Prof. Dr. Dr.-Ing. Jivka Ovtcharova

Jivka Ovtcharova is Professor and Head of the Institute for Information Management in Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Director in the field of Intelligent Systems and Production Engineering at the Research Center for Computer Science (FZI) in Karlsruhe. Holding PhDs in mechanical engineering and in computer science, Prof. Ovtcharova worked in the automotive industry for over 10 years and headed the Process and Integration Center of General Motors Europe. As she was greatly interested in virtual engineering, Prof. Ovtcharova founded the Lifecycle Engineering Solutions Center (LESC) at KIT – a unique, interdisciplinary facility for immersive and interactive studying as well as a holistic development and training environment. Furthermore, she opened an Industry 4.0 Collaboration Lab, aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of day-to-day businesses through extensive digitalization, networking and real-time-enabled solutions. As one of the 25 women for the digital future in Germany she aims with her research at the inspiring interplay between engineering and computer science and draws a line between the liberation of the human spirit during the Renaissance and the Internet of Things and Senses. In the main focus of her work are the Resourceful Humans and their roles in the all-encompassing digital transformation of the economy and society.

Synopsis

BEYOND DIGITAL TWIN - MAKE ANALYTICS COME ALIVE

We are living in an exciting time. Digitalization is transforming our world fundamentally. Further, faster, higher, but where are we going? The notion of a “digital twin” is now being widely adapted and it is rapidly becoming the technology of choice for virtualizing the physical world. As versatile and powerful as digital technologies may be, the original purpose of digital twin remains unchanged: to enable humans to face problems easily, get to the point, understand, and proceed pragmatically and rapidly. The digital twin offers us excellent opportunities to inquire the unexpected and to discover the best, true to the motto “It is not the technology that changes the world but the way people use it”. Implementing digital twin requires to put real problems “in the sandbox“ of business units, think, try out, create “all-in-one“, apply emerging digital technologies by humans playfully and quickly and test new solutions in runtime to gain experiences fast and to transform knowledge into actions and skills. The time to act is now.