PEP-NET Summit Keynote Speaker: Anke Domscheit-Berg 6. August 2010 – 12:01 by John Heaven (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

Anke Domscheit-Berg

Anke Domscheit-Berg is passionate about the potential for IT to connect citizens with government and does her part to move this field forward, which does not come as a surprise given her academic background, her professional career and her social engagement.

Indeed, it is the last of these that first catches the eye: on her personal blog about her visit to the Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India - of which she is German Ambassador - she describes herself as a feminist with green leanings (and she’s not a bad photographer, either, probably a fruit of her degree in Applied Arts 20 years ago). Dig a little deeper and it turns out that she is an advocate for all sorts of organisations and causes: from Amnesty International to Teach First Germany, via a German organisation banging the drum for female directors and a European Network of leading women in IT which wants to bring more gender balance into Technology Companies - across all leadership levels.

She writes regularly for national publications such as Die ZEIT, Die Tageszeitung, and der Freitag, and specialist publications such as eGovernment Computing and Kommune21. As a leading thinker on Germany’s Goverment 2.0 scene, she is also a regular contributor to the Government 2.0 Netzwerk Deutschland blog. A year ago, she initiated the German Government 2.0 Camp which will take place in September for the second time. Federal Minister of Interior, Mr Lothar de Maiziere, invited her as subject matter expert to his third Netpolicy Dialogue with a focus on eGovernment, where she pressed for a German Open Government Initiative.

But she is more than a commentator with a few smart ideas: following over a decade of experience in consulting firms McKinsey and Accenture where she advised large public sector accounts on their IT strategies (and even a stint at the Northumbria University as a network technician), Ms Domscheit-Berg is now Leader for Innovative Government Programs (including Government 2.0) with Microsoft Germany and became trusted advisor on innovation in eGovernment for public sector CIOs of all federal levels.

So we are really pleased to have Ms Domscheit-Berg speaking at the PEP-NET Summit from her unique standpoint as somebody not only with ideas and convictions but who is in a position to change things for the better.

Social Web:
Blog: www.gov20.de
Twitter: @anked

Tags: inenglish, PEP-NET Summit