Speakers, Bios & Abstracts

Short Bio

Manuel Wimmer is Full Professor and Head of the Department of Business Informatics – Software Engineering at JKU Linz, Austria. Since 2019, he is also the Program Director of the Business Informatics master study at JKU Linz.
He received his Ph.D. and his Habilitation from TU Wien. He has been a research associate at the University of Malaga, Spain, a visiting professor at the University of Marburg, Germany and at TU Munich, Germany, and an assistant professor at the Business Informatics Group (BIG), TU Wien, Austria.
From 2017-2023 he was leading the Christian Doppler Laboratory on Model-Integrated Smart Production (CDL-MINT). In this context, Manuel has developed different engineering approaches for digital twins.
He is the JKU Linz representative in the AutomationML society. He is co-author of the book Model-driven Software Engineering in Practice (Morgan & Claypool, 2nd edition, 2017).
For a list of scientific publications see the entries in DBLP and Google Scholar.
Manuel Wimmer is currently involved in the organization of the following scientific events:

• 4th IEEE International Conference on Quantum Software (QSW)
• 2nd International Conference on Engineering Digital Twins (EDTconf)

Abstract

The exponential pace of computing power, as predicted by Moore’s Law, is driving rapid advancements in sensor technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and mobility. Cars are evolving into iPads on wheels. Our robots are world champions robot-soccer, and surgical robots may soon outperform human surgeons.

But are we prepared to harness this wave of innovation? Can we keep pace—or even accelerate?

This changing landscape demands a new kind of academic institution: the *4th Generation University*. More than a place of learning and linear research, it is a dynamic hub of open innovation, actively engaging industry, government, and society. It fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and co-creation to tackle global challenges and generate sustainable value. By seamlessly integrating academia with real-world partners, the 4th Generation University becomes both a catalyst and connector—bridging knowledge, practice, and impact. It emphasizes both global reach and local relevance, uniting diverse stakeholders in a shared commitment to collaboration, innovation, and societal progress.

Maarten Steinbuch is a high-tech systems scientist, entrepreneur and communicator. He holds the chair of Systems & Control at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where he is Distinguished University Professor. He is also Scientific Director of Eindhoven Engine. The research of his group spans from automotive engineering to mechatronics, motion control, and fusion plasma control. He is most known for his work in the field of advanced motion control and mechatronics, as well as in surgical robotics. Steinbuch is a prolific blogger and a key opinion leader on the influence of new technologies on society. He is (co)-founder of 8 start-ups, of which three on surgical robotics.

Short Bio

Nicola Gatti is a full professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. His research activities are grounded in the Artificial Intelligence area. His main achievements come from algorithmic game theory, allocation problems and incentives, algorithmic social choice theory, multi-agent learning, and online learning. His contributions to these fields range from new algorithms and theoretical results to experimental analyses, implemented systems, and innovative real-world applications of AI techniques. He published more than 170 peer-reviewed archival research papers. He received several awards, including the 2011 AIxIA Marco Somalvico Award as the best Italian young researcher in AI, and the best paper award in several conferences, including the prestigious NeurIPS 2020 and Cooperative AI 2021 funded by Google Deepmind. He was elected as a EurAi Fellow (top <3% of the European AI scientists) in 2021 and awarded at IJCAI 2022.

Short Bio

Guillaume Gravier is senior research scientist of CNRS (the French national research agency) at IRISA, of which he is the director. His research activities within the Linkmedia research group, common to IRISA and Inria Rennes, focus on content-based media analysis, indexing and linking. He has a background in probabilistic modeling for speech and language processing applied to multimedia content, and multimodal modeling. His current research interests are in media analytics, multimedia collection modeling, deep learning and multimodality, graph-based methods for multimedia content representation.

