Welcome to the 9th Heidelberg Laureate Forum!

Pooja Bharadwaj/Jie Li
Masters of Ceremonies

Beate Spiegel
Chairperson of Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation/Managing Director of Klaus Tschira Foundation

Anna Wienhard
Scientific Chairperson of Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation

Bettina Stark-Watzinger
German Federal Minister of Education and Research

Bernhard Eitel
Rector of Heidelberg University

Sabine Bendiek
Chief People & Operating Officer, Labor Relations Director, and Member of the Executive Board at SAP

Yannis Ioannidis
President of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Carlos Kenig
President of International Mathematical Union (IMU)

Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund
General Secretary of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA)

Musical setting by the saxophone quartet “Balanced Action”

Access: all participants

Each year, the HLFF showcases an exhibition centered on mathematics or computer science as part of the HLF program. This year’s exhibition is entitled "I AM A.I. – Artificial Intelligence Explained.” It was developed by IMAGINARY and will be introduced in a talk by Antonia Mey.

A panel of laureates unpacks a topic at the intersection of mathematics and computer science with strong implications for society at large.

Moderator: Vicki Hanson
CEO, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Vinton Gray Cerf
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2004 
Together with Robert E. Kahn for pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking.

Leslie Lamport
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2013 
For fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of distributed and concurrent systems, notably the invention of concepts such as causality and logical clocks, safety and liveness, replicated state machines, and sequential consistency.

Joseph Sifakis
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2007
Together with Edmund Clarke and E. Allen Emerson, for their role in developing Model Checking into a highly effective verification technology that is widely adopted in the hardware and software industries.

In 1972 the speaker invented an algorithm to find the strong components of a directed graph in linear time. The algorithm illustrates the power of depth-first search in solving graph problems. This talk will present the algorithm, along with reflections fifty years later.

More than one hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published his Theory of General Relativity (GR). One year later, Karl Schwarzschild solved the GR equations for a non-rotating, spherical mass distribution; if this mass is sufficiently compact, even light cannot escape from within the so-called event horizon, and there is a mass singularity at the center. The theoretical concept of a 'black hole' was born, and was refined in the next decades by work of Penrose, Wheeler, Kerr, Hawking and many others. First indirect evidence for the existence of such black holes in our Universe came from observations of compact X-ray binaries and distant luminous quasars. I will discuss the forty  year journey, which my colleagues and I have been undertaking to study  the mass distribution in the Center of our Milky Way from ever more precise, long term studies of the motions of gas and stars as test  particles of the space time. These studies show the existence of a four million solar mass object, which must be a single massive black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt.

To signify the close bond between the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, each year a laureate is selected to give a guest lecture at the respective meeting. This year’s Lindau Lecture will be held by German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.

30 pre-selected young researchers have the opportunity to present their research in a condensed poster format. While the posters are continuously displayed throughout the week, the poster flash will feature young researchers presenting their work in rapid-fire two-minute presentations. During the subsequent poster session, participants can browse the various posters and directly engage with the young researchers in order to discuss their work.

30 pre-selected young researchers have the opportunity to present their research in a condensed poster format. While the posters are continuously displayed throughout the week, the poster flash will feature young researchers presenting their work in rapid-fire two-minute presentations. During the subsequent poster session, participants can browse the various posters and directly engage with the young researchers in order to discuss their work.

What is the fastest way to get to know as many people as possible? Meet fellow participants and wire the network that could lead to connections that not only last throughout the 9th HLF but have the potential to extend beyond.

Instead of diving straight into the program, take the opportunity to collect yourself so that you can proceed with a clearer mind and better prepared to absorb whatever the day may bring.

Join us at our first warm-up session of the week: Move, Breath & Relax with Andreas.

Access: laureates, young researchers, press, guests by invitation only

A highlight of the Welcome Dinner will be the Pub Quiz hosted by Lewis Stannard. An ideal opportunity to showcase your knowledge, exercise your competitive side and bond with other participants.

The field of Deep Learning has seen some incredible achievements in the past few years. Thanks to improvements in computing power and an incredible foundation of research, advancements within machine learning have enabled the creation of powerful applications. The success of these tools has garnered much attention, from both the practitioner community and those who would seek to gain an edge in their industry by harnessing the advantages of machine learning.

