SITC 2022 Speakers

Invited Speakers

Edy Portmann

University of Fribourg

Edy Portmann is Swiss Post Professor of Informatics at the Human-IST Institute of the University of Fribourg. His transdisciplinary research focuses on soft and cognitive computing and its application to cities. After an apprenticeship as electronics technician, he studied business informatics and got a doctorate in fuzzy systems from the University of Fribourg. Among others, he worked for Swisscom, PwC and EY. In addition, he was also a researcher at the universities of Singapore, Berkeley and Bern. He is a member of the board of the Swiss Informatics Society.

Dame Wendy Hall

University of Southampton, UK

Dame Wendy Hall, DBE, FRS, FREng is Regius Professor of Computer Science, Associate Vice President (International Engagement) and is an Executive Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton. She became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2009 UK New Year’s Honours list and is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Dame Wendy was co-Chair of the UK government’s AI Review, which was published in October 2017, and is the first Skills Champion for AI in the UK.
She chairs the Informatics-for-All Committee and is Chair of the Ada Lovelace Institute. Many of Wendy’s previous roles include: President of the ACM, President of BCS, Senior Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a founding member of the European Research Council, and member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on the Digital Economy.

Pierre Dillenbourg

EPFL

Pierre Dillenbourg is a full professor in learning technologies in the School of Computer & Communication Sciences of EPFL, where he is the head of the CHILI Lab: “Computer-Human Interaction for Learning & Instruction”.
A former teacher in elementary school, Pierre Dillenbourg graduated in educational science (University of Mons, Belgium). He started his research on learning technologies in 1984. In 1986, he has been one of the first in the world to apply machine learning to develop a self-improving teaching system. He obtained a PhD in computer science from the University of Lancaster (UK). Before joining EPFL in 2002, he has been an assistant professor at the University of Geneva.
At EPFL, he has been the director of Center for Research and Support on Learning and its Technologies, then academic director of Center for Digital Education, which implements the MOOC strategy of EPFL. He is the director of the leading house DUAL-T, which develops technologies for dual vocational education. With EPFL colleagues, he launched in 2017 the Swiss EdTech Collider, an incubator with 80 start-ups in learning technologies. He (co-)founded 5 start-ups, does consulting missions in the corporate world and joined the board of several companies or institutions. In 2018, he co-founded LEARN, the EPFL Center of Learning Sciences. He is a fellow of the International Society for Learning Sciences. He currently is the Associate Vice-President for Education at EPFL.

Ulrich Ultes-Nitsche

University of Fribourg

Ulrich Ultes-Nitsche is a professor of Computer Science and the head of the Foundations of Dependable Systems research group at the University of Fribourg. He holds a PhD degree from the Computer Science Department of the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He has been the coordinator of the recent program for educating high school teachers in Informatics: GymInf.

Simon Moser

SolutionBoxX and President, FSIE

Simon Moser is an independent consultant and owner of SolutionBoxX GmbH. He graduated in computer science from the University of Bern in 1991. Since then he has worked as a software engineer, business analyst and project manager. He specialises in software metrics and metrics-based IT project effort estimation. In 1996, he received a PhD from the University of Bern and completed a research year in Melbourne/AUS in 1997 with a Swiss National Science Foundation scholarship.
He is involved in projects in public administration, the telecommunications industry, finances (stock exchange) and transport companies. Since 2016, he has also been on the board of the Swiss Informatics Society (SI); since 2021 as treasurer. Here he is primarily involved in the systematic advanced and continuing education of computer scientists after graduation. He is also a founding member and president of FSIE, a group within the SI that offers the advanced education title Expert FSIE for professionals with a degree – analogous to the title Specialist FMH for medical professionals.

Martin Glinz

University of Zurich and Board of Directors, 3L Informatik AG

Martin Glinz is a full professor emeritus at the University of Zurich (UZH). From 1993 until 2017, he was a professor of Informatics at UZH’s Department of Informatics. From 2007-2016, he also was the department head. His interests include requirements and software engineering – in particular modeling, validation, quality, and evolution.
He received a Dr. rer. nat. in Computer Science from RWTH Aachen University in 1983. Before joining the University of Zurich, he worked in industry for ten years where he was active in software and requirements engineering research, development, training, and consulting.
He is on editorial boards and program committees of major journals and conferences in software and requirements engineering and served as general chair, program chair, steering committee chair and organizer for the top international conferences in his field. He is on the board of the Swiss Informatics Society SI and of the Swiss Informatics Research Association SIRA. He is past president of SIRA.
He is also a member of the Board of Directors of 3L Informatik AG, the company that manages the SI Professional certification program for life-long learning in Informatics.

Thomas Stricker

President, Digital Literacy AG

Thomas Stricker is president of Digital Literacy AG. He received a MSc in Computer Science from ETHZ, a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and an Executive MBA from the University of St. Gallen. Previously, he held positions as as a Research Programmer at the IBM T. J.Watson Research Labs, Research Engineer at the Intel Supercomputer Systems Division, Assistant Professor at ETHZ, Senior Scientist at Google Labs Switzerland, and as an independent consultant. He is on the board of the Swiss Informatics Society SI.

