Examiner meeting at the Department of Computer Science: Focus on the opportunities and risks of digital innovations

In mid-September, the ‘d!nternal audit’ project group met for its biannual meeting on the Sankt Augustin campus. The meeting was hosted by Prof Dr Petra Haferkorn and Christopher Healey from the Department of Computer Science at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. The invited experts, including mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers, hold management positions in the internal auditing departments of well-known German companies. The meeting focussed on the opportunities and risks of digital innovations for their companies' business models.

The aim of the group is to promote open dialogue between industry experts and to discuss new audit methods and the impact of current IT developments. Topics currently being discussed include artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins, the Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (XR).

The Dean of FB02, Prof Dr Sascha Alda (5th from left), welcomes the ‘d!nternal audit’ project group.

The Dean of the Department of Computer Science, Prof Dr Alda, welcomed the experts to the university's premises. In his speech, he outlined various opportunities for cooperation with the department as well as with the Cyber Security and Privacy (ICSP), Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems (A2S), Institute for Visual Computing (IVC) and Institute for Security Research (ISF) institutes.

A particular highlight of the event was a guided tour of the Biometrics Evaluation Centre, led by Ralph Breithaupt. This was met with great interest and led to lively discussions, which continued at the final dinner in a pizzeria.

From the perspective of the hosts, Haferkorn and Healey, the day was a complete success. It is crucial for both research and teaching to gain up-to-date insights into the working methods of auditors and to find out where the challenges currently lie for companies. The next meeting will take place in November at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.