Future Dialogue on “AI and Digital Sovereignty” with Minister Brandes

Around 80 guests were welcomed by NRW’s Minister of Science Ina Brandes and, on behalf of the Ruhr Innovation Lab, by Manfred Bayer, Rector of TU Dortmund University, in the Brauturm of the Dortmunder U.

The Ruhr Innovation Lab is an excellent example of how excellence is always possible when the old church tower mentality in the Ruhr area is overcome and common strengths are sought.

— Ina Brandes

Science Minister Ina Brandes said: „The Ruhr Innovation Lab is an excellent example of how excellence is always possible when the old church tower mentality in the Ruhr area is overcome and common strengths are sought. Consequently, TU Dortmund University and Ruhr University Bochum are applying for the status of a University Consortium of Excellence  with a university-crossing experimental space for top research, transfer and social commitment. The challenges of our time need both such university-crossing cooperations and strong partnerships with the economy to open up new research fields and to make scientific findings quickly economically usable.“

We have come together to cooperate permanently with each other.

— Manfred Bayer

Rector Professor. Manfred Bayer emphasized that the Ruhr Innovation Lab is not a one-hit-wonder for the application in the excellence competition: „We have come together to cooperate permanently with each other. Today’s Future Dialogue as an exchange format is a start, more events will follow – sometimes in Dortmund, sometimes in Bochum, but always on the strong foundation of our cohesion and together with our partners.“

Bayer himself then contributed an input on the technical conditions and challenges of the evening’s topic, while Professor Karola Marky, Head of the Digital Sovereignty Lab at Ruhr University, focused on the individual and our daily behavior in the digital world in her keynote. A lively fishbowl discussion was supposed to conclude the evening earlier and lead to the get-together, but it „positively overflowed“, as moderator Professor Christina Elmer put it, because there was so much to say about AI and digital sovereignty – with these participants:

• Professor Karola Marky
• Professor Alice Kirchheim, TU Dortmund University and head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
• Professor Nicole Krämer, University of Duisburg-Essen, Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security of the University Alliance Ruhr
• Carla Hustedt, Head of the Digitalized Society Department of the Stiftung Mercator
• Götz Erhardt, Co-moderator of the Initiativkreis Ruhr
• State Secretary Dirk Günnewig, Ministry of Finance of North Rhine-Westphalia

The audience was also involved in the discussion round.

What were the takeaways from the first joint evening of the Future Dialogue? An impressive location, many stimulating conversations and food for thought, and not least from the many valid arguments of the discussion the „Swiss Army knife for digital sovereignty“, as moderator Christina Elmer put it: „It contains experiments, tolerance for ambiguities and friction, as well as digital literacy, cooperations with research and the Ruhr Innovation Lab“. Götz Erhardt from the Initiativkreis Ruhr has brought the essence of the Ruhr Innovation Lab to the point as vividly as aptly: „More experimentation!“