Bio

Thorsten Dittmar is the director and founder of the polypoly Cooperative. From his apprenticeship as an electronics engineer in the mining industry, to his studies in computer science and philosophy, to his almost 40 years as an entrepreneur, for him it has always been about applied technology and the people who create it or want to use it.

He says he is very fortunate to be old enough to have seen a significant part of today’s computer technology come into being and to have been involved in some of it. This helps to keep a certain overview and to recognise patterns in the development of the still quite young IT industry. Moreover, in his eyes, we are at an inflection point where the data economy is being reordered. As has often been the case on the internet, the frontrunners of today are becoming the trailblazers of the next generation. It is up to all of us to make sure that we as Europeans, but also citizens in general, are not marginalized again.