Short Bio

Professor Bungartz (* 1963) and his team conduct research on aspects of informatics in scientific computing along the entire simulation pipeline – from modeling to numerical algorithms and their efficient parallel implementation to HPC software and data analytics. The spectrum of applications for their research ranges from fluid mechanics, plasma physics and molecular dynamics to algorithms for quantum mechanical simulations.
His studies of mathematics, informatics and economics at TUM were followed by his doctorate (1992) and post-doctoral teaching qualification (Habilitation, 1998), after which he held a professorship in mathematics in Augsburg and an informatics Chair in Stuttgart before returning to TUM in 2004. He is a member of the board of directors of the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, a member of the advisory board of several HPC centers and institutions, speaker of the BGCE elite study program and director of the Ferienakademie Sarntal. Professor Bungartz chaired the DFG Commission for IT Infrastructure for seven years, has been Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Research and Education Network from 2011 to 2020 and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Council for Doctoral Education of the European University Association from 2016 to 2022.
Concerning leadership service at TUM, H.-J. Bungartz was the Dean of Informatics from 2013 to 2022 and has been Dean of the new TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology (a merger of mathematics, informatics, and electrical & computer engineering) since 2022. Furthermore, he has been TUM Graduate Dean with responsibility of doctoral education university-wide since 2013.

Short Bio

Dimka Karastoyanova joined the Computer Science Department of the RUG in January 2018 as a full professor of Information Systems and a head of the Information Systems Group. Dimka is a Rosalind Franklin Fellow. Since June 1st 2020 she is the Head of the Computer Science Department and a member of the Bernulli Institute Board.
Since January 1st 2023, Dimka is a member of the Board of Informatics Europe.
Before joining the Bernoulli Institute she had a joint appointment as an associate professor of Data Science at The KLU (Kühne Logistics University) in Hamburg and as a Senior Researcher at HPI (Hasso Plattner Institut), University of Potsdam, Germany.
Dimka was a junior professor at the Excellence Cluster SimTech and at the Institute of Architecture of Application Systems (IAAS) at the Computer Science Department of the University of Stuttgart from 2008 to 2016.
She received her doctoral degree in Computer Science in 2006 from the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, where she was a member of the Databases and Distributed Systems Group and of the Graduate School “Enabling Technologies for the E-Commerce”.
She holds an MSc degree in Computational Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and an MSc and BSc in Industrial Engineering for the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria.
Dimka’s current research is in the field of data-driven, service-based, runtime process automation and performance improvement, trusted and flexible cross-organizational collaboration and abstractions, techniques and middleware systems for flexible choreographies finding application in fields like logistics, supply chain management, eScience, Data Science, healthcare and others.

Abstract

Distributed systems are increasingly spanning worldwide, with digital services hosted all around the globe and often belonging to complex systems, utilizing many other services and hardware resources themselves. Along with this increase comes an alarming growth of energy consumption and carbon footprint. Despite the distributed systems’ complexity, understanding how they consume energy is important in order to hunt wasted Joules and reduce their environmental impact. This talk will present some challenges and research directions in the field of distributed systems in order to reach sustainability.

Short Bio

Anne-Cécile Orgerie is research scientist at CNRS, in the IRISA laboratory in Rennes, France. She got her PhD in Computer Science in 2011 in Lyon. She belongs to the Magellan team, dealing with large-scale distributed systems, Cloud computing and edge infrastructures. Her research interests include understanding, improving, and reducing the environmental impacts of distributed systems.

Photo © Xavier Pierre / CNRS Sciences informatiques

Short Bio

Dr Matthew Grech-Sollars is an Associate Professor in Quantitative Neuroradiology at University College London and a Clinical Scientist (MRI Physics) at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Since joining UCL in 2022, he has established the Mental Health Working Group within UCL Computer Science, and is currently chairing the Department's Gender Equality Group, which holds an Athena Swan Gold award. Externally, Matthew co-chairs the MR Special Interest Group for the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) and is a member of the Annual Meeting Program Committee for the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM).

