Day One - 1 December 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
Benedikt Hofmann
Vogel Communications Group
Hannes Robier
youspi Consulting
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
European Commission
10:20 - 11:00 am
DISCUSSION
Society & Industry 5.0 Challenges
Moderation:
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
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.
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.
Designa-Axess Industries Holding
2:00 - 2:30 pm
Topic will be announced shortly
Allianz
2:30 - 3:00 pm
Form Follows Function: How New Digital Offers Demand New Organisations
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Digital offers change how value is created. Delivery is no longer the end of the customer relationship, but the starting point for continuous improvement, reliable operations and long-term value. To keep pace with faster-moving competitors, organisations need to become leaner, more connected and able to make decentralized decisions within small teams closer to customers and markets. Making this work requires more than new technology. Companies need to rethink how decisions are made, who owns customer experiences, and how product, operations and partners work together.
BMW Group
Focus: Resilience
1:30 - 2:00 pm
Topic will be announced shortly
SAP
2:00 - 2:30 pm
Topic will be announced shortly
Deutsche Telekom
2:30 - 3:00 pm
Topic will be announced shortly
Stellantis
3:00 - 3:30 pm
Coffee Break
Networking and visit of the exhibition
3:30- 4:15 pm
Industry 5.0: Creating Tomorrow Through Leap Innovation
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As Industry 5.0 redefines the relationship between technology, people and societal progress, the ability to create transformative innovation becomes a critical success factor. This keynote explores how SPRIND enables breakthrough technologies with the power to change markets, industries and everyday life. Through insights from the Next Frontier Robotics Challenge, the audience will learn how future opportunities are identified, how bold decisions are made under uncertainty, and what it takes to turn visionary ideas into real-world transformation. A behind-the-scenes look at one of Europe's most ambitious innovation platforms and its mission to shape the future.
SPRIND - Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation
4:30 - 5:30 pm
PANEL DISCUSSION
European Commission
Designa-Axess Industries Holding
Moderation:
Hannes Robier
youspi Consulting
5:30 - 11:00 pm
Networking & Evening Event
Day Two - 2 December 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.
Apple
The father of PC
10:30 am - 11:30 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:
Hunan Zhongnan Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd.
Sustainability:
European Commission
Human-centered Approach:
Designa-Axess Industries Holding
Future Skills:
leiwand AI
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
World Café findings
Moderation:
Clemens Lutsch
swohlwahr
Benedikt Hofmann
Vogel Communications Group
12:00 - 1:00 pm
Lunch Break
Networking and visit of the exhibition
1:00 - 1:30 pm
The Digital Twin Composer: Unlocking the Full Potential of Your Factory
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The journey to Industry 5.0 demands unprecedented agility and efficiency. This keynote introduces the Digital Twin Composer, Siemens' unique innovation, as the new heart of the Industrial Metaverse factory. It unifies all factory data into a single digital representation, breaking down silos and enabling comprehensive understanding and control.
Discover how to accelerate innovation, drastically cut time-to-market, and achieve significant cost efficiencies. The Digital Twin Composer seamlessly integrates diverse digital twins for powerful co-simulations and AI-driven optimization, identifying and resolving issues digitally before they impact the real world. This fosters interdisciplinary collaboration in a high-resolution, immersive environment.
The tangible results: learn from strategic reference projects, including how pioneering users like PepsiCo achieved up to 90% early problem identification, 20% increased throughput, and 15% CAPEX reduction. This leads to faster, more secure decision-making and enhanced resilience. Join us to see how this market-leading technology makes your manufacturing faster, more flexible, and more profitable.
Siemens Industry Software GmbH
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.
Plattform Industrie 4.0 Austria
2:00 - 2:30 pm
Topic will be announced shortly
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 Architecture of Next-Generation Intelligent Manufacturing and China’s Path under the Human–Machine Integration Paradigm
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As global manufacturing accelerates toward intelligent transformation, the conventional logic of simply replacing people with machines is being reconsidered. This presentation explains the theoretical foundations and practical pathway of Human–Cyber–Physical Systems (HCPS) as a core architecture for next-generation intelligent manufacturing. It argues that the ultimate goal is not human replacement, but human-centred collaboration that augments people.
The presentation introduces the closed-loop HCPS architecture linking people, information systems and physical systems. It explains four defining characteristics—human-in-the-loop operation, cognitive augmentation, cyber–physical integration and autonomous collaboration—and presents a five-level maturity model based on technology integration, human–machine collaboration and system autonomy.
Drawing on Zhongnan Intelligent’s research and industrialisation experience, the presentation uses embodied-intelligence welding systems, an industrial-internet HCPS platform and industrial knowledge graphs, together with applications in green foundry finishing, high-end laser equipment and industrial-internet services, to demonstrate a scalable pathway for China’s manufacturing transformation.
Key Takeaways for Participants
- Apply the HCPS triadic framework to assess people, information systems and physical systems within an intelligent manufacturing environment.
- Use a five-level HCPS maturity model to diagnose the current stage of transformation and design a phased implementation roadmap.
- Define effective human–machine roles in hazardous, high-precision and high-complexity operating scenarios.
- Use industrial knowledge graphs to convert tacit expert experience into reusable knowledge assets for intelligent decision-making.
- Understand the organisational pathway from research and platform development to scenario deployment and industrial enablement.
Hunan Zhongnan Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd.
3:30 - 4:15 pm
CLOSING DISCUSSION
4:15 - 4:30 pm
Summary and Outlook 2027
Gerd Kielburger
Vogel Communications Group
Hannes Robier
youspi Consulting
Clemens Lutsch
swohlwahr
* Subject to change
