Daniela Neupert from XITASO will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “The Importance of Agile in AI Projects” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 29th January 2026.

Abstract

We dive into why agile methods are crucial for AI projects where uncertainty and “unknown unknowns” dominate the early stages of development. Iterative experimentation, early validation, and clear quality gates reduce risk and enable teams to focus on what truly creates value. Using a real industry case, we take a look into how cross functional collaborate and agile, evaluation driven workflows turn ambitious AI ideas into practical, scalable solutions.

Biography

Daniela Neupert is a graduate of the elite program Software Engineering.

Marian Lingsch-Rosenfeld from LMU will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “SV-LIB 1.0: A Standard Exchange Format for Software-Verification Tasks” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 22nd January 2026.

Abstract

In the past two decades, significant research and development effort went into the development of verification tools for individual languages, such as C, C++, and Java. Many of the used verification approaches are in fact language-agnostic and it would be beneficial for the technology transfer to allow for using the implementations also for other programming and modeling languages. To address the problem, we propose SV-LIB, an exchange format and intermediate language for software-verification tasks, including programs, specifications, and verification witnesses. SV-LIB is based on well-known concepts from imperative programming languages and uses SMT-LIB to represent expressions and sorts used in the program. This makes it easy to parse and to build into existing infrastructure, since many verification tools are based on SMT solvers already. Furthermore, SV-LIB defines a witness format for both correct and incorrect SV-LIB programs, together with means for specifying witness-validation tasks. This makes it possible both to implement independent witness validators and to reuse some verifiers also as validators for witnesses. This talk presents version 1.0 of the SV-LIB format, including its design goals, the syntax, and informal semantics. Formal semantics and further extensions to concurrency are planned for future versions.

Biography

Marian Lingsch-Rosenfeld is a graduate of the elite program Software Engineering and does his Ph.D. at LMU’s SoSy-Lab.

Simon Rehwald from itestra will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “AI in der Software-Entwicklung und -Modernisierung” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 30 October 2025.

Abstract

AI Tools wie Copilot oder ChatGPT verbreiten sich rasant und versprechen teilweise enorme Effizienzgewinne. Begrenzter Kontext von LLMs, Qualitätssicherung von AI-generiertem Code und die Einbettung in vorgegebene Architekturen stellen jedoch Herausforderungen dar. Wie und ob der erwartete Nutzen in realen Projekten, jenseits von Hype-Erwartungen und Werbeversprechen, tatsächlich realisiert werden kann kristallisiert sich allmählich heraus.

Biography

Simon Rehwald, Lead Engineer bei der itestra GmbH und Experte im Bereich AI, stellt Erfahrungen aus Projekten und Forschungskooperationen der itestra vor und zeigt u.a. wie ein LLM zur Transformation von Legacy-Code nach Python in einem großen Kundenprojekt eingesetzt wird.

Simon Rehwald from itestra will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “Agile Entwicklung – Herausforderungen und Irrwege” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 17 July 2025.

Abstract

Agile Methoden wie SCRUM sind inzwischen Standard in der Softwareentwicklung bei vielen Unternehmen. Mit der breiten Anwendung kommt es allerdings auch zu Missinterpretationen: Anstelle der ursprünglichen Fokussierung auf die Produktion nutzbringender lauffähiger Software durch flexible Teams dominieren dann starre Prozesse, Overhead durch kleinteilige Sprintplanung und Ziellosigkeit. Ein erfahrener Entwickler, Projektleiter und Berater der itestra GmbH zeigt mit Praxisbeispielen aus verschiedenen Unternehmen, welche agilen Elemente wann Sinn machen, welche Alternativen es gibt und worauf man achten sollte.

Florian Lercher from TUM will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “No More Traffic Tickets: Ensuring Traffic-Rule Compliance of Automated Vehicles” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 10th July 2025.

Abstract

Imagine an automated vehicle violating a traffic rule and, by that, causing an accident. This would not only be devastating for a responsible operator, but, more importantly, each such incident erodes the trust of the public in automated vehicles. Fortunately, compliance with traffic rules can be fully controlled unless other traffic participants breach them — this causality makes it possible for responsible operators to avoid liability claims. Despite their importance, traffic rules are often only implicitly embedded in various fragments of the software stack of automated vehicles. However, traffic rule compliance should be ensured by formal methods to gain the necessary trust of the public. To this end, traffic rules should be represented explicitly and provided centrally.

