Christian Diedrich has a German Diplom Ingenieur degree in electrical engineering with the option Automation since 1985 and got his PhD in 1994 in the field of semi-formal specification of fieldbus interfaces and fieldbus profiles. His activity field covers the entire engineering life cycle of field devices of production systems. He has worked in many German and European research and development projects (main topics are industrial communication, engineering of automation systems, formal description methods as well as information, semantic and knowledge modeling) and is active in national and international standardisation activities.

Mr. Diedrich is deputy head of ifak e.V. Magdeburg since 2005 and holds the chair of “Integrated Automation” at the Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg-Germany since April 2006. He is head of the Institute of Control Technology of the Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg.

The “Institut f. Automation und Kommunikation” (ifak), founded in 1991, whose legal operator is the registered association of the same name, ranks among the German Research-Mittelstand and is one of the founding members of the "Deutsche Industrieforschungsgemeinschaft Konrad Zuse e.V.". The institute carries out applied research on “Information and Communication Technology and Automation”, “Water and Energy”, “Measurement Technology and Power Electronics” and “Transport and Assistance”. In around 75 projects of research annually, ranging from feasibility studies to complex development projects, ifak is a partner to industry. It is a reflection of the cross-sectional character of automation and information technology that the customers come from the widest range of industries in addition to electrical engineering.