Open Group Innovation Summit Event 2025

Volkswagen Group DS

September 3, 2025

An international forum for pioneering technologies and collaboration

Last week, the Open Group Innovation Summit took place in Berlin and brought together leading experts, visionary industry leaders, experienced practitioners and innovators from the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), digital transformation and quantum research.

Highlights of the event

Inspiring keynotes and lectures: Participants had the opportunity to learn from start-up founders, top management at Volkswagen and other industry leaders.
Interactive workshops and discussion rounds: In addition to the presentations, the summit offered numerous breakout sessions in which participants could actively participate and contribute their own ideas. It was particularly exciting that our VWGIS colleague Dr. Karina Hoekstra from the Research and Insights Competence Center was able to support the “Positive Future” team with her research expertise and the survey tool Survalyzer from the second breakout session onwards and that GIS gained visibility.
Networking opportunities: The summit provided an excellent platform for networking. Participants were able to make valuable contacts and exchange ideas with innovators from all over the world. Particularly cool: Thanks to the GIS backpacks, colleagues who didn’t know each other before were able to make friends more quickly. Our ITS colleagues were also easy to identify by their shirts and there were many opportunities to network with each other.
Exhibition of innovative technologies: At the accompanying exhibition, the R&D department presented the latest technologies and solutions for Volkswagen. This offered the participants the opportunity to find out about current trends and developments and to get to know innovative approaches.

The Open Group Innovation Summit was a complete success and showed the importance of exchange and collaboration in today’s fast-paced technology world. We look forward to incorporating the insights and ideas we have gained into our own projects and shaping the future together.

Thank you for this great opportunity!

“The Group Innovation Summit has shown how much potential there is in our organization. If we combine our strengths and remain open to new technologies such as quantum computing, we will not only help shape the future – we will actively shape it.”

“An inspiring event that gave us insights into the latest technological developments and provided us with exciting contacts within the Group.”

“According to experts, quantum computing technology will cause an extreme leap in computing power for certain applications within the next few years and thus significantly shape the IT industry. Due to considerable effects on encryption technologies, among other things, we as One GIS Group have to make VOLKSWAGEN Quantum ready!”