Peter Ganten

CEO Univention

Peter studied Physics and Psychology and was working in various fields of research and consulting before founding Univention. He has been involved with Linux since 1994 and has become well known as the author of a user guide about Debian GNU/Linux. Today he is leading the Univention management team and is responsible for the strategic direction of Univention. In his capacity as Chairman of the OSB Alliance, he has worked in both politics and business to promote a European perspective of digitalization that is based on openness and trust.

Ann Cathrin Riedel

Managing Director of NExT e.V.

Ann Cathrin Riedel is a publicist and expert in digital policy, administrative innovation, and democracy. As the managing director of NExT e.V., she drives initiatives to modernize public administration, leveraging digitalization as a key to a sustainable society and stable democracies. Previously, she was responsible for international digital policy at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and led the organization LOAD e.V. – for liberal net policy – from 2018 to 2024. In 2022, she was appointed to the Federal Government’s Digital Advisory Council and the Digital Council of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. She also serves as an advisory board member for the think tank Center for Middle East and Global Order (CMEG). Her dedication has earned her numerous accolades, including the “Gold” award as “Women in eGovernment/Leadership 2024,” recognition as one of Capital Magazine’s “Top 40 under 40” in “Science and Society” in 2020, and selection as a Young Leader by Atlantik-Brücke in 2023. Her expertise is frequently sought in political bodies such as the German Bundestag. She publishes and speaks on topics including digitalization, public administration, and geopolitics – notably in her award-winning newsletter, Ann Cathrin’s Digital Digest.

Prof. Dr. Martin Andree

University of Cologne

Prof. Dr. Martin Andree teaches digital media at the University of Cologne. He has been researching the dominance of digital corporations for more than 15 years and is the author of seven books, including the highly acclaimed “Atlas der digitalen Welt”, as well as the political interpretation in the book “Big Tech muss weg!”. He is a sought-after interview partner, keynote speaker and guest author. He completed his studies in Cologne, Münster, Cambridge and Harvard.

Dirk Schrödter

Head of the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein

As Minister and Head of the State Chancellery (CdS for short), Dirk Schrödter heads the office of the Prime Minister. Dirk Schrödter has held this office since June 2017. He has also been Minister for Digitalization and Media Policy in Schleswig-Holstein since 2022. The State Chancellery is primarily responsible for planning and coordinating the political priorities of the state government.

Katja Müller-Lind

Head of School IT and Facilities; Head of Wetteraukreis Media Center

For more than 25 years, as a graduate engineer in media informatics and education enthusiast, I have set myself the goal of turning the digitalization of schools into digitality so that teachers can integrate the multitude of IT resources into their teaching environment. Established IT systems often do not find their way into schools if child and youth protection and data protection regulations have to be observed. Together with partner companies, I have developed and established systems so that school IT is accepted.

Jean-Philippe Balança

Chief International Operation Officer

Jean-Philippe Balança is Smile’s Chief International Operations Officer, a European open source service company, leader in digital and one stop shop projects, based in 9 European countries. With over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, Jean-Philippe has been involved in numerous international projects spanning in EMEA.
Through Smile and the EOS consortium, Jean-Philippe promotes an industrial, independent, sustainable and sovereign open technology sector in Europe.

Reik Mauermann

Ministry of Education Brandenburg

Reik Mauermann works at the Brandenburg Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport in Department 43 for IT specialist procedures and e-government in the school sector.

Daniela Grebe

Teamlead Product Management Univention

Daniela Grebe has been responsible for the product management team at Univention since the end of 2024. With a strong background in data-driven product strategy, B2B software and machine learning, she focuses on strategies and products that help organizations maintain their digital sovereignty in a world where data and infrastructure are increasingly monopolized.

With her interdisciplinary experience, from AI-based solutions to the gaming industry, she brings creative problem solving and new perspectives to product development. Her goal: to translate complex technologies into practical, value-adding solutions.

Peer Heinlein

CEO OpenCloud

Peer Heinlein is a law graduate, IT and open source specialist and author. He has been running his own Internet service provider since 1992 and has published several specialist books. He is the founder and managing director of Heinlein Support, the award-winning email provider mailbox.org, the modern and data protection-compliant video conferencing solution OpenTalk – and since fall 2024 – also of OpenCloud, the secure enterprise cloud solution planned for release in Q1/2025.

Stephan Weißenberger

Head of Software Development – Build, STACKIT

Stephan Weißenberger has been a passionate software developer for 25 years and a successful software service provider for 18 years. As Head of Software Development – Build at STACKIT GmbH & Co. KG, he is responsible for a team of software architects, JVM, Go, C# and front-end developers.

With his expertise, he supports companies in their digital transformation and acts as a reliable partner who develops innovative solutions together with his customers. His focus is on the application of Scrum and software architecture, always with a focus on process optimization and digitalization.

Stephan Weißenberger has extensive experience in industry and manufacturing as well as in the field of ERP systems. His references and deep understanding of his customers’ needs make him a valuable partner for companies looking to successfully shape their digital transformation.

Michael Meeks

General Manager Collabora Online

Michael is a Christian and enthusiastic Open Source developer. He runs Collabora’s Office division, leading our Collabora Online and Office products, supporting customers and partners alongside our talented team. He has served as a Director of the The Document Foundation and has contributed to both ODF and OOXML standardization. Prior to Collabora he gained a wide experience as a Novell/SUSE Distinguished Engineer working on various pieces of Free Software infrastructure across the Linux stack.

Laurin Hagemann

Bündnis Freie Bildung

Promoting OEP via the LearnGraph.org ecosystem.

I live by the practices of the buddhist monk and strive to bring personal development into all stages of current education systems.

Who am I? Physicist by education, Software Developer by trade and Hacker by nature.

Oliver Bouwer

Speaker IT Senator for Children and Education Bremen

Oliver Bouwer is a media educator and team leader in Department 10 – Media and Education in the Digital World at the Senator for Children and Education in Bremen. At the interface of IT and pedagogy, he is responsible for the learning platform itslearning, digital content, and is a companion and advisor to Bremen’s schools when it comes to digital school development.

Steffen Prüwer

City of Oldenburg

Steffen Prüwer has been working for the city of Oldenburg since 2016 and leads the Endpoint Team of the School IT department. His responsibilities include preparing and executing client rollouts, as well as the on-demand provision of web services such as MDM, cloud solutions, and educational logins. He is also involved in consulting, selection, and provision of media concepts. Since the beginning of a centralized school IT strategy, the city of Oldenburg has relied on IDM UCS@school. Since then, there have been various challenges. Most recently, the team has been focused on adjusting the user life cycle while considering moin.schule.

Ansgar Licher

LWsystems

Ansgar Licher is a graduate engineer, co-founder, and managing partner of LWsystems GmbH & Co. KG based in Bad Iburg in the Osnabrück region. He has been involved with Linux and open-source-based IT solutions for approximately 30 years. After 11 years in IT management at a medium-sized corporate group in the construction industry, he co-founded the IT service company LWsystems in 2004.

Thore Plagemann

Bergwerk IT

Thore Plagemann has been working at Bergwerk IT for over 10 years. He has extensive experience with UCS/UCS@school and other Linux systems. He currently manages projects for central identity management at state level with UCS@school in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and is responsible for operational support for the municipal identity management system at DIKOM Brandenburg. Direct exchange with customers and colleagues at Bergwerk IT is particularly important to him in order to jointly develop the best solutions – such as the PaedML Connector.

Dirk Ahrnke

Professional Services Univention

Dirk has been working with the Univention Corporate Server since around 2005, and with Linux and other operating systems for even longer. As a consultant and trainer, he tries to implement the knowledge he has gained as profitably as possible in projects and training courses.

Nico Gulden

Univention

Nico Gulden is Technical Editor at Univention and responsible for product documentation. His main focus in 2024 was the Nubus for Kubernetes documentation with the Operations Manual, the Architecture Manual and the Customization Guide. His motto: Docs or it didn’t happen.

Jaime Conde Segovia

Software Engineer Univention

Jaime is a Telecommunication Engineer and joined Univention in 2022 as a Software Engineer based in Madrid, Spain. During these years, he has been working solely on the development of Nubus for Kubernetes and its components.

Jaime has been a Linux user since he was 10 years old, and has developed a strong passion for Free and Open Source Software. He worked in smart mobility and language learning startups before joining Univention. Jaime is an English and Spanish speaker, while slowly learning German.

Daniel Tröder

Software Architect Univention