During his 16 years with Capgemini, Marius Vöhringer has led many exciting projects – but he is particularly proud of one current scheme. With his team in Germany, and alongside his day-to-day work as director of cloud transformation and sustainable IT, he is responsible for a project to help doctors and hospitals diagnose rare childhood diseases more quickly.

“A former colleague told me that she was working on diagnosing rare childhood diseases at a hospital in Munich,” Marius says. “I had been wondering how we could use cloud technologies and AI for the common good, so the decision to dedicate my work to the topic was clear. Every child has a right to medical care, but children with rare diseases are often at a disadvantage because even the diagnosis proves difficult, with parents and children often waiting a long time for an answer. Using AI in medicine could change this.”

Marius says the latest technologies can help doctors detect patterns and anomalies – for example, in what’s known as “omics” data (data from disciplines in biology such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics), MRI scans, or blood tests – to identify early signs that may indicate genetic diseases or abnormalities.

“This could help a doctor assess whether a child has a tumor or suffers from heart disease,” he says. “It will also accelerate diagnoses of rare conditions. Early detection is often crucial for rare diseases, and by providing and analyzing data via a sovereign cloud, medical professionals can access results more quickly and share information with each other – even internationally.

“Sovereign cloud-based platforms can also promote collaboration between doctors, researchers, and clinics worldwide, helping them exchange experiences and accelerate the development of new diagnostic and treatment strategies. They can also help us use AI agents to analyze genomics data, providing doctors and clinics with proactive support in their analyses.

In addition, we are currently building AI agents that have access to global studies, and search for gene anomalies to find an intersection with the analyzed patient data. In the event of overlaps, the studies can also help to identify the appropriate treatments.”

However, getting enough data to make a success of these new medical applications is still a challenge, says Marius.

“We will need at least 100,000 datasets to build reliable algorithms,” he adds. “However, in many hospitals, data is often only stored locally. The challenge for us is to show that it’s possible to work with sensitive data without sharing the data itself – to keep it anonymous and protected.

“We have built a platform to develop algorithms where the data itself remains at the individual hospitals or universities, but the insights from the AI ​​analyses can be shared across locations.”

Teamwork for success

While access to data is integral to the project’s success, ultimately, it is people who make it all happen.

“To deliver the results we want, we need to get all stakeholders on board,” Marius says. “Only then can we expand the network to include additional hospitals and universities. That’s what will really allow us to expand the sovereign data platforms, implement agentic AI solutions, and share the data securely and efficiently.”

Marius’s own small team at Capgemini is also vital to the project’s success.

“All six of us on the team are fully committed to it,” he says. “That’s me as project manager, plus a chief architect, two data scientists, a doctor, and a colleague who is helping us design the user interface. For all of us, it’s a true passion project ­– the motivation and team spirit are truly inspiring.”

Marius adds that it’s a project on which Capgemini’s values ​​of trust, freedom, team spirit, and courage have been a source of support.

“Beyond our small team, Capgemini as a whole provides us with support,” he says. “We were helped and encouraged to start the initiative, and then it started to gain attention across Capgemini. Our managing director in Germany has also emphasized the social significance of the project, because children are our future.

“Every day, digital solutions are helping us simplify complex problems, drive efficiency, and open up new opportunities for sustainable growth. It gives me confidence that we can tackle future challenges with greater impact, and have room for creative solutions.

“When I first joined Capgemini, I could sense the potential of technology, but I couldn’t have imagined the impact it would have today. What excites me is how it has evolved from being a support function to being key in how we drive transformation. It’s not just helping us to solve problems, it’s helping us shape new ways of working, collaborating, and innovating.

“As someone who has always been future-oriented, I see technology as our most powerful tool to build a better tomorrow. It’s about discovering opportunities to build on our strengths, where innovative ideas and committed employees come together to find solutions to issues around us.”

If Marius and his team’s commitment and innovation pay off, it has the potential to save lives all around the world.