Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Detlef Zühlke received the MS in electrical engineering and computer sciences and his PhD in robotics both from RWTH Aachen/Germany. Until his retirement in 2018 he was Professor for Industrial Automation at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and Director of the research department Innovative Factory Systems (IFS) at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). From 2005 to 2019 he also served as the executive chairman of the SmartFactory KL a non-profit research association and worldwide pioneer in smart manufacturing. His research interest is in industrial control architectures, factory planning and operation and human- machine-systems for industrial applications. He is the pioneer of the Industry 4.0 paradigm and paved the path into this new era by many groundbreaking contributions.

Theme: 20 Years Smartfactory -- From Smart Devices to Smart Ecosystems

Dr. Ćavar is Associate Professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. He is an AI researcher specializing in Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Knowledge Graphs and Representations, and Quantum/Quantum-inspired Computing. He is an experienced academic leader and researcher, with a strong record of interdisciplinary work across cognitive science, linguistics, computer science, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies. (website: https://damir.cavar.me/)

Theme: Training Language Models and Embeddings for Hybrid Classical/Quantum Computing

Jordi Linares-Pellicer is a professor of Computer Science at UPV with over 40 years of computing experience and a career spanning AI, human-computer interaction, extended reality, and generative models. Leader of the VertexLit research group at VRAIN (Valencian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence) and Academic Director of ValgrAI, the Valencian Graduate School and Research Network of AI. Recognised for bridging frontier AI research with real- world impact in healthcare, education, and accessibility, and for an extensive activity as speaker, educator, and public communicator on the latest advances of AI and their implications for society, industry, and education across diverse sectors.

Theme: Alternative Intelligence, Alternative Creativity: Rethinking What Intelligent Systems Really Are