News from the AI Factory Austria and Responsible Innovation with Synthetic Data

Hello Data & AI Enthusiasts,

We’re back with another exciting evening at one of our favorite venues, TUtheSky!
This time, the AI Factory Austria will provide us with insights into the state of AI in Austria, its connection to EU strategy, and showcase real impact through a concrete project. We’re also thrilled to welcome a representative from MOSTLY AI, who will dive into the topic of responsible innovation with synthetic data by showing their latest open source framework.

We are grateful that this event will be sponsored by Cloudera, one of the leaders in the Data and AI industry, enabling businesses to deploy their data/streaming pipelines and AI models anywhere, be it (multi)cloud or on-premises. And a big thanks goes to our co-organizers from the AI Factory Austria, who supports researchers and companies in accessing advanced computing know-how and infrastructure for applications in life sciences among other scientific domains.

AI Factory Austria AI:AT - Building the Future of AI Together
Ann-Sophie Brenk, Mara Weinblatt
This keynote provides a concise overview of the current state of Artificial Intelligence in Austria: key figures, emerging trends, and the gaps and opportunities within the national AI ecosystem. It will also highlight Austria’s AI strategy, how it connects to the EU strategy, and why this matters for startups, researchers, and companies.
At the center is the AI Factory Austria, its services, programs, community initiatives, and vision for the coming years. A concrete project example will demonstrate real impact and showcase AI:AT Factory’s role within the European context.
Join us and get involved: connect with the community, explore our programs, contribute your projects – and become part of the next stage of AI development in Austria.

Ann-Sophie designs business-focused workshops to support companies in navigating their AI journey within the AI Factory. She brings a background in business consulting with a strong focus on digital transformation.
Mara drives community building and co-working at AI Factory AI:AT, fostering collaboration between startups, academia, and industry players in Austria’s AI ecosystem and beyond.

Data Without Barriers: Synthetic Data as a Catalyst for Responsible Innovation
Paul Tiwald
The ability to access and use high-quality data is becoming a key enabler and bottleneck for innovation across AI and digital systems. Yet privacy, regulation, and data scarcity continue to limit what organizations and researchers can do. Synthetic data generation is a key element in enabling private, responsible, and scalable data-driven innovation. I will walk through how generative AI models can be used to synthesize rich, realistic tabular datasets, and how these can be safely shared and used across use cases, from model and software development/testing to simulation, fairness research, and beyond. The session will include a live walkthrough of our open-source tools, showcasing how easy and accessible synthetic data generation can be today.

Paul Tiwald is Principal AI Researcher at MOSTLY AI, a Vienna-based pioneer in privacy-preserving synthetic data. After leading the company’s AI research team for several years, Paul now focuses on advancing open-source innovation, driving hands-on research, and sharing the potential of synthetic data with broader audiences. With a PhD in theoretical physics and deep expertise in generative modeling, he’s passionate about building ethical, accessible, and high-quality data solutions for the real world.

! Note that admission is based on an RSVP list. Please make sure that you RSVP and that you have a human-like name set up on http://meetup.com/ :)

Important: As we will have limited seats available, please be aware that VDSG members will be prioritized!

🎤🎤 Open Mic
We are going to open up the stage after the talks for community announcements. If you'd like to announce something, open this slide deck, make sure you are signed in with a google account, and click "View Only" -> "Request Edit Access". Explain in the text box what you want to announce, and we'll give you edit access to the slide deck.
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Also, please note that during the event, photos might be made and later posted on VDSG's social media page. Please notify us if you do not agree.
Attention attendees with food allergies. Please be aware that the food and drinks provided may contain or come into contact with common allergens, such as dairy, eggs, wheat, soybeans, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, or wheat.
Best,
The Organizer Team