Using a running example, this talk provides an overview of the steps required to achieve this goal. We start by formalizing traffic law to obtain an explicit representation in temporal logic. Based on this, we design a motion planning pipeline comprising three steps: reachability analysis to narrow the search space for rule-compliant trajectories, trajectory planning within the narrowed search space, and trajectory repairing to ensure rule-compliance of planned trajectories. Moreover, we always keep a fail-safe trajectory ready to safely react to unexpected behavior of other traffic participants.

Biograpyh

Florian Lercher is a graduate of the elite program Software Engineering and works on his Ph.D. at the Cyber Physical Systems Group at TUM.

Dr. Johannes Leupolz will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “Qualitative and quantitative analysis of safety-critical systems with S#” and it will take place in room 1055N at 10AM on 10th July 2025.

Abstract

Safety-critical systems are expected to operate safely under regular circumstances as well as in many degraded situations. In the latter case, these systems have to cope with one or more components that are not working as specified, while at the same time they have to avoid (serious) economical or environmental damage, injuries, or even loss of lives. S# provides a modeling language specifically designed to express important safety-related concepts such as faults and the physical environment of a safety-critical system. For safety assessments, model simulations as well as formal safety analyses are supported.

Emily Schiller and Anton Hummel from XITASO will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “Explainable AI and Uncertainty Quantification” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 26th June 2025.

Abstract

Despite the transformative potential of machine learning in critical areas such as healthcare, its integration is challenged by a lack of trust and acceptance. To overcome these challenges by ensuring reliant decision-making the interaction of users and the AI systems is crucial. Two research fields have the potential to improve human-AI collaboration: Explainable AI and Uncertainty Quantification. Explainable AI (XAI) aims to make AI predictions interpretable for humans. At the same time, Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) enables the estimation of confidence in predictions. Both areas have made important contributions to trustworthy AI, but to fully realize their potential they must be tailored to the needs of the end-users. In this presentation, we show what is needed to create a practical value in AI by highlighting novel XAI and UQ methods.

Prof. Viktor Leis from TUM will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “Towards Sanity in Query Languages” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 08th May 2025.

Abstract

The relational model has stood the test of time and is the foundation of most database systems. But let’s be honest — its success is not because of SQL, but in spite of it. SQL’s syntax is arcane, inconsistent, and bears little resemblance to the actual execution semantics of queries. Worse yet, SQL is not even a true standard — every system implements its own incompatible dialect, creating a fractured ecosystem where portability and interoperability are afterthoughts. This lack of standardization slows down innovation, forcing database developers to reinvent the wheel instead of pushing the field forward.

In this talk, we argue that we need a formally defined Sane Intermediate Representation (SaneIR) — a well-specified, interoperable abstraction for relational query execution. SaneIR would serve as a lingua franca between database systems, enabling compatibility, portability, and accelerated progress in the database world. It’s time to stop treating SQL as the immovable foundation of relational databases and start designing a future where database systems can truly evolve.

Philip Schäfer from QPLIX will give a talk in the elite program’s special lecture series. The title of the talk is “Putting Wealth Into Perspective – Understanding global wealth dynamics and opportunities in wealth management” and it will take place in room 1055N at 4PM on 15th May 2025.

Abstract

What is wealth, and how is it shaping the world? This talk takes you on a journey through the global wealth game — who owns what, how fortunes grow, and what’s changing. We’ll explore how the wealthy invest their money and uncover the different types of players managing money. What challenges do they face? What trends are reshaping the industry? Finally, we’ll look at how technology is transforming wealth management, with real-world examples from QPLIX. If you’re curious about finance, business, and the future of money, this talk will give you a fresh perspective on the world of  wealth.

Biography

Philip Schäfer is Director Client Solutions at QPLIX a graduate of the elite program Software Engineering.

The application period for the winter intake 2025 has started. For instructions on how to apply, please visit our application web-site.