Short Bio

Malvina Latifaj is a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Innovation, Design and Engineering (IDT), Mälardalen University (MDU), Sweden. Originally from Albania, she completed a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Engineering there before moving to Sweden in 2019 to pursue a Magister in Software Engineering at MDU, followed by a Ph.D. in Computer Science (MDU, 2024). Her research interests include model-driven engineering, model transformations, metamodel evolution, model co-evolution and migration, and architectural decision making. She has served on program committees for select modeling tracks and workshops (e.g., SEAA’24, MASE’24, HowCom’23) and on the organising committees for MODELS 2023 and MDE4SA 2025. Malvina is passionate about collaborative, inclusive research environments and broadening participation in software engineering.

Abstract

The EU AI Act has introduced a new compliance regime that is now firmly institutionalized, reshaping how artificial intelligence is conceived, developed, and deployed across Europe. For high-risk AI systems in particular, the regulation sets out rigorous requirements that directly influence the design and innovation processes within EU-funded projects and beyond. These obligations create both opportunities for more trustworthy AI and practical challenges for developers, regulators, and end-users alike. Drawing on concrete experiences from European high-risk AI initiatives, this keynote highlights the realities of operationalizing compliance. It explores how AP4AI self-assessments can serve as a practical tool to navigate complexity, align with the EU AI Act, and foster accountability in AI development.

Note: The Accountability Principles for AI (AP4AI) Project develops solutions to assess, review and safeguard the accountability of AI usage by internal security practitioners. https://www.ap4ai.eu/about

Prof. Dr. Marco Gercke is an entrepreneur, scientist and consultant. His first focus area is Cybersecurity. With more than 1000 speeches in over 100 countries and over 100 scientific publications, Prof. Gercke is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of cybersecurity and cybercrime. He is the founder and director of the Cybercrime Research Institute, an independent research institute and think tank based in Cologne. He advises governments, organizations and large enterprises around the world and advises them on strategic, political and legal issues in the field of cybersecurity. The main focus of his work is the development of innovative approaches to tackling a problem that has developed into a central problem for governments and businesses in recent years – Cybercrime. Over the past 15 years, he has worked in over 100 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Pacific and Latin America. As a respected and experienced speaker, Prof. Gercke offers excellent and useful insider knowledge on the subject of cybersecurity due to his many years of activity and internal view. His lectures are clearly structured, very informative and include practical examples.

Abstract

Ethical design ensures users’ well-being, privacy, and autonomy in making informed decisions. Usability and accessibility design principles ensure ethics because they require essential aspects to be visible, understandable, controllable, recognizable, etc. Dark patterns intentionally violate these principles, making it possible to manipulate consumers into taking actions that do not correspond to their preferences. Dark patterns are aimed at modifying the underlying choice architecture. They alter decision space or manipulate the information flow to benefit the service providers rather than users. While these designs work in the short term, the companies extract profits, harvest data, and limit customer choice before users face consequences.

While maintaining professional ethics is the norm in other disciplines, UX design still requires more efforts to raise awareness among users, designers, and stakeholders. The presentation will focus on categorizations of dark patterns that distinguish them according to their implementation methods and consequences on users ' well-being. Further, the factors raising the awareness of designers, stakeholders, and end-users will be reviewed. We will provide an overview of the legal regulations that are obligatory for stakeholders. A way to raise prospective designers’ awareness will be presented on the example of how ethics topics are taught for the Vilnius University Software Engineering students. Finally, examples of tools for raising users’ awareness of ethics breaches will be discussed.

Kristina Lapin is an associate professor at Vilnius University, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Department of Computer Science. She is the chair of the Board of the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics. She is also the chair of the Software Engineering Bachelor's Study Program Committee. She teaches human-computer interaction for bachelors and User Experience Engineering for masters in Software Engineering and Computer Science students. She is an author of the Human-Computer Interaction textbook for Lithuanian students. Research interests include human-computer interaction, balancing of usability and security, and design ethics. She participated in national and international research projects in educational, aeronautics, virtual worlds, and cybersecurity thematic areas.