SITC 2022 Moderator

Dalith Steiger-Gablinger

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, SwissCognitive

Dalith Steiger belongs to the top 10 pioneering women in cognitive technologies and one of the top digital shapers and leading voices in the global AI ecosystem. Dalith was featured in Onalytica’s Who’s Who in AI report October 2021 as a global key opinion leader. Dalith was born in Israel, grew up in Switzerland, and studied mathematics at the University of Zurich. With Andy Fitze she co-founded the award-winning AI start-up SwissCognitive, and the CognitiveValley Foundation. Dalith is a global AI advisor and speaker, sharing her extensive knowledge and experience in the field of AI around the world. She sits in several boards and advises various companies in their AI journey, mentors young girls in tech, and teaches AI & Machine Learning in a CAS module at the Applied University of Luzern. Besides her drive for cognitive technologies, she is also a loving mother of two young women, a passionate mountain biker and a big fan of high-heel shoes.

Panelists on Industry Panel

Patrick Bugnon

Head of Java Delivery Business Line, Elca

Patrick Bugnon works since 21 years for ELCA Informatique SA. Passionate about project management, he took the responsibility of several large and ambitious projects. In 2016, Patrick was appointed as Head of Business Line, to develop innovative, custom-designed and high-performing business and technology solutions for a broad number of industries and customers.
He has developed a solid project management experience in building with his teams, solutions that reduce complexity and costs, simplify the organization, and increase innovation cycles. Based on a strong and proven agile methodology, he delivers projects maximizing the business value brought to the customers. Projects are mostly performed in fixed price, or with highly efficient capacity teams.
ELCA is one of the biggest independent Swiss IT companies with more than 1400 experts in Switzerland, Vietnam, Mauritius and Spain. Working together with a high commitment to the success of the projects and finally, to respect the ELCA’s spirit: “We make it work”.

Christian Hunziker

CEO, swissICT

Christian Hunziker is CEO of swissICT, the largest professional association in the Swiss ICT industry, which connects ICT providers, users and professionals in Switzerland.
He holds a diploma degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from ETH Zurich and an Executive MBA degree from the University of St. Gallen. He started his professional career as a software developer and consultant. Later, he held managing positions at Sun Microsystems and was a manager and member of the executive board at Dell (Switzerland), Elca, and CC Energie. Prior to his current position, he was Managing Director and Country Manager of Comsoft Direct.

Bruno Kaiser

CTO, Menu Technologies

Bruno Kaiser is CTO of MENU Technologies AG,  where he is responsible for the development organisation, technical operations (2nd level support) and site operations. After finishing studies at University of Zurich in 1994 with a Master in Computer Science and Economics, he worked five years as system engineer in UBS’s database team. In that time, he got promoted to Head of Middleware with global responsibility for the retail bank.
In 1999, he joined 25 software engineers at AdNovum Informatik AG founding AdNovum’s affiliate AdNovum Software Inc. in San Mateo, CA as CEO. After his return to Switzerland in 2002, he was appointed CPO of the AdNovum group of companies and joined AdNovum’s executive board. In this capacity, he was responsible for AdNovum’s middleware and security products, maintenance and support service offerings, legal matters, and the key account UBS.
Digital transformation has been his core topic for years. In established, successful companies, such a change is difficult (innovator’s dilemma). That’s why he left AdNovum 2014 after 15 years when the company grew to over 600 employees.
He then co-founded several startups in the digitalisation sector (e-fiduciary, sports brokerage, electronic mailbox, cloud service broker). In August 2020, he joined MENU Technologies.

Nora Sleumer

Transformation Manager, Credit Suisse

Nora Sleumer is currently leading a transformation program at Credit Suisse, demonstrating how the agile approach can bring tangible results and prove out functionality.
Having grown up in Canada, Nora studied Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, followed by a Master’s in Computational Geometry. She moved to Zurich in 1994 to do a doctorate in computer science, with a focus on geometric algorithm design. Upon completion, she joined a small company in Zurich implementing geometric algorithms for modelling and transforming 3D objects, such as the USM Haller furniture system. During the supervision of her Diplomarbeit students she became interested in the software development approach called “Extreme Programming”. This has evolved into Agile and Scrum IT project management, with a focus on direct communication and delivering working code. This led her to a small company in Ticino, where she moved to in 2002.
Since then, she took on a variety of roles, had two kids, and eventually ended up in project and program management at Credit Suisse. One of the programs she led recently was part of the creation of a new bank: Credit Suisse (Switzerland). This was a major highlight, leading 9 teams around the world to adapt 80 risk applications for a successful start of the new bank.

Iris Zeyda

Senior Consultant, Isolutions

Iris Zeyda is a senior consultant at Isolutions AG.
After finishing her studies in veterinary medicine and working in this field for some years, Iris Zeyda felt drawn to IT despite her proximity to medicine and achieved this as the central contact person and ICT coordinator for the IT systems of the veterinary administration of the state of Baden Württemberg. Later, she worked as a project manager and in requirements analysis for an IT system used throughout Germany for veterinary and food monitoring. In an international healthcare company, she led a team of requirements and business analysts to develop requirements for a LIM system.
Since 2018, Iris Zeyda has been working as a consultant, supporting customers with her expertise in her focus areas business analysis, requirements engineering and project management. Her focus is on Business Analysis, Information Architectures, Requirements Engineering, Conceptual Modelling, Risk Analysis, Stakeholder Management, Agile Methods, and Conflict Management.

Welcome Addresses

Francis Baud

President, Swiss Informatics Society SI

Christian Tschudin

President, Swiss Informatics Research Association SIRA