Roland Kuhn

Dr. Roland Kuhn studied physics at the Technische Universität München and obtained a doctorate with a dissertation on measurements of the gluon spin structure of the nucleon at a high-energy particle physics experiment at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland). This entailed usage and implementation of large computing clusters and fast data processing networks, which laid the foundation for his thorough understanding of distributed computing. Afterward, he worked for four years at the German space operations center, building control centers and ground infrastructure for military satellite missions, before joining the Akka team at Lightbend (then called Typesafe), which he led from November 2012 to March 2016. During this time he co-taught the course Principles of Reactive Programming on the Coursera platform together with Martin Odersky and Erik Meijer, a course that was visited by more than 120,000 students. Together with Jonas Bonér, he authored the first version of the Reactive Manifesto, published in June 2013. Currently, Roland is CTO of Actyx, a Munich-based company he cofounded, bringing the benefits of modern Reactive systems to small and midsize manufacturing enterprises across Europe.