Abstract

The use of generative artificial intelligence tools is spreading and becoming more widespread in our society, with particular relevance in content generation and in their use by teenagers on social media. The latent dangers of misinformation have grown exponentially due to the massive use of social media, and it is in these spaces where the use of generative AI as a fundamental tool for misinformation has increased. This speech aims to present specific cases that demonstrate the application of this technology and its impact on the radicalization of opinions and extremism. In addition, these same tools are used illegally on these networks, leading to crimes of hate speech, bullying, harassment of young women, and even sexual blackmail. Some results from the project “Analysis of mobile applications from a data protection perspective: Cyber protection and cyber risks to citizens' information” will be presented, along with how to use AI to detect these situations and take appropriate action.

Rafael Pastor is a professor at UNED. He served as Director of Technological Innovation at the UNED (responsible for developing the aLF learning platform and technological innovation processes) for five years (2004-2009) and also as Director of the UNED Center for Innovation and Technological Development from 2009 to 2011, where he was responsible for managing the UNED virtual campus and developing the aLF learning platform. He is currently Director of the ETSI School of Computer Science. He has directed and participated in several teaching innovation projects, summer courses, and continuing education programs. Throughout his scientific career as a researcher, he has participated in more than 20 R&D projects funded by public calls for proposals (regional, national, and international), some of which are particularly relevant to companies and/or administrations at the international level. He has also participated as a speaker and active member in nearly 60 international/national conferences, indexed in impact lists such as CORE (ERA), DBLP, and IEEE Explorer. His research experience is also reflected in more than 70 publications in international journals, 60 of which have a JCR/SJR impact factor, with 45 of them indexed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR). Additionally, he has been a member of several international scientific societies, including the IEEE (Education Society), where he holds the status of Senior Member. He is a collaborator/advisor to the AEPD (Spanish Data Protection Agency), through his participation in the advisory council “Espacio de Estudio sobre Inteligencia Artificial” (Study Space on Artificial Intelligence), and a member of the P2834 working group “Standard for Secure and Trusted Learning Systems”. He is one of eight Spanish researchers to hold an International Chair in Cybersecurity, funded by EU PTR funds and awarded through a competitive and public call by the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE).

Abstract

Accountability in the digital age is not something we deal with when something goes wrong but rather a requirement that we must think about before, during, and after the selection of solutions and their implementation. Accountability does not mean blaming others but taking responsibility for making decisions and ensuring a safe and transparent online environment. Accountability is the awareness that is the only constant in a dynamic digital age, in which we must understand each other and ensure the development of contextual instruments, guidelines, and other policies. In doing so, we create awareness of responsibility in the global community with various stakeholders, impart knowledge about responsibility, and research and develop instruments for responsibility.

We will focus on accountability in connection with artificial intelligence, emphasizing ethics, including cultural awareness and professional codes of ethics. These principles govern the behavior of a person or group in a business environment.

Like values, professional ethics determine the rules of how a person should behave towards others and institutions in the professional environment. These rules are presented as Professional Codes of Ethics for individual fields and maintain the highest standards of professional conduct. Their common characteristics are avoiding conflicts of interest, violations of confidentiality and privacy, and the law, providing knowledge for advancing technology, prudent use of information and maintaining the integrity of systems, and transferring fundamental ethical principles to computer professional activity. Of course, the rules are not an algorithm for solving ethical problems. They are only a basis for ethical decision-making and a demonstration of responsibility for supporting the public good.

Tatjana Welzer Družovec is a researcher and a full professor at the University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is the head of the Data Technology Laboratory. Her research interests include cybersecurity including ethics, cultural and human factors of IT and cybersecurity, and intercultural communication. She is the national delegate for IFIP TC 11 and a member of the executive board of Slovenian Society Informatika. She has participated in numerous national and international research projects. Most international projects have been funded by the EC through various Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ programs. She was a coordinator of the European University Alliance ATHENA at the University of Maribor and is still involved in its activities.

Her bibliography contains over 800 bibliographic items published in various scientific journals, including top JCR IF publications. She has published chapters in several books and has participated in numerous international conferences.

She has been and is a member of the committees of many international conferences and steering committees. With her team, she has organized and co-organized over 20 international conferences in Slovenia, and many invited events at various conferences worldwide. For her work she received the title of Congress Ambassador of Slovenia in 2019.