Cyber Valley Day 2026

Cyber Valley Day opened with welcome addresses from leading representatives from politics, science, and our Innovation Campus: Moritz Hardt, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems; Cem Özdemir, Minister President of Baden-Württemberg; Boris Palmer, Lord Mayor of Tübingen; Karla Pollmann, President of the University of Tübingen; Simone Schwanitz, Secretary General of the Max Planck Society; and Florian Mayer, Managing Director of Cyber Valley GmbH, welcomed guests to the anniversary celebration.

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Scientific program at the main stage

Hosted by Linda Behringer, press officer at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the main stage program brought together voices from across the international AI and innovation landscape.

A keynote by Manuela Veloso, Herbert A. Simon University Professor Emerita at Carnegie Mellon University, provided one of the early highlights of the day. Throughout the program, the Cyber Valley Voices sessions on the main stage featured leading researchers from across our Innovation Campus, including Bernhard Schölkopf from the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Matthias Bethge from the Tübingen AI Center at the University of Tübingen, Tamim Asfour from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Katherine J. Kuchenbecker from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Steffen Staab from the University of Stuttgart, and Werner Kraus from Fraunhofer IPA. In the Auditorium, C. David Remy and Philipp Rothemund from the University of Stuttgart, as well as Chandan Kumar from Fraunhofer IAO, shared insights into their research. The afternoon continued with a keynote by Alex Smola, CEO and co-founder of Boson AI, as well as a talk by Rafael Laguna de la Vera from the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIN-D).

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Surprise keynote speaker

One of the biggest highlights of the day was our surprise keynote speaker: Yoshua Bengio, one of the pioneers of modern artificial intelligence. He has become one of the most prominent voices discussing the societal implications of AI, discussing questions regarding safety, and he calls for a responsible development of AI. Having Yoshua Bengio join us for our anniversary was very special!

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From excellent scientific ideas to real-world applications and impact

The panel discussion “Building what's next: How bold ideas move from research to impact” brought together researchers, founders, and innovation experts to discuss how ambitious ideas can move beyond research and into society and industry. Moderated by Larissa Holzki from Handelsblatt, the discussion featured Saadet Baltaci and Antonia Georgopoulou from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Aline Defranceski from Data Coffee, Maike Kaufman from Polybot, Theodora Preda from Plug and Play, and Katharina Schmidt from apic.ai.

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The Cyber Valley Start-up Voices session offered further perspectives on innovation and entrepreneurship, with contributions from Prashanth Halady of Bosch, Mario Krenn of Feyer, and Jonas Müller of Black Forest Labs.

Research from our Innovation Campus

The exhibition with more than 40 exhibitors on the ground floor brought together academic partners, research projects, and organizations from across our Innovation Campus, including the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the Haptic Intelligence Department, Max Planck Foundation, the IMPRS-IS, the University of Stuttgart (IntCDC, IRIS, MLIP, KI-SIR), the University of Tübingen (ML Cluster, Tübingen AI Center), Bionic Intelligence Tübingen Stuttgart (BITS), ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, ARENA2036, BWKI, Cyber Valley GmbH and PAB, High Performance Humanoid Technologies Lab (H²T) from KIT, KE:SAI, Oktonex, Polybot, Prior Labs, and more!

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A stage for the next generation of founders

On the sixth floor, the Start-up Basecamp put entrepreneurship and emerging innovation at the center of the conversation.
Start-ups and initiatives including Bergsonne Labs, Denkbox, NUVUS, Computomics, Feyer, MaiTY, Istari AI, TextVerstehen, Tanocrix, Data Coffee, Yugen Space, IntegraSkin, MIRA vision, the Startup Center Tübingen, and the Tübingen AI Center presented their work and connected with researchers, investors, and other members of the ecosystem.
An investor “Ask Me Anything” session also gave researchers and future founders the opportunity to gain practical insights into early-stage investment and entrepreneurship. Representatives from Capnamic, Fly Ventures, AI Fund, and Mätch VC shared their perspectives on what investors look for and what researchers should consider when exploring the path from research to start-up.
During more than 40 1:1 sessions with investors, researchers and prospective founders had the opportunity to discuss their individual ideas, receive tailored feedback, and explore potential pathways toward funding and venture creation.

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Special announcement

The final highlight of the day was grubel, which announced its launch during Cyber Valley Day. Founded by Moritz Hardt, Reinhard Heckel, Vedant Nanda and Navid Rekabsaz, grubel is building AI systems specialized to individual legal matters. Its vision: every matter should be able to build its own AI by combining data curation, adaptation, and evaluation to create specialized systems that can deliver high performance while keeping sensitive data under the customer’s control. We’re excited to see this research-driven venture take its next step and look forward to following its journey! 

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Looking ahead

Ten years ago, a group of visionary partners laid the foundation for Cyber Valley. Today, it has grown into a vibrant ecosystem connecting excellent research, entrepreneurship, industry, and society. Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make this celebration a very memorable day!