Speaker
Every year, the Speakerboard consists of top-class keynote speakers from all over the world. Among them are u.a. Nobel laureates, scientists, politicians, professors from renowned universities, authors, and much more. The speakers usually have little or nothing to do with the real estate industry and should inspire our participants to look beyond their own nose. Because that's how innovation comes about.
Speaker Board 2022

Beau Lotto is a neuroscientist and world-renowned expert in perception. His research explores the ways in which we experience the world through our own versions of reality and in doing so he seeks to pull aside the curtain of why we see what we do. Beau is a professor at University of London, as well as a visiting scholar at New York University. He is also founder and CEO of the world’s first neuro-design studio Lab of Misfits which partners with brands like Cirque du Soleil and Microsoft to blend science, art and performance to explore pivotal principles in current culture. Beau Lotto helps us to understand how perception works and therefore see ourselves in the world in a different way and engage in it in a different way. He shows why we need to let go of the assumptions and beliefs that keep us from seeing the world differently.

As a neuroscientist, John-Dylan Haynes tracks our thoughts. He is a Professor at the Bernstein Center of the Charité Berlin and Director of the Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging. His research addresses a wide range of questions about the connection between thinking and the brain, such as how thoughts can be read from brain activity, how our brain makes decisions or whether we have free will. So he is scientifically dealing with one of the core questions of humanity: how does the world enter our consciousness? Or in short: can we read minds? Prof Haynes' research is repeatedly reported on in international media such as CNN or BBC. In his book "Window into the Brain", published in 2021, he and Matthias Eckoldt provide an insight into the possibilities and limits of brain research. In his lectures, John-Dylan Haynes uses illuminating examples to convey an exciting picture of his field of research, but also addresses feasibility limits and ethics.

Michelle King is a leading global expert on organisational culture and equality at work. She was the Director of Inclusion at Netflix, the Head of UN Women’s Global Innovation Coalition for Change and has many years of international experience working in the private sector. Based on over a decade’s worth of research Michelle believes that to tackle inequality we need to fix workplace cultures so that they work for everyone. She lends her expertise to advance gender equality and to enhance opportunity and achievement for women globally. As a thought leader, Michelle King is the host of the weekly podcast, The Fix, which shares practical ways men and women can advance equality at work. Michelle is a keynote speaker, researcher, writer, advocate and author of “THE FIX: Overcome the Invisible Barriers that are Holding Women Back at Work”. She regularly speaks at numerous conferences and private sector events including Amazon, EY, Nasdaq and SXSW.

Frederik G. Pferdt was Google’s first-ever Chief Innovation Evangelist and is Adjunct Professor at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka: d.school). Featured as the "Pope of Creativity" and "Dr. Innovation" in the international media, Frederik’s mission is to grow an innovation mindset in everyone as he believes creativity exists in all of us. At Google he initiated a radically diverse community of over 500 Innovation Evangelists, trained thousands of Googlers and co-founded Google's The Garage while creating its first Innovation Laboratory. Frederik G. Pferdt helped leaders and teams across Alphabet/Google and beyond to discover and solve problems in new, unconventional ways, shaping one of the world's most fabled innovation cultures. At Stanford University he teaches graduate courses like: “Hacking your Innovation Mindset” and empowers students through design so that they can invent cool things that matter in the world.

Gerhard Mangott is a professor of political science with a special focus on international relations and security in the post-Soviet space. He teaches at the Institute for Political Science in Innsbruck and is a lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. Gerhard Mangott's research focuses primarily on the regime theory of Russia and Ukraine as well as on energy security in the oil and gas sector. Topics with utmost relevance, which make the Eastern Europe expert a much sought-after and popular commentator in the media. Mangott conveys his enormous knowledge of this important region of the world in a competent and clear manner and paints a multi-layered picture of the former great power and its current role. Gerhard Mangott is Scientific Adviser on Post-Soviet Affairs at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs. He is also a consultant for the British Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC), the Volkswagen Foundation, the Jubilee Fund of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB), the Swiss National Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research and various scientific journals.

