35. AFCEA trade show with new records

For the first time, more than 200 exhibitors participated in the AFCEA trade fair. The IT fair for the Bundeswehr and organizations with security tasks took place on 11th and 12th May. "This is the largest trade fair we have ever had," said Brigadier General Armin Fleischmann, Chairman of AFCEA Bonn e.V. And another record: With 3,700 visitors, the event management recorded the highest number ever.

For the 35th exhibition under the motto "(Artificial) Intelligence - Opportunities for Humans and Technology", the organizer expanded the area and additionally expanded it on the first day of the exhibition with the innovation show BWI innoXperience in the historic Plenary Building. With the #DigitalDefenseDebate of the Emerging Leaders AFCEA Bonn, and the awarding of the AFCEA Study Prize, the non-profit association also expanded the event in terms of content.

Hendrik Wüst, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, spoke in his video message that the event was exactly in the right place, as NRW is to develop into the leading location for AI research. Martin Kaloudis, CEO of BWI GmbH, considered in his keynote at the opening of the accompanying symposium, Artificial Intelligence technologies as "key technologies of all key technologies". However, he sees Germany not yet able to use AI as a key technology of all key technologies. In order to prevent Germany and Europe from falling behind, one must invest more in AI, try it out on a broad front and make it marketable. "If we do not start investing more in AI, trying it out on a broad front, and making it marketable immediately, we will miss our chance for digital sovereignty in using AI," said Kaloudis.

Also, the futurist Lars Thomsen, who took a look at the technological development of the next ten years on the second day, confirmed this assessment: In Germany, the fundamental role of Artificial Intelligence has not yet been understood. Personal assistance systems, logistics, robotics, or mobility will massively change and gain importance according to Thomsen's assessment. Against this background, AFCEA Chairman Fleischmann called for more visions and more courage.

#DigitalDefenseDebate

With the #DigitalDefenseDebate of the Emerging Leaders AFCEA Bonn, took to the stage. Antonia Leonnie Schmidt, Emerging Leaders AFCEA Bonn e.V., moderated the interdisciplinary format, in which Major General Dr. Ansgar Rieks, Deputy Inspector General of the Air Force, Prof. Dr. Holger H. Mey, Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Vice President Advanced Concepts, Dr. Gerhard Schabhüser, Federal Office for Information Security, Vice President, and Dr. Simon Vogt, President, Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity (Cyber Agency), discussed how the use of Artificial Intelligence will develop. The panel discussed ethical questions. In their implementation, they all agreed that there is still room for improvement in the application.

AFCEA Study Prize

This year, the AFCEA Study Prize was awarded as part of the trade fair. The prize is endowed with 20,000 euros in 2022 and was suspended last year. A total of 19 submissions from seven universities were evaluated. The two first-place winners each receive 5,000 euros. The jury honored Markus Krestel from the University of Bonn for his work "Sensor Path Planning for Multi-Emitter Localization using Policy Rollout" and Helena Balabin from the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences for her work "Multimodal Transformers for Biomedical Text and Knowledge Graph Data". Three graduates in second place each received 3,000 euros. A 3rd prize was awarded with 1,000 euros.

About AFCEA Bonn e.V.

AFCEA Bonn e.V. is a recognized non-profit organization and is a neutral specialist forum for modern information and communication technology. The user forum for telecommunications, computers, electronics, and automation (AFCEA) Bonn e.V. has over 1,000 personal and more than 100 corporate members.

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