More often than not, situations arise by accident. All you have to do is create the right surroundings. It is always the same in life. Here is the story about how the “IF Expert Talk” on “Digital Transformation” at InterFace on July, 14th, 2017, was brought about.
First and foremost, you need to know that my beloved IT colleague and card-playing friend Lothar has been a member of the SPD for many years and as such was also the chairman of the board of directors at SPD-Ortsverein Neubiberg. In this role, he had invited me a few years ago to give a presentation about “new economy” (or something similar) for his SPD comrades at an SPD event.
That is what I did. After all, I travel a lot trying to make people aware of the fact that progress is, basically, important, but that you also have to act with a huge amount of responsibility when creating progress. To demonstrate this, I often cite the great Bertrand Russell:
All increase in technology will create a corresponding increase of wisdom if you want it to go with an increase, rather than with a decrease, of human happiness.
This sentence should make us all a little more considerate and critically contemplative.
So, while we were playing cards, Lothar told me that Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel (deputy SPD chairman) was going to be in our region on Friday, July, 14th and that the regional SPD was welcoming him between 4 and 5 p.m. He said that the guest had expressed the desire to attend “an event in or near Unterhaching“, with as little organizational effort for him as possible.
And the new SPD chairman was keen on organizing the visit to a modern enterprise in Unterhaching for Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, perhaps with some connection to digitalization. Since he remembered my presentation at the SPD (years ago), he had the idea that maybe InterFace AG was a good choice.
As you all know, I am no longer active in the operative business of InterFace AG, but I still try to accompany and support the enterprise as a “friendly board member”.
Consequently, I gladly made the visit of an SPD delegation at the InterFace AG headquarters in Unterhaching possible. Among other things, I believe this kind of thing is also part of our social responsibility as an enterprise.
And, accidentally, the regular board member meeting of InterFace AG was scheduled for the very same day, July, 14th, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Which meant that both my highly appreciated colleagues on the board of directors Dr. Professor Kathrin Möslein (deputy chairwoman) and Manfred Broy (chairman) were present.
And who could be better qualified to say something about digitalization in Bavaria and Germany than Manfred Broy, who is the founder of the Zentrum-Digitalisierung.Bayern (ZD.B)? Consequently, it was an obvious thing for me to ask the chairman of our supervisory board to interrupt our board meeting while the SPD delegation was visiting and to be part of the expert talk “digitalization” with Bela Bach and Herrn Schäfer-Gümbel.
After the expert talk, we continued with our supervisory board session and our visitors went to see the IF Lab. The video where you can see our visitors judge their stay actually made quite an impression on me.
Here is the full-length video of the “IF expert talk” on “digital transformation” from July, 14th, 2017 in Unterhaching at InterFace AG. You see the SPD candidate for parliament of the region München Land, Bela Bach, the SPD vice director Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Manfred Broy (founding president of the Zentrum Digitalisierung.Bayern) and Paul Schuster, speaker of the board of directors at InterFace AG. Incidentally, Bela Bach did a great job moderating the expert talk. Earlier, she had told me that this was a first for her!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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