While simply applying these tools seems to revolutionize a great number of industries and fields, the implications of using tools that can be hard to parse – even for their creators – should not be ignored. With such promise and excitement surrounding the field for both those who build the tools and those who wish to use them, how will this area of research continue to develop?

In the 2022 Hot Topic, we will explore the applications and implications of Deep Learning. The conversation will open with a panel of experts in the field, including the recipients of the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award, who received the prize for their foundational work in deep neural networks. Touching on the science behind the technology, how the field has evolved, and the societal and ethical implications of the tools that Deep Learning enables, the panel will open up the larger conversation and highlight the topics that are key in this field for researchers, engineers, and those who are touched by these tools. Next, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions. Afterwards, we will invite the audience into small group discussions and reflections during the break. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with the topic in-person or online.  Finally, we will reconvene to discuss the ideas surfaced in a debriefing onstage.

Moderator: Katherine Gorman
Katherine Gorman is the Executive Producer for Collective Next where she helps groups to communicate about the issues that matter to them. Trained in journalism and production in the American public radio system, Katherine has worked for terrestrial public radio stations across the United States. Her work has appeared on many public radio outlets including NPR and the BBC. In 2014, she co-founded the machine intelligence podcast, Talking Machines. In 2016 and 2017, she served as a curator and host for TedXBoston which focused on issues around and research in machine learning and artificial intelligence

Sanjeev Arora
ACM Prize in Computing - 2011
For contributions to computational complexity, algorithms, and optimization that have helped reshape our understanding of computation.

Yoshua Bengio
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2018
Together with Geoffrey E. Hinton and Yann LeCun for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.

Yann LeCun
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2018
Together with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey E. Hinton for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.

Raj Reddy
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 1994
For pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology.

Been Kim
Been Kim is a staff research scientist at Google Brain. Her research focuses on helping humans to communicate with complex machine learning models: not only by building tools (and tools to criticize them) but also by studying their nature compared to humans. She gave keynote at g20 2018, ICLR 2022 and ECML 2022. Her work won an UNESCO Netexplo award. She is the senior program chair at ICLR 2023 and a steering committee member of FAccT and SATML.

Dina Machuve
Dina Machuve is the Co-Founder and CTO of DevData Analytics, a data science consulting startup. She was until recently a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania. Her research focuses on developing data-driven solutions in agriculture and health. For her PhD, she investigated the information logistics of small and medium-sized food processors.

Shakir Mohamed
Shakir Mohamed works on technical and sociotechnical questions in machine learning research, working on problems in machine learning principles, applied problems in healthcare and environment, as well as ethics and diversity. Shakir is a Director for research at DeepMind in London, an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and an Honorary Professor of University College London.

Shannon Vallor
Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Professor in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, where she serves as Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and as a Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Professor Vallor's research explores how emerging technologies reshape human moral and intellectual character, and maps the ethical challenges and opportunities posed by new uses of data and artificial intelligence.

One of Alan Turing's most influential papers is his 1950 Computing machinery and intelligence, in which he introduces the famous "Turing test" for probing the nature of intelligence by evaluating the abilities of machines to behave as humans. In this test, which he calls the "Imitation Game," a (human) referee has to distinguish between two (remote and separate) entities, a human and a computer, only by observing answers to a sequence of arbitrary questions to each entity.

This lecture will exposit, through examples from a surprisingly diverse array of settings, the remarkable power of this basic idea to understand many other concepts. I will discuss variations of the Imitation Game in which we change the nature of the referee, and of the objects to be distinguished, to yield different analogs of the Turing test. These new Imitation Games lead to novel, precise, and operative definitions of classical notions, including secret, knowledge, privacy, randomness, proof, fairness, and others. These definitions have in turn led to numerous results, applications, and understanding.

Some, among many consequences of this fundamental paradigm, are the foundations of cryptography, the surprising discoveries on the power and limits of randomness, the recent influential notion of differential privacy, and breakthrough results on patterns in the prime numbers and navigation in networks. Central to each of these settings are computational and information theoretic limitations placed on the referee in the relevant Imitation Game.

This lecture will survey some of these developments and speculate on future uses of this paradigm in science and society, in a way which is hopefully accessible without any specific background knowledge.

Experts and laureates from diverse specializations examine various issues and engage in a lively, in-depth debate.

Moderator: Ragni Piene
University of Oslo

Eric A. Brewer
ACM Prize in Computing - 2009 
For his design and development of highly scalable internet services and innovations in bringing information technology to developing regions.

