Sustainability and Responsibility - Time to think differently about Technology?

Marc Peters is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, Member of the IBM industry Academy and a technical council member of the IBM Academy of Technology. Marc also serves as board of trustee member of Fraunhofer IEE, as a board member bitkom AK Smart Grids and as an advisor for various organisations.

He is since more than a decade the IBM Europe CTO for Energy, Environment and Utilities and most recently also became the IBM CTO for a large telecommunications operator. Since more than 2 years Marc also leads the responsible.computing() activities globally. Before joining IBM Marc worked for Oracle and Siemens in various roles and countries.

Marc has a masters degree in computer science and economics from University of Namur and lives with his family in Belgium.

Among other duties, Susanne Hahn was responsible for the Corporate Organization of the worldwide Daimler Group. After this, she transformed Daimler’s innovation unit “Business Innovation” two times. In a first step into Lab1886, the global Innovation factory of Daimler AG and in a second step into 1886Ventures – the newly founded technology holding, in which she moved as shareholder and managing partner together with her core team in December 2020. Beside this she founded her own investment portfolio company SKV Invest GmbH which holds shares in Green Deep Tech and digital platform related businesses.

For almost four years she represented Daimler on the advisory board of Volocopter GmbH an urban air-taxi pioneer from Germany. Since March 2021 she is part of the Strategic Advisory Board of the automotive supplier Küster Holding GmbH as well as in the Steering Board of Invest BW, the Innovation & Investment funding program of the state of Baden-Württemberg. In April 2022 she has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Nokian Tyres plc, a NASDAG listed company.

Thomas Hirth studied chemistry at Universität Karlsruhe, one of the predecessors of the KIT, and then graduated in Karlsruhe at the Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry. He started to work at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in 1992, holding different positions, the last being that of a Head of the Environmental Engineering Department of the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT in Pfinztal. In December 2007, Hirth became director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, Stuttgart. From 2012 to 2015, Hirth was spokesman of the Fraunhofer Group for Life Sciences and Member of the Presidential Council of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Since April 2008, he in addition has been professor at the University of Stuttgart and head of the Institute of Interfacial Process Engineering and Plasma Technology IGVP of Stuttgart University. From 2012 to 2015, Hirth was vice dean of Faculty 4 Energy-, Process- and Bio-Engineering of Stuttgart University.

Since January 2016, Thomas Hirth has been Vice-President of KIT.

Anton Baranowski is co-founder of the Impact Hub Karlsruhe. After studying economics and gaining professional experience in IT/management consulting, he has been pursuing the topics of "sustainable entrepreneurship" and "social innovation" for three years now.

In 2021 he started organizing the "Sustainability Networking Nights", an event series as first activity to promote "Sustainable Business". He concretized the plan to establish a "Place for Sustainable Business for the Karlsruhe Region" by launching the co-creative initiative "SINNITIATIVE17", named after the UN's 17th Sustainable Development Goal: Partnerships. This initiative was one of the starting points for the foundation of the Impact Hub Karlsruhe. Since December 2021, the Hub has been active with a pop-up coworking space in the centre of Karlsruhe. Founded as local cooperative and as part of a global network, the Impact Hub Karlsruhe is focusing on offering programmes for sustainable entrepreneurship as well as advisory services for established companies.

RPC – an impact startup in the circular economy that is helping the recycling market grow

Michel Weinketz is an Industrial Engineer, joined BASF over 14 years ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil and since 2011 works at the headquarters in Germany. He has been in different roles, including in-house consulting, supply chain management, strategic procurement, marketing, and digital solutions to Farmers. His last position was Head of Supply Chain Acquisitions and Divestitures - Global Inhouse Supply Chain Consulting.

Since October 2022 Michel and the RPCertificates team are part of CHEMOVATOR, the BASF Corporate Venture Building company. The goal of RPCertificates is to create practical, realistic solutions that will incentivize and increase recycling and enable industry players to transition to a circular economy.