HTW'25:
High-Tech Women 2025

4 September

- Welcome Hotel Darmstadt -

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Join us for the fifth annual High-Tech Women Event (HTW’25) on September 4, 2025, in Darmstadt, Germany. This dynamic event provides a unique platform for accomplished women worldwide in technology and science to share their professional experiences and groundbreaking ideas. Our event focuses on mentoring young female talents and enhancing their opportunities through engaging discussions and presentations with established female leaders in science and technology. While the emphasis is on women in tech, particularly cybersecurity and privacy, the event also features expert speakers from other disciplines. Open to everyone, HTW’25 is dedicated to promoting inclusivity and collaboration across the tech community.
Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with, learn from, and be inspired by the female experts shaping the future of technology and science.

List of Confirmed Speakers

ANNA HAKKERS, PhD, Leader in Data & AI Security 

Title & Short Abstract: Cohesive data security as a foundation for resilience
This talk challenges the traditional, fragmented approach to data security, using the healthcare industry as a lens. Instead of dispersing security functions across disconnected tools and teams, we’ll make the case for a cohesive data security layer, one that places sensitive data at the center of protection strategies. Drawing on real-world developments in European healthcare, we’ll uncover common gaps, examine emerging best practices, and show how this shift can dramatically improve security posture in high-risk, data-intensive environments.
Bio: Anna is a cybersecurity expert with background in privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols. Her focus is development of comprehensive data security strategies for multi-national organizations. With experience at Philips and EY, she ensures security frameworks remain resilient and adaptable by aligning governance, technical realities, and business needs.
 

MARIA MENDEZ REAL, Professor at the University of South Brittany

Title & Short Abstract: The constant battle between performance and security
This presentation will focus on the security vulnerabilities of processors at the micro-architecture level. In particular, side-channel information during the execution of sensitive applications such as cryptographic functions could reveal secret data and cryptographic keys. There are various ways of accessing this information. Motivated by performance and power consumption optimization, resource sharing between applications such as memory caches, or even sensors directly integrated into today’s systems-on-chip exacerbate these vulnerabilities and greatly facilitate side-channel attacks. In this talk, we advocate a security-oriented processor design.
 
Maria Méndez Real holds a PhD in computer science and electronics. She has over 10 years’ experience in the field of hardware security. She is particularly interested in processor security, adaptive security mechanisms against side-channel attacks and fault injection, security enclaves and the security of autonomous embedded systems. She currently holds a Professorship chair at the Université Bretagne Sud, Lorient, France, on the security and autonomy of maritime drone swarms within the Lab-STICC laboratory.

ELIF YESiLBEK Cryptographer at CISO, ABN AMRO Bank N.V

Title & Short Abstract: 
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Quantum Impact on Cryptography, Current State with the Standards and Crypto-Agility
This talk will introduce how developments in quantum computing affected cryptography, post-quantum cryptography and cryptographic-agility.

Bio:Elif studied Mathematics and Software Engineering in Turkey. She completed her Computer Science masters in Information Security in Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands with focus on Cryptography. Right now she is working as a Cryptographer. 

YUNWEN LIU

Decentralized systems, Cryptography

Title: Security and Privacy Challenges in Decentralized Ecosystems
Abstract:  This talk examines three critical areas of concern: the centralization of Ethereum block building, which threatens censorship resistance and protocol neutrality; persistent smart contract vulnerabilities that continue to cause substantial financial losses; and the security and privacy implications of interoperability across Layer 2 solutions, where cross-chain communication introduces new attack vectors. We highlight the urgent need to build secure and privacy-preserving protocols for decentralized infrastructure.

Bio: Yunwen Liu is an assistant professor at COSIC, KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research is mainly on blockchain technology, with a particular emphasis on designing privacy-preserving protocols aimed at mitigating attacks and centralization risks in decentralized ecosystems. She also develops machine-aided tools for analyzing cryptosystems and blockchains. 

Bio: Dr. Linda Di Geronimo
Head of Technical Cooperation and Strategy (R&D) at the Huawei Zurich Research Center
She leads strategic partnerships with Swiss universities, research institutes, and startups. She shapes the company’s innovation agenda through cross-sector collaboration and ecosystem development. With a background in computer science and HCI, she previously held research roles at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Her work bridges academic insight and industrial impact to drive tech advancement.

Time and Venue

Date:
4 September, 2025

Location:
– Welcome Hotel Darmstadt –

Organizers

Prof. Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi Technical University Darmstadt, Germany
Dr.sc. Elissa Mollakuqe, Technical  University Darmstadt, Germany
Dr. Huimin Li, Technical  University Darmstadt, Germany

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