Alexei Efros
ACM Prize in Computing - 2016
For groundbreaking data-driven approaches to computer graphics and computer vision.

Shigefumi Mori
Fields Medal - 1990 
For important developments in algebraic geometry: the Minimal Model Program or Mori’s Program, in connection with the classification problems of algebraic varieties of dimension three.

Carlos Kenig
President International Mathematical Union (IMU)

Cherri M. Pancake
Oregon State University

Instead of diving straight into the program, take the opportunity to collect yourself so that you can proceed with a clearer mind and better prepared to absorb whatever the day may bring.

This mornings warm-up session with Andreas will help you strenghten your back & relax your neck. Come join us.

Access: laureates, young researchers, press, guests by invitation only

An entertaining evening at the Speyer Museum of Technology. A highlight of the evening will be a Science Slam with three young researchers hosted by Philipp Schrögel.

Party at the boat with music by Martin Stark and Friends.

Boarding: 13:30-14:00
Boat Trip: 14:00-18:00

Laureates: Visits to local schools

YR: Visits to the following local institutions:

• BioQuant
• German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
• Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS)
• Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR)
• Mathematics Center of University of Heidelberg and the Mathematics Center Heidelberg (MATCH)
• Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
• MLP SE
• SAS

Access: laureates, young researchers, press, guests by invitation only

A Bavarian Evening with folklore, dancing, as well as the tapping of the keg with the traditional cry of "O’zapft is". Featuring the Bayern- und Gebirgstrachten Verein e.V. Heidelberg.

In this talk, we examine how high performance computing has changed over the last 40-years and look toward the future in terms of trends. These changes have had and will continue to have a significant impact on our numerical scientific software. A new generation of software libraries and algorithms are needed to effectively use the high performance computing environments in use today.

In addition to the general crisis of trust in science and the media, researchers and science communicators are experiencing a certain hesitation to communicate on topics in the fields of computer science and mathematics in particular. Many topics in these fields often appear too complicated to communicate to a general public. At the same time, these fields deal with many important topics that also deeply affect the lives of ordinary citizens. Therefore, it is all the more important to communicate them well and report on them in a manner that conveys this relevance. After all, only well-informed citizens can make responsible decisions about their future. We see time and again that public discourse on scientific issues often lacks focus and the requisite depth because those who can make serious contributions to it are not heard or are reluctant to speak up. How can the scientific community and science journalism help counteract these trends? How can mathematics and computer science in particular be communicated in a way that sparks the public’s curiosity and interest? How can the scientific media’s discourse help increase the public’s measure of trust in it? What cutting-edge journalistic genres, styles and methods can provide new avenues and opportunities for science communication, particularly for complex issues? This panel will explore those questions in detail.

Moderator: Eva Wolfangel
Eva Wolfangel is an award-winning freelance science and tech journalist, a storyteller and feature writer, a speaker and moderator. Her focus is on science reporting as well as future technologies, tech ethics, cyber security, virtual reality and neuroscience.  Eva’s specialty is to combine creative writing and complex topics in order to reach a broad audience. She is part of the class of 2020 of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in Boston. In 2018, she was named European Science Journalist of the Year by the Association of British Science Writers.

Yann LeCun
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2018
Together with Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey E. Hinton for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.

Anil Ananthaswamy
Anil Ananthaswamy is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a former staff writer and deputy news editor for New Scientist magazine, and former MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow. He has been the journalist-in-residence at the Simons Institute at UC Berkeley. Ananthaswamy contributes regularly to Quanta Magazine, Scientific American, and others. He is the author of three popular-science books, The Edge of Physics, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Through Two Doors at Once, and is currently writing a book on the mathematics of machine learning.

Eugenia Cheng
Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician and concert pianist. She is Scientist In Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was granted tenure at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has previously taught at the universities of Cambridge, Chicago and Nice and holds a PhD in pure mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Alongside her research in Category Theory and undergraduate teaching, her aim is to rid the world of "math phobia". Eugenia was an early pioneer of math on YouTube and her videos have been viewed over 15 million times to date. She has also assisted with mathematics in elementary, middle and high schools for 20 years. Her first popular math book "How to Bake Pi" was featured on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and "Beyond Infinity" was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2017. Her latest book, “The Joy of Abstraction” will be released in October 2022.

