Christoph Meinel (born April 14, 1954 in Meißen, Germany) is a German computer scientist and professor of Internet technologies and systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) of the University of Potsdam.

From 1996 to 2002, he was founding director of the Institute for Telematics e. V. in Trier, which, under the supervision of the Fraunhofer Society, dealt with issues in the field of Internet and Web technologies.

Meinel is a member of acatech, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering, and serves on the Board of Governors of the Technion in Haifa, among many other academic bodies.

Christoph Meinel's work initially focused on theoretical computer science, and here on complexity theory and Binary Decision Diagrams.

The first European MOOCs platform openHPI, which Meinel initiated and developed under his leadership, offers free interactive online courses on topics related to digital education and technologies.

Meinel holds several international patents (for example Lock-Keeper) and has developed, among others, the tele-teaching system tele-TASK, the online collaboration tool Tele-Board or the very popular ID-Leak-Checker service.

Meinel is editor of the book series Understanding Innovation published by Springer-Verlag, the scientific online journals ECCC and ECDTR, the Internet-Bridge Germany-China.

As a chairman of various Cloud-Learning initiatives Christoph Meinel leads innovations in the field of the digital transformation of the German schools and education sector.