Leo Sauermann studied Information science at the Vienna University of Technology. Under the project name "gnowsis" he merged Personal Information Management with Semantic Web technologies, resulting in a master thesis about „Using Semantic Web technologies to build a Semantic Desktop“. Working as a researcher at the DFKI since 2004, he continued the work and now maintains the associated open-source project gnowsis. His research focus is on Semantic Web and its use in Knowledge Management. In autumn 2003 he started to give talks about his work - before his master's examination the thesis was already a success.

From 1998 to 2002 he has been working in several small software companies, including the position of lead architect at Impact Business Computing developing mobile CRM solutions. He is an experienced programmer in both Delphi and Java.