Anja Salzmann

After my A-level education with special classes in arts and music in the 90s, I studied Applied Media Sciences at the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany. This study combined multiple disciplines such as engineering, economy and social sciences. I was introduced to higher mathematics, informatics, telematics and media technology as well as taught the basics of business administration, macroeconomics and civil law. Part of this educational approach were also social-science-disciplines such politics, sociology, media and communication studies and journalism. 

Later on, and out of personal interest, I studied art history, pedagogy as well as German literature and grammar. The scope of different disciplines which I had the pleasure to study, inspired my interest in philosophical and sociological questions as well as in critical theory. 

My education and broad range of interests has enabled me to look at societal issues from a broader analytical perspective and to detect visible and invisible links within and between their different complex aspects. 

It is the hybrid perspective on technology, economy and social sciences, but also my personal interest in philosophy, arts, technology and human history that drive my academic work.

Critically thinking and the perspective of arts are something I do value highly. I also engage in public debates about digitalization and related societal and environmental risks as well as diverging culture-political perspectives because I consider related issues as some of the most profound and urgent challenges that society has to tackle in the years to come.

I also promote a technological development with a humanistic perspective, that puts the human and not technology at its center.