Germany’s German Informatics Society (GI) has appointed four talented young computer scientists as Junior Fellows, naming Katharina Geldreich (TU Munich), Katharina Weitz (University of Augsburg), Dr. Wolfram Wingerath (Baqend GmbH) and Dr. Christoph Gröger (Robert Bosch GmbH) to join its Junior Fellowship. 

The move is designed to provide additional support for outstanding younger talents, recognising that today’s best young computer scientists will be the defining minds of tomorrow’s digitisation, both in solving social, scientific or economic problems. 

GI President, Prof. Hannes Federrath, said: “Every year I am amazed at the outstanding achievements and outstanding commitment of the young generation of computer scientists in this country, even at a young age. The four personalities honoured this year are the best proof. With the Junior Fellowship, we want to further promote these exemplary talents. I am already looking forward to the joint work and the many new impulses that our Junior Fellows will provide within and outside our professional association.”

Through the Junior Fellowship, GI encourages outstanding computer science talents from science and practice to get involved in the further development of computer science. The Junior Fellows receive professional and non-material support from the GI in order to independently implement ideas for the design of information technology in society and science. The Junior-Fellowship has been awarded by a jury every year since 2013. 

Katharina Geldreich conducts research at the TU Munich on the didactics of computer science, with a special focus on computational thinking and programming in primary schools. She investigates learning processes of pupils, while also dealing with the question of how primary school teachers can be enabled in the long term to deal competently with computer science topics in their lessons. She is committed to getting children – especially girls – interested in computer science at an early age and wants to promote interdisciplinary exchange on computer science in primary school. 

Katharina Weitz is a research assistant at the University of Augsburg and works at the Chair for Human-Centered Multimedia. Here she is researching methods to make artificial intelligence explainable and transparent for humans and their effects. In addition to her research activities, she uses her knowledge for the design of teaching materials on Artificial Intelligence and computer science, for interactive lectures, science slams and workshops to reach a broad public, especially children, young people and educational professionals. 

Dr. Wolfram Wingerath is a data engineer at the Hamburg university spin-off Baqend, which minimizes loading times in e-commerce by using an innovative caching technology. He is responsible for the development of a scalable data analysis infrastructure at Baqend, testing new input methods for software development beyond mouse and keyboard. Wolle would like to share his experiences with others and thereby provide new impulses for the education of computer scientists.

Dr. Christoph Gröger is Enterprise Architect for Data Analytics at Bosch and is responsible for the group-wide Data-Lake and Analytics architecture within the Bosch data strategy. His area of expertise includes Industrial Analytics, i.e. data analysis and artificial intelligence in industrial value creation, which he already researched during his doctorate at the University of Stuttgart. Dr. Christoph Gröger is committed to the further development of Industrial Analytics as an interdisciplinary field of competence between computer science and manufacturing industry as well as between science and practice. 

The official honouring of the Junior Fellows will take place on Thursday, 01.10.2020, at INFORMATIK 2020 – the 50th annual GI conference. With the free registration for virtual participation here you get access to all workshops, panel discussions and keynotes within the scope of #INFORMATIK2020.