Ms. Czerny, the DLD is back as a face-to-face event - only video conferences are unsatisfactory even for the nerds, right?

Alexander Armbruster

Responsible editor for business online.

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Clearly: Nothing can replace an on-site conference!

Before the pandemic, conferences and events were nothing out of the ordinary, but the two years since the outbreak of Corona have made it clear to me that nothing beats personal exchange on site.

People want to get out, into the hustle and bustle, to network and realize themselves, to experience the spontaneous and the unplannable, to be inspired by others.

That's exactly what DLD stands for - and that's exactly what video conferences cannot do sufficiently.

In addition, it has been shown how true the DLD motto "expect the unexpected" is - both in a negative and in a positive sense.

You always have to be prepared for anything.

I am all the more pleased that the DLD Munich 22 is finally going on!

This year's motto is "Reality Rules!?" What do you mean by that?

With the rapid changes in our world, a realistic DLD view is needed right now, because new realities such as the energy crisis, climate change or the war in Ukraine are forcing us to rethink and present us with new challenges.

And that's what's so exciting: we notice that we are all anchored in different realities and realities of life.

A meeting at the DLD 22 also means becoming aware of these different realities and making them usable for progress in society as a whole.

That's why we chose the motto "Reality Rules!?": We rely on education, want to offer orientation and point out opportunities in uncertain times with a top-class line-up from politics, science, industry and technology.

We had already set the motto last autumn, when the conference was still planned for January.

Now taking place in May against a backdrop of brand new developments, we can see that the theme for a conference in today's rapidly changing world could not have been more appropriate.

In the history of DLD, celebrities from Silicon Valley and other tech parts of America have been guests: Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Craig Venter or Peter Thiel - this year the really big names are missing, why?

Stop it.

The big names are at every big conference and they always talk about the same topics.

The "Hidden Champions" are much more important because they will soon be the new superstars!

That's why we're going to focus more on these personalities this time.

One example is Professor Andrea Pfeifer: We live in an aging society in which we have to adapt to the associated diseases and pandemics.

Andrea Pfeifer is doing exactly that and is working on a vaccine against Alzheimer's - that's why we invited her.

What are the topics that interest you most at the moment?

I am interested in what the future of the world will look like and what contribution technologies such as artificial intelligence or blockchain will make.

How can quantum computing change the economy?

What is the impact of machine learning on education and upbringing?

And how will we feed ourselves in the future?

The changes in biodiversity, which bring with them a wide variety of developments, are also relevant here.

What is your greatest hope when you think of key areas like AI, biotech or quantum computing?

My hope is that people will be careful and enlightened about it.

DLD makes a contribution to this: We are interested in which topics are relevant and who the drivers are.

We bring selected speakers and a curated audience together and create a program in which we highlight all the important topics.

This is how the famous DLD community is created, which links relevant players and thus also creates something new.

And what's your biggest fear?

My greatest fear is the misuse of the new technologies, fueling violence and frustration.

That man cannot free himself, but remains immature.

Right now man is very dependent and his life is determined by technologies and machines without him reflecting this through his own mind.

It is imperative that we free ourselves from the self-imposed immaturity described by Kant.

It is important to me that we all engage more with the new world, and that is why education and awareness play such an important role.

When you brought the DLD into being, it was a separate, special place for special topics, the topics of the nerds, so to speak.

The competition is now fierce, the digital revolution is also being discussed at length at the WEF in Davos, and the governments of the world's most important economies are dealing with it.

Will DLD one day fall victim to its own success – namely having identified important topics and companies in an area that everyone who is no longer a niche is talking about today?

No, on the contrary - we are pleased and see it as an absolutely positive development that the topics that we only discussed with a small group of experts in the early days of DLD have now arrived in the mainstream of society.

It also shows that we have the right instinct for future trends.

It is precisely this that enables us to attract a much broader audience to our conferences and to penetrate all industries and areas of life with our topics!

We do not shy away from competition and are very fortunate to have such a dedicated and loyal DLD community that continues to grow.