60th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty – GFA celebrates 60 years of German-French relations

January 22, 2023/in News, Press/by Olivia Pahl

Exactly 60 years ago, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles De Gaulle signed the Treaty of Friendship in the Élysée Palace. With this agreement, the two neighbors paved the way for a prosperous common future in the heart of Europe after long enmity and wars.

Today, the current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron, as well as other politicians and invited guests, met at the Sorbonne University to celebrate this anniversary.

The GFA also celebrates this day, which makes its mission possible, namely to promote and actively shape bilateral research, higher education and industrial relations in the Industry of the Future.

Macron stressed today that Germany and France “cleared the path to reconciliation,” and must therefore “become pioneers to relaunch Europe.” (According to: https://www.dw.com/en/scholz-and-macron-celebrate-60-years-of-elysee-treaty/a-64480184)

It was the same spirit that helped founding the GFA in 2015, when Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) reacted to the idea of President Macron and former Chancellor Angela Merkel to create a French-German research and innovation network accompanying the digitalization of industry processes focusing on AI, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and network cooperation. Since then, the GFA helped develop a total of 30 French-German research projects, directly involving more than 175 researchers, PhD students and engineers as well as more than 30 industrial partners.

The GFA is at the forefront of innovation and will continue it’s mission with a year full of bilateral events, calls-for-projects and other networking activities to support bringing Germany, France and Europe to the cutting edge in the Industry of the Future.

We thank all researchers, companies, network partners and the many people who have helped us in our mission so far and will continue to support us in the future!

GREENHACK~IT – French-German Hackathon, Dec 8-11, 2022 in Munich

November 30, 2022/in Education projects, Events, Hackathon, News/by Olivia Pahl

!Students from TUM and LMU may still apply for the hackathon until Dec. 4th! Click here!

What is GreenHack~IT?

A hackathon on Green AI for Industry 4.0

Application of Artificial Intelligence on Industrial problems under a Green IT perspective

Using of AI to optimise existing processes in order to make them more sustainable or green.

The hackathon will take place at the Munich Data Science Institute at the TUM campus in Garching.

We will gather 30 students from Institut Mines Télécom (IMT) in France and 30 students from Technical University of Munich (TUM) to form 10 French-German teams of 6 students to tackle the industrial challenge which will be provided by ArianeGroup.

The students will work 3 days and nights to solve the challenge and the best teams will be elected by a jury consisting of academics, industrial experts from Ariane Group, as well as members from the German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future.

This year’s hackathon will take place on December 8-11, 2022

As the participants are already chosen, stay tuned for the next hackathon in 2023. To stay updated on our education projects such as hackathons and summer schools, please check our education page from time to time for news!

What is a hackathon in machine learning?

A machine learning or a data science hackathon is an event that runs for a consecutive period of time (nights or week-ends), where people get together and work non-stop on data-related projects for practice, recognition, networking and for having fun. Data science hackathons can be challenging to crack for beginners. However, one need not be an expert in the field to participate in one. In fact, competitions or hackathons are a great way to master one’s skills, add badges to one’s resume, find solutions to difficult problems and ultimately, find his/her future job in a fun way.

It is about: collaboration, experimentation, agility and serendipity.

Find more info also on the website of the GreenHack~IT.

!Students from TUM and LMU may still apply for the hackathon until Dec. 4th! Click here!

Smart World! Smart Europe? – Conference on European Digital Sovereignty

August 2, 2022/in Conference, Events, News, Recording/by Cosima Stocker

On 11 and 12 May 2022, we held our first big conference on European Digital Sovereignty in Munich.

You are cordially invited to watch the recordin g of the first day…

and the second day, too!

The conference focused on ideas that seek to advance Digital European Sovereignty. For this purpose we brought together relevant experts from society, academia and industry. Overall the conference seeks to raise awareness on the topic of European Digital Sovereignty, and generate concrete solutions on future education, research, governance.

On the first day, we showed ideas for solutions to advance European Digital Sovereignty, especially presented by groups of students from all over Europe.

On the second day, we integrated politics’, academia’s and industry’s challenges with these ideas.

GFA Konferenz Foto: Andreas Heddergott /

5th Future-IoT.org PhD school “IoT meets Autonomy”, 29.8.-2.9.2022 in Berlin

June 13, 2022/0 Comments/in 2022IoTmeetsAutonomy, News, SummerSchool/by Science Blog future-iot.org

We celebrate our 5th anniversary this year! We cordially invite you to our 5th Future-IoT.org PhD school on “IoT meets Autonomy” from Aug 29th – Sep 2nd, 2022 at the Einstein Center Digital Future in Berlin, Germany. Expect a week full of exciting challenges, keynotes, PhD pitches, networking, sight seeing, and more – short, a lot of fun is awaiting you. Inform your friends! Share the info! Subscribe to the news! Participate with your company in the organisation! More info and registration at school.future-iot.org

This year’s edition has the motto “IoT meets Autonomy“. Many of the computer systems around us work autonomously. They simply run without human intervention, adapt to their environment, or even evolve with mechanisms such as Machine Learning. Implementing such functionality can be challenging. These challenges are not only technical but also ethical, societal, juridic, etc. In this years edition, we will explore different forms of autonomy using the IoT as use case. Topics include but are not limited to Data Analytics, Machine Learning, IoT protocols, self-*, and cybersecurity.

All in the usual format with a strong participation of our industry partners, including Siemens and AWS, our university partners TU IMT Atlantique, TU München, TU Berlin, Institut Mines Télécom, and our institutional partners German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future and Université Franco-Allemande / Deutsch-Französische Hochschule.

About the Future-IoT.org PhD school series

The Future-IoT.org Ph.D. school series happens once a year since 2018. It was started by Marc-Oliver Pahl (back then TU München, now IMT Atlantique) and Nicolas Montavont (IMT Atlantique). In 2022 Sebastian Steinhorst (TUM) joined the organization.

The previous editions are listed in the following. Click on the links to get an impression of what you can expect in the recordings.

The series is organized by IMT Atlantique and the Technical University of Munich as a flagship event of the German-French Academy for the Industry of the Future. The French-German series is kindly supported by the Deutsch-Französische Hochschule / Université Franco-Allemande.

Future-IoT.org connects academia and industry. Therefore, the series is in collaboration with leading industry partners from France and Germany including Airbus, ArianeGroup, Atos, AWS, elm.leblanc, Siemens, and several other industrial partners.

The Future IoT summer school offers an exciting mix of lectures, hands-on tutorials, and hackathon challenges. There is also a lot of room for getting to know each other, networking, and exploring our hosting city!

Key facts

40 students from all over the world on-site, connecting to each other and working on real challenges
~60 online participants
Live Streaming over YouTube and LinkedIN
~11 Keynotes and lectures from top industrial and academic experts.
~10 exciting challenges you will work on in teams of 4 coming directly from our industry partners in our startup hackathon.
1 icebreaker session with your PhD pitch, opening a great networking event.
1 hacking night with games and pizza.
1 pitch event in front of our expert jury on Friday with prizes!
Direct contact to key people of the participating companies.
A unique location with excellent food.
Multiple social events to get to know all participants and our hosting city
and much more!