Alexander Rabe: Panel Abstract

The triumphant advance of the World Wide Web has been enabled above all by its promises to make knowledge available worldwide, to facilitate free access to information, to simplify communication, and to break up existing power monopolies.

And ever since these promises were first mooted, we have been learning to live and work with the “Game Changer”, the Internet.

We recognize that Internet technologies are dual-use technologies, meaning that an algorithm in its own right is not necessarily bad but that certain application scenarios should be scrutinized critically.
With the GDPR, Germany is already well set up and has created clear framework conditions for the handling and processing of personal data.

In the future, there will be a need for responsible consumers in a connected world; there will be a need for competent digital politicians, who are aware of the technological consequences of regulatory approaches and can appropriately assess these; and there will be a need for Corporate Digital Responsibility on the part of companies in both the Internet industry and in the user industries.

It is this triad which will allow the digital transformation of society, the economy, and public administration to proceed sustainably and for the benefit of humanity.

About the speaker Alexander Rabe:

Since January 2018 Managing Director of eco – Association of the Internet Industry

In his role as Managing Director of the eco Association, Alexander Rabe is responsible for the public image of the association from the strategic content and communicative perspectives, in its Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, and Munich locations.
With more than 1,100 member companies, eco is the largest Internet industry association in Europe. Since 1995, eco has been instrumental in shaping the development of the Internet in Germany, and fostering new technologies and infrastructures.

eco actively contributes to shaping the legislative framework conditions for the innovation-friendly and at the same time ethically-oriented digital transformation of the economy and society.

Rabe is a co-initiator of the “Alliance for the Strengthening of Digital Infrastructures in Germany”, a member initiative led by eco, supported by companies such as SIEMENS, Netcologne, DE-CIX, and the Fraunhofer Group IUK-Technologie.

Rabe came to eco in 2016 as Head of the Policy, Law & Regulations division, and in this role led the Capital Office in the heart of Berlin and also in the branch office in Brussels.

Since then, Rabe has represented eco amongst other things at the Digital Summit of the German Federal Government in dealings with the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), and the Digital Sovereignty Focus Group of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWi).