Back
10/15/2025 | Aktuell

Looking back: The ITeG celebrates its 20th anniversary

@ITeG
Photos: Nicolas Wefers

On Wednesday, October 8, 2025, the  Research Center for Information Systems Design (ITeG)celebrated its 20th anniversary. The event offered a varied program of greetings and birthday wishes, panel discussions, project presentations and insights into current research.

In their speeches, Prof. Dr. Ute Clement, President of the University of Kassel, and Georg Matzner, Head of the Faculty of IT Standards and Cloud at the Hessian Ministry for Digitization and Innovation, paid tribute to the ITeG's many years of research and its contribution to socially responsible digitization.

Several project meetings and workshops were held:

  • The DaWeNa HUB project hosted a coordination meeting and presented current findings from individual projects that support companies and public institutions in the sustainable transformation of data-oriented value creation.
  • At the final project meeting of Komp-HI , results were presented on the individual support of learners through the use of AI, in particular to strengthen empathy and digital media skills.
  • The Zukunftszentrum Hessen(ZUKIPRO) offered interactive workshops for participants from small and medium-sized enterprises.
  • The workshop “Privacy for All – Diversity-Sensitive Privacy Protection” from the DiversPrivat project addressed the specific requirements and needs of vulnerable individuals in the context of digital privacy.
  • The workshop “Experiencing intimate communication with AI – self-disclosure in conversation with chat and voice bots” from the Sentiment project began with expert input on issues of changing communication behavior, technical protection mechanisms, legal frameworks, and the contribution of artistic research in relation to intimate human-machine interaction.
  • Anyone interested in how AI can be used to make cycling safer was in the right place at the workshop organized by the LOEWE project DyNaMo: “Self-determined and safe cycling through the North Hesse of tomorrow.”
  • The panel discussion “Potential and challenges of AI in the context of journalism platforms” from the Democracy-X project focused on the challenges of increased AI use in (digital) journalism.

The conference concluded with a public panel discussion, in cooperation with HessianAI, on the Grand Challenge “Self-determination in the digital society,” which the German Informatics Society has identified as one of the five Grand Challenges 2025 in computer science, as proposed by the ITeG. Guests on the panel were

  • Prof. Dr. Alexander Roßnagel, Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information
  • Prof. Dr. Martin Potthast, Head of the Department of Deep Semantic Learning, ITeG, University of Kassel and hessian.AI
  • Kai Reinhard, Managing Director of Micromata GmbH and POLYAS GmbH in Kassel
  • Miriam Ruhenstroth-Bauer, Member of the Board Institute for Technology and Journalism e.V.

The panel will be moderated by journalist and presenter

  • Marion Kuchenny

With a Documenta Walk the conference transitioned into a joint networking event in the evening at the Orangerie Kassel.

The ITeG was founded in 2005 as a result of a research project that combined the fields of communication technology, technology law, and business informatics. The decision to establish a permanent structure for systematically researching the emerging digital world proved to be far-sighted. Today, twelve departments at the ITeG combine research into socially desirable information technology from a socio-technical perspective. With this holistic approach, the ITeG has been shaping the digital future in a socially acceptable, transparent, and user-oriented manner for two decades.

More Details on the conference homepage