

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    Most transformations do not fail because the strategy is wrong.

    They fail where execution becomes difficult: unclear priorities, slow decisions, competing agendas, overloaded teams, and a lack of ownership.

    After years of working at the intersection of strategy, portfolio management, product business and large-scale transformation programs, I have learned one lesson:

    The real challenge is not defining ambition. It is translating ambition into action.

    In this session, I share my personal experience as a leader from transformation environments shaped by international business dynamics, portfolio decisions and performance improvement programs.

    Rather than focusing on theoretical frameworks, I will discuss what actually works in practice:

    • creating clarity when complexity is high
    • turning strategic choices into executable priorities
    • collaborate and connect to create true ownership and execution discipline across organizations
    • building governance that accelerates decisions instead of reporting

     

    At its core, the talk explores how leaders can help organizations move from analysis to action, from alignment to commitment, and from strategy to measurable impact.

     

    Because in the end, transformation is not won in the strategy workshop. It is won in the thousands of decisions that follow.

Stephan Gröger

Stephan Gröger

Bosch

12:30 - 1:30 pm

Lunch Break

Networking and visit of the exhibition

1:30 - 3:00 pm

PARALLEL WORKSHOPS

Focus: Future Skills

1:30 - 2:00 pm

Technical debt isn't born in the code. It's born in the boardroom.

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    Everyone talks about technical debt - and means the solution portfolio, the legacy stack, the refactoring that's long overdue. Almost everyone misses the most expensive kind: the debt that doesn't originate in the technology, but at the leadership level. Every "why" that gets skipped, every decision delegated to "the board" with no owner, every leader who makes themselves indispensable - that's leadership debt. At first it doesn't hurt; it feels minimally invasive, almost homeopathic. The bill arrives late. With interest. And it doesn't land on IT - it lands on the entire company. 

    Michael Gstach, Group CIO/CISO of a technology group operating in more than 20 countries, shares the view from the inside - including his own hard-earned lessons - on how leadership produces technical debt, how to spot it, and why making yourself dispensable isn't a loss of control but a way of paying that debt down.

Michael Gstach

Michael Gstach

Designa-Axess Industries Holding


2:00 - 2:30 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

Matthias Menke

Matthias Menke

Allianz


2:30 - 3:00 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

Olav Carlsen

SPRIND - Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation

Focus: Resilience

1:30 - 2:00 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

N.N.

Dassault Systems


2:00 - 2:30 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

Matthias Menke

Vanessa de Leon

Stellantis


2:30 - 3:00 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

N.N.

IBM

3:00 - 3:30 pm

Coffee Break

Networking and visit of the exhibition

3:30- 4:15 pm

BOARDROOM OF THE FUTURE

Voices of the future: Young talents in Management & Leadership

4:30 - 5:30 pm

PANEL DISCUSSION

Bruce Horn

Bruce Horn

Apple

Alberto Longo

Alberto Longo

European Commission

Michael Gstach

Michael Gstach

Designa-Axess Industries Holding

Matthias Menke

Vanessa de Leon

Stellantis

Moderation:

Hannes Robier

Hannes Robier

youspi Consulting

5:30 - 11:00 pm

Networking & Evening Event

December 2, 2026

8:30 - 9:30 am

Check in & Welcome Coffee

Participant check-in, networking, and first discussions with clusters and associations.

9:30 - 9:40 am

Opening words by the organisers

9:45 - 10:30 am

KEYNOTE SPEECH

Multisolving the Polycrisis: How Business can Build the World that Science Says is Possible

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    The World Inequality Lab's 2026 Global Justice Report, Mark Jacobson's Still No Miracles Needed, the Earth4All scenarios, and the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk have each, from different scientific vantage points, arrived at the same conclusion: the polycrisis — the simultaneous convergence of climate breakdown, extreme inequality, political instability, and technological disruption — is not inevitable, was predicted 50 years ago, and the tools to address it already exist. What stands between the world we are in and the world we want — that science says is possible — is not technology, economics, or time.  It is political will and a coalition needed to sustain it.  Businesses are the institutions best positioned to supply this will at speed and scale.  This talk explains why we are in the polycrisis and how business can, and must, lead the way out.

Bruce Horn

Bruce Horn

Apple

10:30 am - 12:00 pm

WORLD CAFÉ

In this interactive format the conference participants discuss in small, relaxed, café-style groups. Participants rotate between tables every 20 minutes, building on the ideas of previous groups. This allows everyone to share their thoughts and hear new ideas.

Group moderators for each focus topic:

Resilience:

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA)

Sustainability:


Alberto Longo

Alberto Longo

European Commission

Human-centered Approach:

Michael Gstach

Michael Gstach

Designa-Axess Industries Holding

Future Skills:

Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

leiwand AI

12:00 - 1:00 pm

Lunch Break

Networking and visit of the exhibition

1:00 - 1:30 pm

World Café findings

Moderation:

Clemens Lutsch

Moderation:

Clemens Lutsch

swohlwahr

1:30 - 2:30 pm

PARALLEL WORKSHOPS

Focus: Human-centered Approach

1:30 - 2:00 pm

A Practical Guide to Industry 5.0 - Results from the BRIDGES 5.0 Project

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    Human-centricity is a core element of Industry 5.0, a concept that sets the worker in the center of activities on the shop floor. Currently many companies struggle in implementing these concepts in their daily production routine. The practical guide, that was created within the EU-funded BRIDGES 5.0 project addresses this problem and provides concrete steps how to implement these concepts into a company setting.

    Key learnings are how to enable a successful transformation, using inclusive leadership models and participatory design processes and how to rethink skills development.

Roland Sommer

Roland Sommer

Plattform Industrie 4.0 Austria


2:00 - 2:30 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

Matthias Menke

N.N.

Focus: Sustainability

1:30 - 2:00 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

N.N.


2:00 - 2:30 pm

Topic will be announced shortly

N.N.

2:30 - 3:00 pm

Coffee Break

Networking and visit of the exhibition

3:00 - 3:30 pm

KEYNOTE

The Future of Robotics

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA)

3:30 - 4:15 pm

CLOSING DISCUSSION

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

Yang Yang, Ph.D.

China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA)

Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

Rania Wazir, Ph.D.

leiwand AI

N.N.

NVIDIA

N.N.

4:15 - 4:30 pm

Summary and Outlook 2027

Gerd Kielburger

Gerd Kielburger

Vogel  Communications Group

Hannes Robier

Hannes Robier

youspi Consulting

Clemens Lutsch

Clemens Lutsch

swohlwahr

* Subject to change