Advisory Board

International relations, Berlin relations, export control policy

He served the German Air Force and held different positions including leadership activities in the field of signal intelligence. He was responsible for the contacts of the German Armed Forces to Non-Nato countries and is well connected in Berlin focusing diplomatic and political activities in the field of security.

Electronics, microwave technology, research

Since 2008 he has been member of the Chair of Technical Electronics at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen. A long history of experience in telecommunication industry (Lucent, Bell Labs Research) and in international organizations (ETSI) forms the foundation for practice-oriented research. Development oriented projects and engagement in spin-off projects complete the spectrum of experience.

International business administration, risk management, marketing strategies, audits,contracts, coaching

He holds a master degree in Electrical Engineering from the Bergische University of Wuppertal, and received a bachelor in economics from the Business Institute Weil am Rhein, Germany. His career is characterized by responsible management positions in different international oriented companies. From 1987 until 2010 he worked in key positions for Siemens reporting to the executive management. Focus had been leadership and management positions in Latin America, Africa, GUS, the global market and international projects. Today he is active as independent consultant in his own company GIC, Global Industry Consulting, founded in 2010.

Business and project management, software development, automation, quality management, start-up

Karl-Heinz John studied computer science at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen. Having obtained his diploma degree, he became co-founder of a new software company, infoteam GmbH, in Bubenreuth near Erlangen in 1983. He started as a developer and, in 1989, took over responsibility as managing director. In 2010, infoteam GmbH changed to a stock company; his new role was CEO of the infoteam Software AG until his retirement in 2016. infoteam has branches in Dortmund/Germany, Switzerland and China. Karl-Heinz John was co-founder of several important organizations such as plcopen, the largest software organization worldwide, and “Automation Valley” in the metropolitan region Erlangen. For many years, he was responsible as vice-president of ASQF, the largest software quality organization in Germany. He is president of the Bavarian cluster Mechatronik & Automation and advisor of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) Mittelfranken.

Linguistic, interpreting, translation, language technology, training

He has been active as leading manager in German and European governmental programs for the development of innovative language technology based tools and IT solutions for the application in the field of security. Collaborative research activities had been part of the programs. He is focusing automatic translation, text analysis, fact extraction, topic and word spotting and other speech technology oriented activities.

Signal processing, information and data fusion, tracking, research

He studied math and physics and completed his doctorate in 1990. He continued his career at the Fraunhofer institute for communication, information processing and ergonomics where he acts today as department manager. He is an internationally acknowledged scientist, fellow of the IEEE, habilitated adjunct professor, with numerous presentations, publications and project experience.

Start-Up, business plan, financing, governmental funding, research relations, product management, project management

He studied at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen and completed his doctorate in 1981 in digital signal processing. He started his first own business MEDAV Digitale Signalverarbeitung GmbH with the age of 28 years. Additional start-ups followed. Today he contributes with more than 33 years of experience in business development and acting as sole stakeholder and managing director from start-up scenarios to successful exits in the measurement and security market.

Intelligence cycle, sensors, processing, analysis, reporting

He worked for the German Foreign Intelligence Service, among other as head of technical divisions for communications engineering, research, development, and equipment. He was chairman of the national working group SIGINT and of the working group Technical Means for Intelligence Operations. He coordinated and managed national and international collaborative projects.

Speech technology, pattern recognition, computer science

He is professor for Applied Computer Science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and member of the editorial board of Speech Communication and EURASIP JASMP. He is teaming with researchers in the international speech community and participated in the foundation of spin-off companies. His current subjects of interest are speaker characterization, prosody, analysis of pathologic speech, computer aided language learning and emotion analysis.

He worked in diverse responsible positions: Senior CID Commander Bavarian State Police (OC, AML, CT), 1975 - 1994; Director R and D at Europol, NL, 1995 - 2000; Chairman of EU Artificial Intelligence Research Projects; Commander of the WEU Balkan Mission 2001; Head of EU Missions in Albania 2002 - 12/2007. Further qualifications are: Professor for International Strategic Management 2005; Chartered Management Institute, London, 2005; Consultant for "Intelligence", European Parliament, 2011; Speaker on Intelligence at International Security Conferences.

Measurement, direction Finding, electromagnetic wave propagation

He received the Dipl.-Ing. (M.S.E.E.), Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.E.E.) and the Dr.-Ing. habil. degrees in electrical engineering and information technology from Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany. Since 1992 he has been a professor of electrical engineering at TU Ilmenau, where he is the head of Electronic Measurement Research Laboratory. He is fellow of the IEEE and has earned several awards, e.g. the Vodafone Innovation Award in 2014.

Microwave technology, integrated optics, high-temperature superconductivity, SAW, communication systems, automotive EMC

His career is marked by different excellent positions at different universities, research institutes and industry. Since 2002 he is head of the Institute for Electronics Engineering at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. He received many awards, is highly engaged in academia and cooperation projects, is a Fellow of IEEE and a member of the The Electromagnetics Academy. Furthermore he is engaged in many international organisations and boards.