Greg Lindsay is a futurist, urbanist, author and journalist. He is literally a man on the street, reporting from the intersection of global trends and local wisdom. Greg is widely cited as an expert on the future of travel, technology, and transportation, on the design and resiliency of cities, and on how to create more innovative workspaces. He offers fascinating hints and visions of our richly connected future, the challenges it poses, and the opportunities for those prepared to meet it. He is the chief communications officer at Climate Alpha, a location analysis platform steering governments and investment toward more climate resilient geographies. He is also the senior fellow for applied research and foresight at NewCities, a senior fellow of MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. He’s a partner at FutureMap, a geo-strategic and climate advisory firm based in Singapore.

Peter Hinssen is one of Europe's leading technology experts and one of the most sought-after thought leaders on radical innovation, leadership and the impact of all things digital on society and business. The serial entrepreneur and adviser has a focus on the consumer adoption of technology, on the impact of the networked digital society, and on the alignment between business and IT. Peter founded nexxworks to help organizations kickstart their innovation. Peter is the author of five bestselling business books and has given numerous keynote presentations around the world, for companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. He also lectures at renowned business schools like the London Business School, the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. In his keynotes, Peter Hinssen takes us on a journey to the day after tomorrow and shows how we can be at the forefront of developments along the way.

Jane McGonigal is a world-renowned game designer, bestselling author and today's leading innovator in the use of game-based collaboration to improve healthcare treatment and other real world problems. Jane specializes in games that challenge players to tackle real-world problems, such as poverty, hunger and climate change, through planetary-scale collaboration. Her mobile app and web-based game SuperBetter leads the field in helping individuals deal with depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and stress. She has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Army to use games for healing and with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve medical research. Jane McGonigal is the Director of Game Research & Development at the Institute For The Future (IFTF) in Palo Alto, California and today's leading voice on the engagement economy and the application of game-design to the real world.

Carlos Moreno is a pioneer in the field of intelligent cities with his vision of a Human Smart City, a living city, of which he is one of the initiators. He is a Senior University Professor, an international renowned expert and a Knight of the French Legion of Honour. He has a passion not only for innovation, creativity and exploration but also one for sharing, connecting, and building ties with others. The outstanding career of Carlos Moreno is marked by an interest in people – a focus on others through which we can look beyond ourselves to build a new world together. Born in Colombia in 1959 Carlos Moreno moved to France at the age of 20. After becoming a leading figure in robotics, he founded Sinovia. The mission of his start-up was to develop the city of the future. Moreno also founded the Live in a Living City forum which brings together experts from around the world to look at how urban environments are changing.

Maximilian Böger focuses on the development of visions, innovative business ideas, new business models and the optimisation of existing marketing strategies in the age of digital transformation. Dr Maximilian Böger is Managing Director of FUTURE CANDY and founder of Business Model Ideas, the world's largest database for business model analyses. He is passionate about the development of management frameworks and innovation strategies beyond the boundaries of his own company. Maximilian grew up on the shores of the North Sea and studied international business administration at the University of Vienna. During his studies, he successfully founded the start-up updoon and the brand UNUYA. As co-founder of Airspott, however, he experienced a "fuck-up story". As a PhD student and project leader at the Institute of Technology Management at the University of St. Gallen, he founded the Ecosystem Living Lab and specialised in innovation management, business model innovation, platforms and ecosystems. In these areas, he works with leading companies worldwide. In his keynotes, he impressively demonstrates how visionary strategies and exponential growth can be used to achieve goals previously thought to be unachievable.
Speaker History 2017-2021
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Here is an overview of all keynote speakers and topics of recent years.
Speaker Board 2021

Hannah Fry is mathematician and complexity scientist and researches the trends in our civilization and ways we can forecast its future. While working with data during the last few years, Hannah has come across some incredible stories. She lectures on the Mathematics of Cities at University College London and her research at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis focuses on patterns of human behaviour - particularly in an urban setting. It applies to a wide range of social problems and questions, from shopping and transport to urban crime, riots and terrorism. She regularly appears on TV and radio, taking the joy of maths to a bigger audience as for example with her long-running BBC Radio 4 show. Hannah also authored a number of books like “The Mathematics of Love” and “Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine”.

