One of my biggest talks ever#

In January 2015 I was giving a talk in one of the most famous buildings in Europe, the Coronation Hall in Aachen, Germany, where for hundreds of years the coronation of emperors (that took place in the adjacent cathedral) was celebrated, the first time for Charlemagne (Karl der Große, Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus). Hence the building is over 1200 years old and I had well over 1.000 persons listening to my presentation on "Many developments are still going to happen, and we will not like all of them", concentrating to some extent on ICT, of course, but actually going quite a bit beyond it.

I think the panormaic picture below is quite impressive, and I also add one showing me as speaker.

Lecture of Maurer in Coronation Hall
Photo: Andreas Herrmann

Maurer druring lecture
Photo: Andreas Herrmann

If I do not count appeareances on TV then I have had only one talk with a bigger audience, in Calgary, Canada in 2007, when I received an honorary doctorate there: My address was part of the convocation ceremony, so there was a crowd exceeding 3.000, but the reason for coming was of course not me, but the convocation.

Only once did I give a talk in a place with a similarly impressive ambiente: When I presented a keynote at a congress in the opera house of Bayreuth in Germany, where I was treated like an opera singer, with standing ovations and girls bringing me bouquets of flowers after the talk.

(Well, reminiscing is fun!)