Where do I start? The obvious: LinkedIn in all its glory, color and exaggerated humbleness (yes, I am guilty, too) is a surface. But go below and you’ll discover people’s genuine love for their work. They have passion, the message they send towards others, the inspiration they may give to those following.
ExplorAItion Day
Let’s begin with Arne Clauß and Kristin Winter who led our „AI Community“ into creating one of the most fun and inspiring events: the „ExplorAItion Day“. The team gathered this summer and many times thereafter to eventually invite 900+ people from outside and inside our organization to this stunning event. While they prepared for the event I suggested to Tim Akgül, our hubraum colleague, to join the AI Community today to showcase Hubraum’s line up of startups who had been participating in the „AI Co-Creation Program“ for the last 10 month. As one of their mentors I was looking after amberSearch together with Daniel Johannhoerster of our AICC and Stefan Sieloff who introduced amberSearch to „Ein Herz für Kinder“. You know, connecting people to see them flourish – that’s something so satisfying you can hardly put into words – no AI can emulate this feeling (yet?). But I digress.
AI Enablement at Deutsche Telekom
There was a third thing that made my day and it’s something that I think will genuinely help our organisation to get everyone on board regarding AI upskilling. Together with Sindy Leffler-Krebs, Stefan Dörken and Ramona we created the „AI Pioneers“ which I then premiered today at the „ExplorAItion Day“.
After almost 2 years of AI talks and workshops I knew that there would come a moment of truth, „What are the actual use cases?“ people will ask. What would we answer if we had only listened to inspiring talks but without practical impact for our actual jobs? AI enablement doesn’t come from nothing, it has to be planned and then, even more important, executed! And if CEO Tim Höttges goes on protocol as being the chief AI officer I humbly suggest that we also create a strong grassroots movement of employees with a complete leadership mandate to go full steam ahead with implementing our AI ambitions!
Our „AI Pioneers“ are a strategic program to foster AI innovation by integrating employees‘ current knowledge of AI with their professional expertise, allowing them to solve operational challenges, enhance AI literacy, promote continuous learning, and address ethical and compliance issues within their teams. This initiative involves various Levels from awareness and inspiration all the way to practical application and vision building aiming to cultivate a knowledgeable, innovative, and ethically conscious workforce capable of leveraging AI to drive business transformation and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
The images below show the shiny surface – but change is coming and will be deeper, intense and inevitable.