With over 28 years of managerial experience in product, IT, business development, and marketing, Ralf is responsible for bringing many of the world’s leading big data, AI, and machine learning startups to international conferences in Europe. Having worked for five years as a product manager in Silicon Valley, he directly contributed to the building of the world’s first gigabit and terabit routers. Before that, he spent four years in China during the years in which the country opened up to foreign investment from the West. Ralf holds an MA in electrical engineering and radio frequency technology from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and a degree in data engineering from the UCSC.

Dr. Gerhard Salge is the Chief Technology Officer of Hitachi Energy.
He joined Hitachi Energy’s predecessor in 1999 working within Corporate Research. From 2005
to 2007, he was Global Technology Manager within the Medium Voltage Products Business
Unit. From 2007 to 2014, he was responsible for the global R&D within the total Business
Unit. In 2015 he became Global Head of Technology for Power Products, then Business
Chief Technology Officer - CTO for Power Grids in 2016.
Dr. Salge holds a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany.