Learning from the best

Participating in the first Innovative Leaders Conference in Mainz as a guest of honor is special in any case. This pleasure was given to me, Kristian Kraft, together with Michael Louis, on 10.10.2023. We had been selected as finalists with nele.ai for the AI Innovation Award and were accordingly excited about the event. The theme of the conference was "Learning from Germany's Best" and took place in the premises of Schott AG, a place of innovation.

Various speakers look ahead to the future

The conference was hosted by the F.A.Z. Institute and the FAZ, which already indicated a high-quality event in advance. And indeed, it did not disappoint. The opening speech was given by Dr. Frank Heinricht, Chairman of the Board at Schott. He impressively demonstrated how innovative Schott is and what role innovation plays in this company.

Afterwards, Prof. Dr. Thomas Kropf from Bosch spoke about the implementation of innovation in a company. He shared his experiences and presented interesting insights into the processes at Bosch. It was particularly impressive to see how innovation is systematically integrated into the corporate culture there.

Another highlight was the presentation by Stefan Bauer from Lilly Pharma. He is an extremely exciting speaker and charged the room with an energetic atmosphere. His talk covered topics such as collaboration at eye level and how this can drive innovation. His suggestions were inspiring and opened up new perspectives for us.

This was followed by Torsten Albig, the former Minister President of Schleswig-Holstein. He spoke about the transformation of the Philip Morris company and how they had to realign themselves in the face of social change. His insights were extremely enlightening and showed that innovation is inevitable even in established companies.

Alexander Barion from Fidelity then spoke about innovation in marketing and presented various use cases of generative AI. His presentation illustrated how AI can revolutionize marketing and offered interesting examples.

In addition to the aforementioned presentations, the event was enriched by panel discussions and other lectures, from which we were always able to take away new insights. The diversity of topics and the expertise of the speakers made the conference a valuable experience.

We are especially proud that with nele.ai we were among the selected 12 projects out of more than 70 applications. Even though we did not win the AI Award, we are honored to have been nominated as a finalist. The atmosphere among the participants was great and everyone was excited about the possibilities AI holds for our future.

Our task for the future

The conference made it clear that AI has already arrived in large companies. The challenge now is to implement AIs in small and medium-sized enterprises as well. We need to ensure that Germany continues to stand for innovation as a business location and that SMEs also have access to the latest technologies.

My personal conclusion of the conference is extremely positive. I learned a lot, made interesting contacts and was inspired to continue working on the innovative development of our company and our customers. I am already looking forward to the next Innovative Leaders Conference and am sure that it will be an enrichment again.

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