“Technology in the service of people”: KUKA CEO Christoph Schell bids farewell to ESB alumni
Bachelor’s, Master’s and MBA graduates from ESB Business School threw their hats in the air last Saturday at the Reutlingen Stadthalle
On Saturday, 259 graduates completed their studies at the ESB Business School at Reutlingen University with the traditional hat-tossing ceremony. The keynote speaker at Reutlingen Town Hall was someone who himself graduated from here 30 years ago: Christoph Schell, now CEO of robotics manufacturer KUKA. The theme of the evening: plans change – people remain the same.
Smartphones, the cloud, AI assistants: none of these existed when Christoph Schell was a student at ESB Business School. Over the coming decades, too, new technologies will emerge that we cannot even imagine today. “So do not define yourselves by a particular technology, but by your ability to learn new technologies,” urged the KUKA CEO at the ceremony attended by over 670 guests. What matters is not so much what the graduates know today, but their ability to continue acquiring new knowledge in the future.
For Schell, the one constant amidst all the change is people. He can hardly remember the quarterly results of his career, but he certainly remembers the people behind them: “People will remember how you treated others.” Just how long friendships from university days can last is demonstrated by a promise that Schell and a former ESB fellow student made to each other 30 years ago:
Either of the in their mid-50s who is in a position to do so should help the other find a job. Schell kept his word and brought his friend into the company. Rather than chasing after a job, a company or money, graduates should ask themselves what impact they want to make. Take artificial intelligence, for example: “The future is shaped by people who use technology to serve humanity – not against it.”
Reutlingen’s Lord Mayor, Thomas Keck, turned the spotlight on the city. Quoting former Federal President Roman Herzog, he reminded the audience that the future is not predetermined, but must be shaped. There are opportunities to do so in Reutlingen too, for example at the Innoport start-up centre. “Make use of technology, but don’t let it dictate your lives,” advised Keck. ESB Dean Prof. Dr Markus Conrads took up this idea in his laudatory speech: artificial intelligence will make many things faster and more efficient, “but there is one thing technology cannot do: take responsibility”.
Mira Gampp, secretary of the ESB Reutlingen Alumni Association, spoke about just how much unplanned encounters can shape a person’s life. In 2013, Mira Gampp had originally intended simply to live with Spaniards in Madrid. However, she ended up taking in the sister of an ESB fellow student to share her flat. The two remain best friends to this day. This year, in Barcelona, she reconnected via LinkedIn with an ESB alumnus she hadn’t seen for ten years; shortly afterwards, the two of them went hiking along the Costa Brava. Gampp’s conclusion in three sentences: “Say ‘yes’ to the unexpected. Knock on the door, even if years have passed. And keep the door open.”
Just how much one’s time at university is shaped by encounters was also evident from the contributions of the newly qualified graduates. Master’s graduate Marie Massoth spoke of her studies split between Reutlingen and Strasbourg, where conversations would switch between German, French and English in the middle of a discussion – and every group project became an exercise in international diplomacy. Bachelor’s graduates Nathalie Hübner and Anaïs Prüfer summed up their time at university with a phrase that is often heard in Reutlingen: “You don’t have to like Reutlingen; you can only love it.”
The festive ceremony, featuring musical interludes, concluded with the traditional throwing of the caps. Even experienced alumni do not know what the future holds. Mira Gampp therefore shared her own experience with the graduates: “I’m ten years ahead of you, and my own plan is still just a draft.”
