Christian-Werner Loesch graduated at the Technical University in Vienna in applied Mathematics and Physics as Dipl. Ing. (Physics/Electronics) and Dr. sc. (nuclear and semiconductor physics). After working as scientific staff at the Institute of Experimental Physics, he qualified as Austrian candidate for CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire), Geneva as Fellow (Research). After successful completion of his research project he was delegated to Directorate for Scientific Affaires of OECD (Organisation Européenne de Cooperation et Developpement) in Paris.During his work at OECD Paris, IBM offered him a position in IBM. He choose Austria where he followed an IBM Career path including positions as e.g.: Director of the Vienna Branch office up to Assistant to the IBM President (EMEA) and Vicepresident.Consecutively he held various executive positions including Director of Plans and Controls, Director of Operations, Asst. General Manager for Eastern and Central Europe.In addition he was accomplishing various special assignments ranging from the introduction of the PC in Europe or, the European Supercomputing ProjectAs Gen. Mgr. of the IBM Academic Initiative he initiated and implemented the establishment of Austria's international internet connection (backbone to CERN) and the Vienna node, as well as computing centres in Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and other Central and Eastern European Capital thus integration of these former 'behind the Iron Curtain' university facilities into the international networks.Both during and after his activities at IBM up to the present Loesch was lecturing, key note speaker at conferences, holding seminars at various locations from Alpbach to private consultancies and Universities. The special background and experience of Loesch combining technology, economy, business and assessment of future opportunities enable the multilateral scope of view and analysis you will find in these lectures.
Gerhard Chroust is a Professor emeritus from the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria doing research on systemic aspects and human factors in software development and disaster management and human factors. He served as Secretary General of the International Federation for Systems Research from 1993 - 2018