Preserving Experiential Knowledge: hAiner at the futureSAX Innovation Forum in Bautzen
On 24 September 2026, I am at the futureSAX Innovation Forum “New Work & AI” in Bautzen, presenting hAiner in a short pitch. Five minutes, one question: How do we prevent experiential knowledge from disappearing, and how do we make it usable today?
The skilled labour shortage is also a knowledge problem
By 2040, around 13.3 million people in Germany’s labour force will pass the statutory retirement age. That is 30 percent of everyone who was available to the labour market in 2025. They take more than their labour with them: they take knowledge about customers, products and operational processes.
Yet knowledge is often missing already today: the information is somewhere, the right colleague is unavailable, and the search holds up the work. I have experienced this in my own work for many years. That is why Maike Penz and I founded hAiner.
How hAiner preserves knowledge and makes it usable
When knowledge is missing, hAiner asks the right people in the company and conducts interviews with them. The result is a knowledge network: Who knows what? Which teams are responsible? Which products and processes belong together?
hAiner links existing documents to this knowledge. Employees ask questions in their own words, in the browser or on the go in the app, and receive answers with traceable sources. Learn more about the approach on our topic page Preserving experiential knowledge.
Two customers, one software
Sächsische Aufbaubank, the development bank of the Free State of Saxony, supported our market launch. Today, two customers work with hAiner.
At a vehicle importer, vehicles pass through many steps at many partner companies. An employee on the yard asks in the app: “Which red vehicles are in stock, and where are they?” hAiner shows the matching vehicles with their location and status. The customer also keeps track of process steps and leads.
In cosmetics retail, hAiner supports customer contact as well as onboarding and offboarding. Both applications run on the same software. For each company, we set up the structure and business logic: Which teams are responsible, which processes and rules apply? We connect data sources via interfaces, and our servers are located in Saxony.
Who we are looking for in Bautzen
We are looking for our next customer in the industrial Mittelstand: a company with which we deploy hAiner in day-to-day work and then extend it to further teams. We start with one concrete process and one contact person, and together we clarify effort, operating model and access rights.
Are your most experienced employees retiring soon? Then talk to us while we can still preserve their knowledge together. And if they stay, all the better. Because a company that knows what it knows is faster every day.
Are you in Bautzen too? Talk to me on site. Or book an initial consultation directly.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the futureSAX Innovation Forum “New Work & AI”?
- An event by futureSAX, the innovation platform of the Free State of Saxony. It takes place on 24 September 2026 from 12:00 to 18:00 at the Sorbian National Ensemble in Bautzen, with pitch sessions, a panel discussion, AI-based matchmaking and an exhibition.
- What does hAiner do?
- hAiner preserves experiential knowledge in companies. It conducts targeted interviews with employees, maps the company as a knowledge network, links existing documents and answers questions with traceable sources, in the browser or in the app.
- How does working with hAiner start?
- With one concrete process and one contact person in the company. Together we clarify effort, operating model and access rights before hAiner is extended to further teams.
Sources
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