Harald Neidhardt

Martin believed that everything can and should be given a purpose through innovation and design, including the innovation systems them selves, and in the end our society and political landscape. Martin loves crafting great experiences. He moved across a broad range of design disciplines from visual, interaction, usability, service to system design. Right now Martin is imagining the future of work, as chief Designer for SAP he drives user experience enabling technologies as a tool for beauty and simplicity for people work. “User experience is the language that bridges technology and life with clear intentions.” he says. Martin also believes that an innovative and curiosity driven culture is key to success, especially in large corporations of today. Therefore he also spends part of his time driving a creative culture change program at SAP. “Creative culture is the fuel, design is the vehicle, innovation is the journey”

He frequently shares his passion for the future of technology and design as speaker, panelist and guest lecturer. He builds on his international work carrier stretching from Poland, Sweden, China to Germany and across companies like SAP, Sony and Huawei in consumer electronics, media services and business systems software.

There is probably very few SciFi movies Martin have not yet seen, there are millions of forests he would love to mountainbike in and miles of coral reefs to dive on. Ask him about anything above and you catch a spark in his eye and possibly an interesting conversation.

Miikka is a visual strategist who sees the growing complexity of our world as simple patterns. He combines his extensive background in graphic design with his knowledge of business and marketing strategies to create design thinking tools.

Miikka has developed a theory about technology melting the material world with the immaterial world. He has created visual strategy and innovation tools based on his theory.

Currently he is developing tools for business disruption prediction.

Kathrin is Digital Innovation Ambassador and member of the CC Digital management board at Roland Berger and founder of teamx.digital. She has been in the digital space for over 15 years,  is a serial entrepreneur and founded several new media companies, like infoMedia that has been successfully acquired by Thyssen Telecom or mindwyse, that is today operating as dgroup, -a specialized consultancy for digital transformation. She is an expert on digital Innovation and has a broad network of corporate executives, worldwide start-ups, technology experts, VCs and digital thoughtleaders.

Nancy is IXDS’ CEO. She enjoys building organizations and teams with a unique spirit and culture.

Before joining IXDS in 2012 she established Fjord’s German studio in 2007, grew it to a team of 50 in her role as MD and then took on a Group Director role to build Fjord’s global Service Design Academy. Fjord was sold to Accenture in 2013. Prior to this, Nancy led global innovation projects in her product management and user experience roles at Yahoo and Vodafone.

Nancy was recognized as one of the “100 Women of the Future” by Deutschland – Land der Ideen, and chosen (together with Prof. Reto Wettach) as one of the “15 Thought Leaders & Innovators 2015” by WIRED magazine. She regularly takes on guest professorships and speaker engagements, mentors startups and founders and is very active in the service design community. Nancy studied design at the Köln International School of Design and Rhode Island School of Design, and has more than 15 years’ professional experience in designing digital services.

At IXDS Nancy aims to re-invent innovation culture and the role and set-up of design studios. Constantly questioning the way we integrate technology into our lives – while empowering the analog qualities –  is another one of her passions.

Nancy loves the outdoors, mountaineering & nature and is a certified Ayurveda therapist.

Dave Mathews is a consumer-focused inventor specializing in mobile, convergence and digital entertainment. He is currently channeling years of technology expertise into his latest company, NewAer, to pioneer the evolution of Location Based Services (LBS) based upon proximity. Built for Android, iPhone, OS-X and Windows, the software-based NewAer proximity platform works inside of any applications to make them environmentally aware of other devices nearby and communicate peer-to-peer without any WiFi or cellular network present. This platform for machine-to-machine discovery enables any smartphone application or API to be automated from the presence of radio signals received on a device. Similar to Apple iBeacon, this enhanced technology also works with WiFi, BlueTooth + Low Energy, cellular and NFC.

Dave began connecting computers to cellular phones in the early 1990′s and created some of the first mobile data solutions for carriers across the U.S. He has launched communication-focused retail superstores and the products they sell, as well as routing technologies, supply chain management and back-end database infrastructure. After the dot-com bubble burst, he was tapped by the Chairman of RadioShack to help rekindle the spirit of innovation within the retail giant. Under Dave’s leadership, Radio Shack brought several innovative products to market and invented numerous new technologies with the help of his U.S. and international teams. He later supported development, marketing and growth for startups including boxee and Slingbox.

Always tinkering, Dave has 76+ U.S. patents granted or pending and has appeared as a technology expert or host on some 300 television shows. He is a proud inventor of the CueCat consumer bar code reader, dubbed one of the “40 Worst Inventions of All Time” by TIME and Inc magazine. Dave is a frequent public speaker and contributing author, and advises many early-stage technology companies.

Markus Wissmann has been with Cisco for more than 8 years in various management roles covering international sales, go-to market and business development across mutliple segments such as Public Sector, Enterprise and Service Providers. Today Markus runs Cisco´s Smart+Connected Cities business across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia with a focus on a large number of key urbanization engagements. Markus has over 15 years of ICT sales and business development experience in various industry verticals including Small medium businesses, Public Sector, Enterprise and Service Providers.

He is also an experienced Real estate professional with hospitality subject matter expertise and wide-ranging experience in sustainable real estate and green building developments.

Prior to Cisco Markus led hospitality sales and business development for Siemens Dubai where he lived for 5 years.

Nikolaus Roettger has been editor-in-chief of Wired Germany since April 2014, based in Berlin, the epicenter of the German digital and start-up scene. In WIRED he reports on one of the greatest adventures of our age: the invention of the future. Röttger was previously editor-in-chief of the online magazine Gründerszene.de and as managing editor, developed the financial magazine Business Punk. Nikolaus Röttger completed a traineeship at the Financial Times Germany and worked at Gruner + Jahr for eight years in various positions.

Maks Giordano is an expert in digital innovation – primarily in the social and mobile spaces – and has developed web strategies and mobile applications for major publishers and consumer brands. He previously worked in leading positions with ID Media and MetaDesign, and then co-founded iconmobile, one of the first mobile agencies, and took it international.

After the exit to WPP, Maks worked as Head of Innovation, Games & Mobile at ProSiebenSat1. Maks holds an MBA degree in Media & Communication from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He taught classes about Entrepreneurship, Mobile and Innovation Management at universities in Dornbirn, Berlin & Friedrichshafen.

Yuri Van Geest is a passionate professional and entrepreneur on strategy, innovation, mobile internet and Singularity (bio-neuro-nano-AI-robots). He works for Vodafone Group, Adidas Global, Port of Rotterdam, Philips Global, Samsung, MIT, Blackberry and Google within his own company called Trend8.

He is co-founder of Vodafone Mobile Clicks, the largest mobile internet startup competition in the world. He is the Dutch Ambassador and double alumnus of the exclusive Singularity University of NASA and Google HQ in Silicon Valley driven by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis.

Anina is a model with a passion for technology:

She is an expert on fashion technology, entrepreneurship, illuminated clothing, and China.

Anina is a worldwide public speaker on fashion technology.  She has been speaking at the top technology conferences such as Mobile World Congress, Le Web, LIFT, DLD, China Fashion Week, China Fashion Forum, Huawei Innovation, Dutch Week of Innovation, TechNode, PingWest SYNC,  and more.

Anina is an international model and the only foreigner to have ever been selected to win an award at the China Fashion Awards. She has modeled for Sonia Rykiel, Dres  van Noten, Dirk Bikenberg, Salvatore Ferrragamo, and traveled the world and worked in all the fashion capitals from New York, Milan, Paris, London, Sydney, and more.