Bjoern Brauel is Vice President and Deputy CTO at Software AG, the world’s largest independent provider of Business Infrastructure Software according to their statement.

In this position he presents Software AG’s SOA strategy at conferences, trade shows as well as customer events and seminars worldwide. Bjoern also works with customers, communities and analysts to drive technology trends, enable customer visions and understand future IT needs. Bjoern has a strong technology background, he worked in R&D, pre-sales and also held marketing and product strategy positions. He is well known in the industry as a speaker who is able to transport technology messages to a business audience while remaining precise and honest. For the past five years, he has mainly focused on Service Oriented Architecture, Business Process Management and integration technologies around XML and Web services.

Prior to joining Software AG, he had worked in the open source community for more than ten years.

Chief Operating Officer for Matrix Global Israel (Talpiot)

Dear Readers,

I am honored to have been chosen as the keynote speaker of CONQUEST 2008.

I began my IT career in 1975, after successfully completing my education in Control Data Institute as well as Thomas Edison University. While employed as a programmer in Rutgers University, I married and immigrated to Israel. There I continued my career and education while raising a family of six. I have held numerous IT positions: in the American Israel Paper Mills Corp., in Matrix-Bashan, a leading software firm in Israel as well CIO of the Israel Foreign Ministry for over 11 years. I resigned from Ministry to devote my time in the founding of Matrix Global, where I currently hold the position of Chief Operating Officer.   

As a founding partner of Matrix Global, I understand the effects of globalization as well as the promise it offers. The vision at Matrix Global, which has since become a strong reality was based on the wings of globalization and offshore outsourcing.   

Matrix Global, currently employs over 600 software professionals in Israel and Eastern Europe, in both software development and quality assurance. More than 400 employees are ultra-orthodox women, who have been enabled to enter the hi-tech field and continue their training and careers while raising their families and sustaining their unique culture. Our Software Quality Assurance Division has grown dramatically to over 200 professionals. In order to sustain our high  standards, all personnel undergo extensive training. Specifically, in the quality assurance arena all courses and methodologies are based on ISQTB standards and certification.   

Matrix Global customers are currently primarily based in the United States. In 2008, we are targeting the European Community as our growth potential for our competence centers in both Israel and Eastern Europe.  

I persee this conference as an excellent oppurtunity to "tell our unique story". As an Ultra Othodox woman, I hope this conference will enable me to portray to you a unique aspect of both offshore outsourcing and ultra Orthodox Jewish "hi-tech professional women", largely unknown and unpublicized in the world, where a new future blends culture and hi-tech in a unique successful fashion.

I am proud to share with the attendees of this conference, our vision, our goals and our reality. 

Looking forward to seeing you then,

Libby Affen 

Dr. Walter Benzing is Senior Vice President responsible for a software- and product development department in the Products & Innovation division of Deutsche Telekom. After studying and graduation of electro-technology, specialised in technical computer science at the University of Karlsruhe he worked in different management positions within Deutsche Telekom in the area of software development and software quality management. His main focus is on developing software for value added services, portals and business support solutions. Also he is working as technical project manager for strategic projects, like the system integration subproject of the IP-TV product suite of Deutsche Telekom (Entertain).In addition Mr. Benzing is a trained Bootstrap Auditor and participated in this role at the audit of different large software projects of the German Telekom.

Dr. Ingolf Krüger is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department of UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, where he directs the "Service-Oriented Software and Systems Engineering Laboratory" (S3EL). He also directs the "Software & Systems Architecture & Integration" (SAINT) functional area within the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). Dr. Krüger is a member of the UCSD Divisional Council of Calit2.
Dr. Krüger’s major research interests are service-oriented software & systems engineering for distributed, reactive systems, software architectures, description techniques, verification & validation, and development processes. The application domains to which he applies his research results span the entire range from networked embedded systems to Internet-wide business information architectures.

Karin Vosseberg, pdv.com Beratungs-GmbH (Germany)

Andreas Spillner, Bremen University of Applied Sciences (Germany)

Karin, the Test-Driven-Developer, meets Andreas, the Certified Tester. What will happen when they work together? They have different kinds of background and hold different views to development and testing. This presentation isn´t a »usual« keynote, it will be a dialog between two persons and hopefully enjoyable to the audience.

Dr. Karin Vosseberg works as Senior Consultant by pdv.com Beratungs-GmbH in the team of Business Development. Her focus is on software development and quality assurance processes. She has given many talks on national and international conferences, e.g. Women, Work and Computerization 2000, SQM 2002 and 2003, EuroSTAR 2001 and 2005, Software Management 2004, SQC 2008. In addition Dr. Vosseberg keeps in university contact by regularly teaching assignments.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Spillner has 30 years of experience in the field of software development and testing, in practice and research. He works at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen Prof. Dr. Spillner is foundation member of the German Testing Board and member of the ASQF Advisory Board. He was founder and for many years chairman of the German Special Interest Group in Software Testing (TAV). 2007 he was appointed as GI Fellow. He is author and co-author of several books and has a variety of publications in journals. Prof. Dr. Spillner has given a lot of lectures at international and national conferences and seminars.