Anna Maria Hartkopf
Anna Maria Hartkopf is the project manager of MIP.labor, a research project for science journalism in the subjects of mathematics, computer science, and physics at Freie Universität Berlin. The mathematician completed her doctorate on "Science Communication in Mathematics" in 2020. She had also previously specialized in the communication of mathematics; as a research assistant at the Mathematisches Formschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, as a mathematics teacher at a Berlin comprehensive school, and in the Collaborative Research Center "Discretization in Geometry and Dynamics". Together with Erin Henning she is editor of the recently published "Handbook of Mathematical Science Communication".

Young researchers have the opportunity to engage directly with laureates in a small group setting. These sessions are exclusive to young researchers and provide a more personal atmosphere for effective discussion.

Instead of diving straight into the program, take the opportunity to collect yourself so that you can proceed with a clearer mind and better prepared to absorb whatever the day may bring.

Start the day off with a session of Stress Release & Mindfulness with Andreas.

During the 9th HLF, experts provide practical tools and guidance for young researchers in a number of closed workshops. Young researchers will have 10 different workshops to choose from.

Access: laureates, young researchers, press, guests by invitation only

The last evening at the Heidelberg Castle serves as a grand finale after a week full of compelling exchange, networking and interaction between laureates and young researchers. The evening will feature a blend of highlights from the week, as well as a look towards the future.

Much of the fundamental research in computer science has been driven by the needs of those attempting to utilize computing for various applications, such as health or climate. Given the remarkable growth in computational capabilities, computing hardware, and development tools, Dr. Patel will discuss how more than ever computing is playing a critical role in social good. He we will highlight examples of how computing is driving new scientific discoveries across multiple disciplines in the hope to inspire rising computing researchers to think about how they can tie their work to impactful applications.

The advent of fault-tolerant quantum computers will be one of the defining moments in the history of computation. One of the negative aspects, however, is that these devices will break all of today's deployed public key cryptography. In this panel, designers of current mainstream encryption and future quantum-safe encryption methods will try to shed some light on the situation, discuss what is being done, and why one should already now start using quantum-safe encryption.

Moderator: Tom Geller
Tom Geller Productions

Vinton Gray Cerf
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2004
Together with Robert E. Kahn for pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet’s basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking.

Whitfield Diffie
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2015
Together with Martin Hellman for inventing and promulgating both asymmetric public-key cryptography, including its application to digital signatures, and a practical cryptographic key-exchange method.

Adi Shamir
ACM A.M. Turing Award - 2002
Together with Leonard M. Adleman and Ronald Rivest, for their ingenious contribution to making public-key cryptography useful in practice.

Vadim Lyubashevsky
Vadim Lyubashevsky is a principal research scientist in the cryptography group at IBM Research Europe in Zurich. Vadim’s area of research is the design of efficient quantum-safe cryptographic primitives based on the hardness of lattice problems. His work served as blueprints for both schemes which were recently chosen as primary standards in the NIST post-quantum standardization process.

Gregor Seiler
Gregor Seiler is a Research Scientist at IBM Research Europe in Zürich. He is working on the theory and practice of quantum-safe cryptography and lattice-based zero-knowledge proof systems. Gregor contributed to the design and implementation of three of the four schemes recently selected by NIST as the upcoming quantum-safe standards for public-key encryption and digital signatures.

The Scientific Interaction is a compelling session where young researchers collect practical guidance and some helpful tools to shape their future. Experts and alumni from academia and business provide insights into their careers. In subsequent breakout sessions, young researchers have the opportunity to engage directly with the experts and alumni and ask their questions.

The session “Career Paths for Mathematicians and Computer Scientists in Academia” will be joined by Ragni Piene, professor of mathematics at the University of Oslo, Robert Tarjan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science and HLF Alumna Jie Li, Principal Researcher HCI/UX at EPAM Systems.

The session „Career Paths for Mathematicians and Computer Scientists in Business” will be joined by Fabrizio Gagliardi, Chair of the ACM Europe Policy Committee (EUACM), Katharina Schäfer, Global Head of University Alliances at SAP and HLF Alumna Pooja Bharadwaj, Cyber Security Professional Services Consulting Engineer at Cisco System.

