I welcome you very cordially to Potsdam, the capital of the State of Brandenburg and at Hasso Plattner Ventures which is very close to HPI. This place is a kind of Mecca for IT-specialists.

With full justification the incubator with its core and Hasso Plattner Institute are seen as forges of the future elites of IT-science and business.

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The CONQUEST 2007 and the EuroSPI2 will be held as a double conference in September 2007 at the Hasso Plattner Institute and the University of Potsdam. Dr. Alexander Zeier (r.), Substitute Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Prof. Tiziana Margaria-Steffen (middle), Institute for Computer Sciences: Service and Software Engineering Potsdam University and iSQI Director Stephan Goericke (l.) aggreed on this by contract at the CONQUEST's Potsdam Reception on Friday evening. Goericke: “In the Hasso Plattner Institute – the University Centre of Excellence in IT Systems Engineering – and the University of Potsdam I found experienced and reliable partners. We will make the tenth CONQUEST and the Conference on European Systems and Software Process Improvement and Innovation – in short EuroSPI – a joint conference of national and international relevance that will push the image of this region as a resourceful and powerful location of IT. The conference will strongly attract national and international software experts, companies, universities and research establishments to exchange ideas and experiences regarding software quality.”

CONQUEST 2006 ended on Friday evening in Berlin. At the Closing Session the Best Paper and the Best Presentation have been awarded. The Best Paper Award of CONQUEST 2006 was given to Jürgen Rückert (r.), Heidelberg University. The Best Presentation Award went to Robin Schönwald of SAP Consulting. CONQUEST 2006 has been the most successful CONQUEST ever. All in all more than 400 participants, exhibitors and speakers from 20 countries have been at the conference at the Ludwig Erhard Haus in Berlin. A lot of positive feedback came from both participants and exhibitors – many companies and participants were interested in coming to next year's CONQUEST in Potsdam as well.

The International Software Quality Institute staff says thanks to all the participants who made the CONQUEST a successful and enjoyable conference. The next big iSQI event will be the International SPiCE DAYS in Frankfurt/Main, from June 13th to 15th, 2007.

iSQI Managing Director Stephan Goericke and Erik van Veenendaal, Director of Improve Quality Services BV (Netherlands), signed a contract on cooperation concerning Professional Trainings und Workshops in the area of Software Testing. Therefore new seminars in English language enrich the seminar program of the International Software Quality Institute, iSQI. On Wednesday at the CONQUEST van Veenendaal held a tutorial entitled “Risk Based Testing in Practice.” Software professionals who are interested to hear more from Erik van Veenendaal can participate in the new iSQI series “Best of 7 - The iSQI Excellence Tutorials.” Van Veenendaal will be speaker in June 2007 in Berlin.

Erik van Veenendaal is a leading international trainer and recognised expert in the area of software testing worldwide. Please find further information and the exact date of the Veenendaal tutorial and his Professional Trainings at www.isqi.org.

The Program Committee of CONQUEST 2006 has met at the conference and was extremely pleased with the progression of CONQUEST. Out of 80 papers, Ina Schieferdecker, Conference Chair, and the Board selected the 36 most interesting lectures. Conference attendees greatly praised the high standard of the conference. iSQI Managing Director Stephan Goericke thanked the Program Committee for their outstanding work. Moreover, he invited all members to be on the committee of CONQUEST 2007. Next year's conference is in cooperation with Hasso Plattner Institute and the University of Potsdam and will take place in Potsdam.

The attendees and speakers come from twenty different countries, from three continents, thus making this year's international participation higher than ever before. The aim of next year's CONQUEST is to encourage even more participation from abroad, especially from software professionals from Asia and Scandinavia.

The expert group that develops the new certification standard Certified Professional for Configuration Management met at the CONQUEST on Thursday. Head of this group is Anne Mette Jonassen Hass from Denmark. She held a tutorial on Wednesday entitled “The Mysterious CCB.” The internationally staffed braintrust is organised as an association based in Berlin. Its aim is to provide a worldwide standardised syllabus for the education and certification of Configuration Managers still within this year. The certification body of the new standard shall be the International Software Quality Institute.

In the morning, Prof. Dr. Ina Schieferdecker, Conference Chair, and Christian Wiesenhütter, Deputy CEO IHK Berlin, opened the first of two CONQUEST Session Days. After the Tutorial Day on Wednesday today the Conference concentrates on the topics SOA Approaches and Models, Project Management, Quality Control and Reviews, Quality Assurance, Software Development Processes and Model-Driven Approaches. All in all the conference attendees can look forward to 20 different lectures. As far as the contents are concerned, the highlights of the day wer the keynotes of Hellmuth Broda (Sun Microsystems Inc.) and Wolfgang Grieskamp (Microsoft).

In the evening the conference attendees are invited to take part in an extraordinary conference dinner at the Mercedes World at Salzufer. The dinner speech will be held by Heinz Paul Bonn, Vice President of Germany's largest IT industry association BITKOM, the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media.

In the morning the 9th Conference on Quality Engineering in Software Technology, in short CONQUEST, opened. Eight half-day tutorials determined the first day of the software quality conference that will be attended by more than 400 participants from all over the world within the three conference days.

In the evening Eran Davidson (CEO Hasso Plattner Ventures) spoke about “How to do right! Lessons learned from world class entrepreneurs.” At the Welcome Reception the Economic State Secretaries of Berlin and Brandenburg, Volkmar Strauch and Dr. Wolfgang Krüger, as well as Dr. Ortwin Wohlrab, Chair of SIBB, welcomed the conference attendees. Within the following two Session Days more than 40 different lectures will be held on various software quality topics. Everyone who decides to come tomorrow and is not registered yet, may still attend the conference and register at the Ludwig Erhard Haus in the early moring at 8 am. At the conference exhibition German and international IT top-level companies present their products and services. Not only conference attendees have free admission to the exhibition - everyone who is interested may come in for free.