Management
Klaus Birkenbihl, CEO of the ict Media GmbH, started his career at the GMD National Research Lab for Information Technology. After some research in Software Technology he was appointed manager of GMD's Computing Center in Bonn in 1981. He had teaching assignments for Computer Science at the University of Cologne and the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg. He participated in many projects on Research Networks since 1982 and was head of the department for Computer Networks and the Computer Networks and Society group in GMD. Starting from 1997 he was also manager of the Germany Austria Office of the World Wide Web Consortium. He continued this work after GMD merged with Fraunhofer in 2000. In 2006 he left Fraunhofer and launched in 2007 his own Company ict Media GmbH. As CEO of this company is a.o. contracted by W3C to co-ordinate the W3C World Offices. Klaus also is or was member of the Advisory Board or Supervisory Board of several companies and served as IT Executive Expert for the Shengen Treaty.
Internet related work:
- Founding member of the European Academic Research Network (EARN 1983)
- Member of the operational committee of the German Research Network (DFN, 1984-1990)
- Deputy Director of EARN Germany (1987-1990)
- DEARN (the main German EARN node) moved to GMD's Computing Center Bonn (1987-1993)
- Member of the EASInet steering committee (1989-1993)
- Member of EBONE coordination committee (1993)
- Member of DIN Kommision Informationsgesellschaft (1997-2001)
- Chairman of the German Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC.DE, 1998-2001)
- Manager of the German Office of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, 1998-2002)
- Treasurer and office Manager of the German Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC.DE, 2001-2005)
- Member of the Steering Committee of the German Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC.DE, 2005-2010)
- Manager of the World Wide Web Consortium Office in Germany and Austria (W3C, 2002-2005)
- Member of the W3C Advisory Board (2003-2005)
- Member of the DIN presidential committee Focus ICT (2005-2009)
- Coordinator of W3C World Offices (2006-2010)
- Member of 2009 ICANN Nominating Committee (2008-2009)
- Member of the Executive Board of the German Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC.DE, 2010-now)