At Rise of AI 2022 in Berlin, Fabian Westerheide, CEO of Rise of AI and CEO of Asgard Capital, opens the first hybrid edition since the pandemic with roughly 800 people joining online alongside the in-person audience. He recaps how the European AI ecosystem emerged from a 10-person hackerspace meetup around 2012, through waves of entrepreneurs, scientists, developers, seed capital, media attention in 2018, corporate adoption, and regulators arriving last in 2019 after the US and China had already moved. He describes a personal struggle in 2019 as the community's radical, idealistic edge gave way to suits, and recounts buying a forest outside Berlin during the pandemic, where he planted over 3,000 trees and underwent a personal transformation while his business activity fell to zero. He closes by framing 2022 around the new war involving Russia, AI's military use, the competing American and Chinese tech ecosystems, and Europe's attempt to build its own trustworthy AI standards, before moderator Christina Boesenberg asks him about the conference's sustainability measures.
Key takeaways
- Rise of AI began as a 10-person meetup at a Berlin hackerspace around 2012, before capital, rules or business existed for AI entrepreneurs.
- Westerheide founded Asgard Capital to provide the first seed funding for AI entrepreneurs when no capital was available.
- Regulators were the last group to engage with AI, arriving in 2019 after the US and China had already moved, with the EU and Germany later still.
- During the pandemic Westerheide's business activity fell to zero and he retreated to a forest outside Berlin, planting over 3,000 trees.
- Westerheide proposes 'permaculture capitalism' as a model where technology and human systems support rather than destroy natural ecosystems.
Detailed notes
A hybrid return and the purpose of Rise of AI
Westerheide welcomes both the in-person audience and roughly 800 people joining online, calling this the first fully hybrid edition after two pandemic years of purely physical or purely virtual events. He frames Rise of AI's role as giving an audience that already lives and breathes AI a yearly platform to connect, update and help shape the field's direction, rather than introducing AI to newcomers.
How the European AI ecosystem emerged
Westerheide dates his own full-time entry into AI to 2013 or 2014, which he calls the renaissance of deep learning after earlier AI winters. Rise of AI began as a 10-person hackerspace meetup, first attracting entrepreneurs and scientists, then nerds and thinkers inspired by Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near. In this early period there was no capital, no rules and no business, which led him to found Asgard to provide the first seed funding for AI entrepreneurs. From 2014 to 2019, he says AI went mainstream: developers and machine learners came first, then innovators, then seed capital, media coverage from around 2018, and large corporations investing in infrastructure and edge computing. Regulators arrived last, in 2019, after the Obama administration and China's post-AlphaGo push, with the European Union and Germany coming later still.
The 2019 struggle
Westerheide describes 2019 as when the community's early radical thinkers stopped attending as the audience became more suited and corporate, and he personally lost the hope that AI could be a holy grail for society. He points to an unresolved education and talent gap, a growing divide between well-paid tech workers and low-income gig-economy workers he says politics avoids discussing, and ethics debates about autonomous weapons that were then theoretical but have since become real.
The pandemic and the forest
When conferences and travel stopped in 2020, Westerheide's business activity, previously around 500 to 800 meetings and 50 international talks a year, dropped to zero. He responded by buying a forest with a cabin outside Berlin, where he worked through his emotions, changed his diet to vegan and intermittent fasting, lost weight, and planted more than 3,000 trees, which he says now produce oxygen for about 2,500 people, describing the period as both one of the best and worst times of his life.
Europe between the US and China
Westerheide connects the new 2022 war involving Russia and the West to prior tensions, including China's isolation and use of AI-driven surveillance and lockdown enforcement, and notes real military use of AI for image recognition and drones. He contrasts an American ecosystem he expects to keep bouncing back with a closed Chinese ecosystem built on its own laws and data, and describes advice to run both American and Chinese solutions in parallel while staying aware that each side can access your data through its hardware and software. He names trust as the central 2022 challenge and proposes a concept he calls permaculture capitalism, an ecosystem in which people support technology and nature without destroying either.
Q&A highlights
Moderator Christina Boesenberg asks Westerheide how a travel- and food-heavy event like Rise of AI can be sustainable. He answers that he and Veronika Westerheide redesigned the catering to be by default gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian with locally sourced, freshly cooked food, using reusable dishes instead of disposables and recycled paper for badges and materials. He says the event now streams to about 700-800 online viewers, down from roughly 2,000 people who previously had to travel because no stream existed, and that rented furniture and plants are reused or replanted in his forest afterward rather than discarded. He calls generic green-energy claims greenwashing and argues that changing behavior, starting with individuals, matters more. Asked about the conference's own focus, he describes two stages: one built around open questions on ethics, philosophy and the European AI ecosystem, and one focused on real enterprise AI integration and scaling, reflecting how the field has grown from startups only, a few years earlier, to include enterprise AI.
Quotes
My reaction was I bought a forest with a cabin, a piece of property outside of Berlin.
Fabian Westerheide
China is showing you how its own closed ecosystem looks like, with their own laws, their own data.
Fabian Westerheide
Questions answered in this talk
How did Fabian Westerheide spend the pandemic years?
According to Fabian Westerheide at Rise of AI 2022, when conferences and travel stopped he bought a forest with a cabin outside Berlin, changed his diet, and planted over 3,000 trees while his business activity dropped to zero.
Why did Fabian Westerheide found Asgard Capital?
According to Fabian Westerheide at Rise of AI 2022, he founded Asgard because in the early AI ecosystem around 2012-2013 there was no capital or seed funding available for AI entrepreneurs.
What sustainability measures has Rise of AI adopted?
According to Fabian Westerheide at Rise of AI 2022, the conference now serves locally sourced, largely gluten-free and vegan or vegetarian food, uses recycled paper and reusable dishes instead of disposables, reuses or replants rented furniture and plants, and streams online to around 700-800 viewers to reduce travel, down from roughly 2,000 people previously traveling to attend.