Tom Kisler

Joining Carbon13’s Venture Builder Programme as a technical Co-Founder. I collaborate closely with innovators and entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds in tech, science, and business. Our mission is to create scalable ventures aimed at tackling the climate emergency by developing solutions that protect Earth’s critical life support systems.

I advise companies and start-ups on their overall business and digital strategy, with a strong focus on software, data, and AI roadmaps, as well as guiding organizations in developing and implementing ESG IT strategies.

Responsible for over 10 IT projects in the context of Wacker Chemie AG’s sustainability goals (e.g., Product Carbon Footprint, CO2 emissions from logistics, portfolio management, sustainability reporting software). Understanding the needs of business units and requirements management. Collaboration in the technical working group of TfS (Together for Sustainability) and technical working groups in the VCI (German Chemical Industry Association).

Ideation, conception, and implementation for various startup projects, including: AI-based ESG risk management for banks; a sharing platform (liquidated); a sustainable fintech startup (exit); a technical concept for a mobile kitchen to reduce food waste (EU grant application); and implementation of a computer vision algorithm in an autonomous weeding robot.

Responsible for a small business unit developing a green service offering to support companies in their transformation towards more sustainable business models, processes, and/or software infrastructures. One of the main drivers behind the Green Software Development Manifesto, aimed at encouraging a more ecological approach to software development.

Acquisition and technical team leadership in the early phase of a publicly funded research project (RobIn4LeMi). Led various consulting and implementation projects, including team leadership and Java development for an internal web application, evaluation of performance tests for BMW’s high-performance infrastructure, and consulting for an AI/ML pre-development project at BMW.

Full-stack development (primarily Java and TypeScript/Angular) within a European infrastructure initiative (CLARIN). Developed web services and interfaces for phonetic processing tools. Presented the application at approximately 20 international conferences and workshops. Published 14 articles and contributions with over 1,000 citations. Taught 7 courses for bachelor’s and master’s students.

My thesis is concerned with employing machine learning for the localization of a speaker’s origin based on acoustic features from speech. Additionally, I validate a method for pre-processing of speech recordings for used in research of regional variation and propose a method for spotting errors in this automatic process to decrease manual labor. Further, I relate my findings to known phonetic and dialectological knowledge and try to effectively visualize the results.

Organizing two meetups for connecting potential founders, one with no focus and one with impact (ecological and/or social) focus.

Active since its foundation (March 2019, initial signatory). Additionally, 1 year in the S4F Munich coordination team and in the national working group ‘Industry and Companies’ (lead of the ‘Networking’ subgroup).

I was a board member and president of AEGEE München, Munich’s local group of a European students initiative with around 200 local groups around Europe. This included being part and leading an international team that planned activities in different fields which included intercultural exchange, activities to encourage young people to actively participate in society, and non-formal education.