The people in AI Alliancen
Christian Lythje Villum
Technology explorer, digital strategist and keynote speaker · Aalborg University
Christian Lythje Villum is a digitalisation partner in IT Services at Aalborg University. His work connects the needs of research communities with digital services, AI tools and research infrastructure, including high-performance computing, or HPC. His role is to make technological opportunities relevant to researchers' practical work and to connect academic communities with the functions that provide their digital support.
Previously, he helped colleagues establish the work of the AI Innovation Centre at Aalborg Municipality. The team identified use cases, developed prototypes and tested municipal AI solutions. His account includes cases involving building permits and local development plans, as well as pilots of a voicebot for routing telephone calls. This is experience from a development and testing initiative involving several different municipal service areas.
A substantial part of the work concerned methods and organisation. The team's approaches included needs workshops, user journeys, a step-by-step path from idea to tested prototype, and a tool for exploring value beyond financial considerations alone. Christian has also worked with AI ambassadors and helped staff without specialist AI knowledge contribute to innovation.
He has shared municipal experience with other municipalities and through professional communication. In AI Denmark's podcast, he discussed Aalborg's exploration of an AI assistant for council work and its dialogue with elected representatives about their needs. His profile thus combines needs-driven development, practical testing and the development of shared skills with his current work supporting university research.
Selected experience
- Digitalisation partner for research, focusing on digital services, AI and HPC.
- Teamwork on municipal AI use cases, prototypes and pilots in Aalborg.
- Needs workshops, user journeys, assessment of value and development of an AI ambassador network.
- Knowledge sharing between municipalities and communication of experience with AI in council work.