Team
The Transatlantic AI eXchange initiative was founded and is organized by a partnership of Thomas Neubert and AI.HAMBURG. Early leading Partners are the German American Business Association of California (GABA) in San Francisco, USA, and the Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI).
Thomas Neubert | Datacenter/AI Business Innovation Office, Intel, Founder/Evangelist Transatlantic AI eXchange |
Thomas is Executive Director Strategic Business Development & Innovation @ Intel Datacenter Incubation Group, is building new, transformative lines of business as potential new revenue sources. Adopting the venture capital playbook to form new IOUs (independent operating units) that act like start-up companies and facilitate their success in an agile, fail-fast environment. He built a global sales team, focused on scaling and accelerating time-to-market Artificial Intelligence solutions. He established an validation program giving global leading application and algo developers access to new silicon/platform technologies. Since moving from Germany to Silicon Valley in 1991 Thomas spent 20+ years building up international subsidiaries and domestic start-ups from ppt to IPO. As VP/GM at Deutsche Telekom he led the North America activities for innovative partnering. Thomas is founding member and Chair of GABA “German American Business Association” and also co-founder and coach of SVMC “Silicon Valley Marathon Club”.
Dr. Olaf Groth | Cambrian, Hult and UC Berkeley |
Olaf is a global strategist, founder, professor, adviser and speaker focused on technology disruption and discontinuities in the global economy. He is founding CEO of the advisory thinktank Cambrian Futures and concept development firm Cambrian Designs, Professor for Strategy, Innovation, Economics and Futures at Hult International Business School, Professional Faculty for Strategy, Technology and Business & Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a Global Network Member at the World Economic Forum. For the past 25 years Olaf has held leadership roles in global enterprises, consultancies and academia. A frequent speaker, commentator and author in media outlets he is also co-author of Solomon’s Code: Humanity in a World of Thinking Machines with Dr. Mark Nitzberg (paperback “The AI Generation: Shaping Our Global Future With Thinking Machines in July 2021), and of the forthcoming book The Great Remobilization: Designing A Smarter World with Drs. Mark Esposito and Terence Tse.
Petra Vorsteher | AI.HAMBURG, AI.INVEST, AI.FUND, ECIU, GABA, AI4Germany |
Petra is the founder of AI.HAMBURG, co-founder of AI.INVEST and founding partner of AI.FUND, and one of the first women globally to co-found a global mobile company in 2005 where she has been successful in growing Smaato to become one of the largest independent mobile companies in the world. Prior to her career in mobile she was a pioneer in e-commerce. As founding member of Intershop in 1996, Petra was instrumental in growing the company from a start-up to a publicly listed company with a market cap of $12Billion. Petra has over 30 years of business experience in the US, Europe and Asia. As a Silicon Valley veteran, Petra is one of the best globally networked women executives. She was appointed Hamburg Ambassador to San Francisco by the Governor and First Mayor of Hamburg and serves as International Ambassador of the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH). She is GABA Chair for AI, International board member of Hamburg@work and a member of the Committee for Innovation and Research at the HHCC. She is with AI.HAMBURG co-founder of the initiative AI4Germany and is on the board of the ECIU university The European Consortium of Innovative Universities.
Ingo Hoffmann | AI.HAMBURG, AI4Germany, GPAI|
Ingo is a successful manager with 30 years experience in the Enterprise Software Business. He held senior management positions in companies such as SAP and IBM, startups and non-profit organizations. In recent years, he has intensively dealt with the topics of innovation, digital transformation and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in companies. He worked in the IBM Watson Health division, supported the Tübingen AI Competence Center and the Cyber Valley Initiative (cyber-valley.de) as a strategic consultant and general manager and was active in the applied AI initiative (appliedai.de) of UnternehmerTUM as Head of AI Ecosystem. He was one of the initiators of the AI4Germany initiative (ai4 germany.de) and supports the German Government in the development of the German AI Strategy. In 2020 he was nominated by the German Government to join the Global Partnership on AI (gpai.ai). As a member of the board of directors of ADI Innovation AG (adi.de) he advises founders, managers, financial investors and public institutions in the field of new technologies and the use of AI. As managing director of AI.HAMBURG he promotes the transfer and use of AI in companies in Hamburg and Northern Germany. He is active as an early stage investor in AI Startups and is running his own Consulting Business and Blog.
Oliver Gottfried | AI.FUND, Stanford, Tsinghua |
Oliver is Investment Director & Head of Partnerships at AI.FUND and worked for HongDao Capital, a Chinese AI-focused Venture Capital firm where he was responsible for AI-based investments with focus on mobility (autonomous driving). He is a Postdoctoral researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), researching AI-based investments. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, doing research on cross-border Business Development strategies for AI-related computer vision VC investments. Oliver received his PhD in Engineering from Tsinghua University, focusing on BD strategies for Deep Learning-related VC/PE investments in China. He speaks fluent Chinese. Oliver is Program Director for the Transatlantic AI eXchange as well as an Intel Ignite & German Accelerator Mentor for AI-driven start-ups in the mobility (autonomous driving) & greentech sector.
Robin Farmanfarmaian | Serial founder of AI Startups |
Robin is a professional speaker and entrepreneur working in cutting edge tech poised to impact 100M people or more. Robin has been involved with over 20 early stage biotech and healthcare startups from curing cancer to digital health. She is an advisor to MindMaze, a BCI-AI company focusing on VR for 9 neuro conditions, including stroke and brain injury. She is also an advisor to AlacrityCare, remote patient monitoring and data analytics for oncology. With over 160 speaking engagements in 15 countries, she educates audiences on technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence, the shift in healthcare delivery to the patient’s home and building thought leadership. She has 3 published books: “The Patient as CEO”; “The Thought Leader Formula”; and “Facilitating Virtual Events”.
Yvonne Dietrich | Transatlantic AI eXchange |
Yvonne Dietrich is the Director of Operations and Event Management for TAIX where she is coordinating and managing all Transatlantic AI eXchange efforts. She brings 10+ years of project management experience to the TAIX team, and is currently supplementing that experience with a Certificate Program at UC Berkeley. Born and raised in Germany, she moved to the US more than 20 years ago, and knows the German and US community well. She worked for industry leader Electronic Arts as well as local Non-profits, and she has been contributing to the Silicon Valley German American professional community for over 6 years.
Parham (Paul) Shahidi, PhD | Transatlantic AI eXchange |
Parham (Paul) Shahidi is a German-American AI/ML expert. He currently works for Apple where he is focused on ML enabled quality inspection to deliver outstanding customer experiences. He has over 15 years experience in combining engineering disciplines with machine learning and has worked in different application domains such as research, transportation and manufacturing. He holds a PhD from Virginia Tech, BS from TU Darmstadt and most recently completed his business education at Stanford’s GSB. Paul is the Program Director – North America for the Transatlantic AI eXchange where he is dedicated to building international alliances in AI.
