Michael Hoffer

As Head of Software Development at Hamilton Freiburg GmbH, Michael leads a team of software developers and embedded engineers specialized in laboratory automation systems and liquid handling robots. He received the JavaOne Rock Star award in 2014 and 2015 and was a regular speaker at prominent Java-related conferences. He developed VRL-Studio, an innovative visual programming environment that integrates visual and text-based programming, and VMF, a modern modeling framework for Java used in developing complex modular systems for demanding industrial and research applications. His research during his PhD and postdoc work focused on visual programming concepts and meta-programming techniques for modeling and simulating highly complex physical processes. As part of his current work, he is creating a variety of industrial-grade ML/AI-based software solutions. Michael aims to create a visual general-purpose programming language for the Java platform that seamlessly integrates with Agentic AI and microservice architectures.