Speakers 2015

Lars Hinrichs is Founder and CEO of Cinco Capital, a private equity fund that invests in European and American tech companies. In 2003 he founded XING, a highly successful business networking platform. As Founder and CEO, Lars oversaw its IPO in 2006, making XING the world’s first Web 2.0 company to go public. In 2010 he founded HackFwd, an innovative pre-seed investment company that supported Europe’s most passionate geeks in launching the world’s most exciting tech startups. Lars is an active member of the Young Global Leaders (YGL) of the World Economic Forum and the Young Presidents’Organization (YPO). Since 2013 he is a member of the Advisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG. His latest project is the Apartimentum, a smart home in Hamburg.

What are you presenting?

“Smart Home: Apartimentum“

What is your vision about the future?

“Everything that can be digital will be digital.”

Markus Durstewitz works for the Airbus Corporate Innovation team. His mission is the establishment of a sustainable innovation culture and effective innovation environment that delivers value to the customers. He has over twenty years of experience in the aerospace industry working in different key positions along the complete product life-cycle. Markus holds a PhD in Cognitive Engineering and Man-Machine Systems. Main interest is in user-centered design and impact of digitalization in offering new ways of collaboration along the complete value chain of aviation.

What are you presenting?

“How to anticipate the challenges of an ongoing digital transformation as a key driver and accelerator for change in our industry and air transport?”

What is your vision about the future?

“It’s all about connecting the people and ideas …“

This is one of Google‘s XPrizes, that pushes the limits of what‘s possible to change the world for the better. Google Luna XPrize organise the race to the moon. Aim: To land a privately funded robot on the moon. The Part Time Scientists are the one German team out of the last five. The goal is to make missions to the moon affordable and thereby discover the 8th continent, that inheres many important resources etc.

In 2007, Google set out the largest international incentive based prize of all times: 30 million $ for the private team who reaches the moon first and fulfills three tasks: land safely, move 500 meters across the lunar surface and send images to earth. It was initiated to promote private and cost – effective travel to the moon. 34 teams started the competition – now only 5 teams (The Part Times Scientists, Astrobotic, Hakuto, Moon Express and Team Indus) are left with a serious chance to complete the mission.

The Part Time Scientist is a Berlin based team competing in the new industries of private space technologies. Over the past 5 years PTS has been developing market-leading technological know-how to deliver space-grated products & services, partly in close cooperation with the German Aerospace Center.

The team is headed by Robert Böhme – an expert in computer system management – who formed this team in 2008 to achieve the goal of landing on the moon. He is the face to the public and in Germany he is already present on some TV shows and other media.

Since 2010 Lutz Freitag researches on robots with the focus on signal processing, perception and motion planning. He started studying computer science in 2007 at Freie Universität Berlin, worked from 2009 till 2013 at Hella Aglaia GmbH in tooling and R&D. Currently he works for Autonomos GmbH and Hanson Robotics in their respective R&D departemts. Lutz participated in the RoboCup with the FUmanoids in the KidSize league where humanoid robots play football autonomosly. Currently he develops software to give robots a sense of their bodies to create smarter and more natural moving machines.

When he is not playing/working with robots he enjoys reading, cycling, parks and most of all: traveling.

Maks Giordano is a Digital Strategist and Creative with 20 Years Experience in Digital. He co-founded the digital consultancy „kreait“ in 2011 with a focus on creating meaningful, user-centric and highly relevant digital services and helping organizations in their digital transformation. He is currently consulting BMW, Deutsche Telekom, eBay, UEFA and many others in Digital Innovation and played a vital role in the re-launch of Condé Nast´s Digital Activities in Germany.

Maks helped to bring the Mobile Monday to Berlin, launched the „Wearable Wednesday“ in Germany. He is an active Business Angel and Mentor to StartUps, serves on various boards as an advisor and was heading the Founder Institute in Berlin. Maks holds an MBA in Media & Communication from the University of St. Gallen Switzerland and is an Associate Professor, teaching „Entrepreneurship“ at Zeppelin University. He is a judge both to the Lovies and Webbys Awards, named the „Oscars of the Internet“, and loves to travel and practicing Yoga.