Fritz Pickhardt

Fritz Pickhardt

Fritz Pickhardt is the Project Lead of the AI Innovation Lab (KI-Reallabor) at the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and the agency’s central point of contact for all AI-related matters. In his role at THW’s Research Division, F. Pickhardt leads a dedicated team driving the deployment of AI applications, VR/AR training systems, and unmanned vehicle technologies for civil protection and disaster response. As an intrapreneur within a federal agency, he and his team design and conduct field trials with volunteer emergency responders, bridge the gap between research and operational practice, and develop sustainable technology transfer structures.
In his previous roles as a development engineer at Lenord, Bauer GmbH and TE Connectivity, F. Pickhardt worked on safety-critical sensor systems for commercial vehicles and magnetoresistive sensing technologies, and contributed to a BMBF-funded research project on intelligent freight wagons. F. Pickhardt has experience in laser physics and optical metrology, mechanical engineering, applied AI, geospatial analysis, and drone operations. He has published academically, most recently at CHI 2024, and has been volunteering with THW as a team leader since 2010.

In his previous roles as a development engineer at Lenord, Bauer GmbH and TE Connectivity, F. Pickhardt worked on safety-critical sensor systems for commercial vehicles and magnetoresistive sensing technologies, and contributed to a BMBF-funded research project on intelligent freight wagons. F. Pickhardt has experience in laser physics and optical metrology, mechanical engineering, applied AI, geospatial analysis, and drone operations. He has published academically, most recently at CHI 2024, and has been volunteering with THW as a team leader since 2010.

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  • Organization
    Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), Germany
  • Profession
    Project Lead, AI Innovation Lab (KI-Reallabor)
Related sessions
In person
7 July 2026
09:00 - 12:15
EST - New York
CST - Beijing
PST - Los Angeles
AWST - Perth, Australia

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