Review of the inaugural lecture by Prof. Dr. Patrick Zschech and the New Year's reception

On January 28, 2026, we welcomed 130 guests to the faculty's New Year's reception in the Dülfer Hall at TU Dresden. This year, the event was given a special setting: The reception was combined with an inaugural lecture.

Prof. Dr. Patrick Zschech has held the Chair of Business Information Systems, esp. Intelligent Systems and Services since May 2025. As a former student and doctoral candidate at the Faculty, he has now returned to his alma mater after working at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Leipzig. Many companions and former employees accepted the invitation to his inaugural lecture "Beyond Prediction: Comprehensible Artificial Intelligence for Transparent Decision Support". In his lecture, Prof. Zschech impressively demonstrated why AI must not only be capable, but also explainable - and how acceptance and trust can be created in organizations to enable successful data-driven decisions.

Following the inaugural lecture, the event moved on to the New Year's reception. Vice-Dean Prof. Dr. Marcel Thum took the opportunity to look back on the most important milestones of TU Dresden and the faculty over the past year.

Another highlight of the afternoon was the awarding of the winners of the Prof. Dr. Endriss Prize 2025. This year, two Industrial Engineering and Management students can look forward to receiving the €2,000 grant, which supports study visits abroad. Aljoscha Bär, who spent a semester at Lehigh University (USA), received the prize in person in the Dülfer Hall. David Schirack is currently still studying abroad at the University of Nevada.

The atmospheric finale was a get-together with coffee, cake and mulled wine, where many guests rounded off the afternoon in a pleasant atmosphere.

Employees of the faculty can download these and many other photos from the event in the internal area of the faculty website: to the Events photo gallery