Panel

Academia

Moderator: Peter J. Mirski
Peter J. Mirski teaches at the Management Center Innsbruck, MCI and is director of the Management, Communication & IT Study Program. Peter Mirski studied economics at the University of Innsbruck with a specialization in computer science and business auditing and is the author of numerous articles and books. Throughout his career, he has been the co-founder of successful initiatives and businesses, such as his family business, Gruppe Dr. Mirski, the Management, Communication & IT programme of the Trans IT, Development and Transfer Center at the University of Innsbruck and the PDAgroup GmbH.

Ragni Piene
Ragni Piene is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oslo. She studied at the University of Oslo and the University of Orsay (Paris), and has a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her field of research is algebraic geometry. She was an invited speaker at the 1st European Congress of Mathematics in Paris, 1992, and a plenary speaker at the British Mathematical Colloquium in Sheffield, 2013. She is a member of Academia Europaea, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. She currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach and the Berlin Mathematical School, and on the Scientific Council of the Fondation Mathématique Jaques Hadamard. In 2002 she was elected to the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union (the first woman in the history of the IMU) and served for 8 years. In the period 2011–2014, she was chair of the Abel Prize Committee.

Robert Tarjan
Robert Tarjan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science, joined Princeton in 1985. He received doctoral and master’s degrees in computer science from Stanford in 1972 and 1971, respectively, after earning a bachelor’s in mathematics from Caltech. His academic experience involved assistant professorships at Cornell and Stanford, and a Miller research fellowship at UC, Berkeley. Robert Tarjan’s extensive involvement in the private sector includes past and continuing fellowship, research and scientific roles at the NEC Research Institute, Princeton; InterTrust Technologies, Sunnyvale, CA; Compaq Computer, Houston, TX; Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA; and Microsoft, Mountain View, CA. His honors include Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2010, the 2009 Edelman Award from INFORMS (member of winning H-P team), fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009), and the Blaise Pascal Medal in Mathematics and Computer Science from the European Academy of Sciences in 2004. Robert Tarjan was the first winner of the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, established in 1982 and awarded every four years for outstanding contributions in mathematical aspects of information sciences by the International Mathematical Union.

Jie Li
HLF Alumna Jie Li received her master’s degree in industrial design engineering and her PhD in human computer interaction, both from Delft University of Technology. Afterwards, Jie had been a postdoctoral researcher at the Dutch National Research Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science for 4 years. In December 2021, Jie joined EPAM as a principal researcher, and continues working on human factors research for AR/VR and digital products. Besides her research career, Jie is a cake artist and loves painting. She owns a boutique café called “Cake Researcher” in the Netherlands.

Business

Moderator: Dietmar Kilian
Dietmar Kilian worked in management and leadership positions such as Nixdorf Computers, Digital Equipment and SAP for over 20 years before leaving to the MCI as a professor in process-, project management and digitalization. Since 2007 he has been the managing partner at PDAgroup – an international consulting company. He is the author of numerous articles and books, and is an advisory board member in organizations and companies.

Fabrizio Gagliardi
Fabrizio Gagliardi is the Chair of the ACM Europe Policy Committee (EUACM). He works as Distinguished Research Director at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona and serves as Senior Strategy Advisor at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), in Spain. He has been consulting on computing and computing policy matters with the Commission of the European Union, several government and international bodies. Prior to this and until 2013 he was Europe, Middle East and Africa Director for External Research at Microsoft Research. He joined Microsoft in 2005 after a long career at CERN, the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics in Geneva. There he held several technical and senior managerial positions from 1975 on. Fabrizio Gagliardi obtained a doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Pisa in Italy in 1974.

Katharina Schäfer
Katharina Schäfer is the Global Head of University Alliances at SAP. She is responsible for activating academic and research collaborations with high schools, universities, and research organizations. Her passion is to bridge the gap between academia and industry and provide high quality education to all students worldwide. After completing her diploma in industrial engineering, she continued her academic career by pursuing her doctoral degree in conceptual aircraft design for sustainability at the RWTH Aachen University.

Pooja Bharadwaj
HLF Alumna Pooja Bharadwaj is a Cyber Security Professional Services Consulting Engineer at Cisco Systems. She has spent 3+ years in the industry after completing her master’s in the field of information security management. During her master’s, she had some very interesting hands-on experience in Cyber Forensics (Delhi Police Special Cell) and also explored Data Analysis and Machine Learning, along with their applications in the security domain. At Cisco, her work now involves designing, strengthening and implementing network security solutions for organizations across the world. She works with firewalls and AAA solutions, and has also seen the importance of good communication as well as creative writing in the field of technology.