Paul Rulkens is an expert in strategic high performance: the art and science of accelerating bold executive outcomes with the least amount of effort. His ideas to improve results and accelerate careers are thought-provoking and highly effective. Originally trained as a chemical engineer, Paul’s work is based on deep knowledge and extensive experience in the practical business applications of behavioural psychology, neuroscience and, especially, common sense. He is an author of two international business books and his popular TED talks have already been watched by more than four million people on YouTube. With his keynotes about essential mindsets and his proven strategies to reap exponential business improvements he has helped thousands of business executives, managers, and professionals to get everything they can out of everything they have. His most popular topics cover the secrets of consistent execution, easy innovation, powerful leadership, business growth, career acceleration, and seamless teamwork.

Jochanan Eynikel is business philosopher at the think tank of ETION, a Belgian forum for business leaders and decision makers, where he delivers content about business ethics & technology ethics, entrepreneurship and future thinking and meaningful work. Jochanan holds a Master in philosophy from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and Stellenbosch (South-Africa) as well as a master in journalism. He is guest lecturer on the Ethics of Technology at the Faculty of Engineering Technology/Department Computer Sciences of KU Leuven. In 2017 his book on the ethics of technology was published (in Dutch: Robot aan het Stuur, Lannoo Campus). The book engages with the ethical and societal impact of disruptive technologies such as smart robotics and artificial intelligence. As author and keynote speaker Jochanan Eynikel thinks, writes and speaks on the interface of business, philosophy, ethics and technology. To keep the robot evolution human, we need to talk about values – and that’s what Jochanan does.

Mark T. Hofmann is a profiling expert and business psychologist. He was trained and certified as a criminal and intelligence analyst in the US. A graduate in organizational psychology, Mark specializes in profiling and psychological techniques and is considered one of the leading experts in his field. During his master's degree in industrial and organizational psychology, he is above all fascinated by the "dark" topics such as white-collar crime, psychopathy and narcissism. Thanks to his excellent training and his very special gift for observation as well as his pronounced interest in people, Mark is an important source of inspiration for the police, intelligence services and companies in matters of offender behaviour, interrogation psychology, psychopathy and negotiation strategies. Mark T. Hofmann is also known as a columnist, TV expert and through his own TV show on hr/ ARD. As an internationally sought-after speaker, he shows how US profiling approaches can be used for everyday business.

Andreas Weigend is one of the world's leading experts on data and social networks. The former chief scientist of Amazon.com is an expert on Big Data, consumer behaviour and social-mobile technologies. He is convinced that we can no longer hide anything, because humans create digital traces by living. After studying physics in Germany and Cambridge, Andreas Weigend did his PhD on neural networks at Stanford University. During his time as Chief Scientist at Amazon, he analysed Amazon's user data and was involved in developing the company's data strategy and culture of innovation. As a member of the German government's Digital Council, he demands that data monopolists like Amazon, Facebook and Google make the data they use commercially available to everyone. Andreas Weigend sees data as the global capital of our digital age. He is the author of the book "Data for the People", in which he describes what Silicon Valley is doing with our data and what basic data rights he thinks we need.

Mariano Sigman is one of the most outstanding neuroscientists in the world. He deals with complex questions such as the role of the subconscious, the origin of our thoughts and decision-making. His research provides astounding answers to complex questions such as “where do our thoughts come from?” and “how does the subconscious work?”. The multi-award-winning scientist was born in Argentina and grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He earned a master's degree in physics at the University of Buenos Aires and a doctorate in neuroscience in New York. In 2006, he founded the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires where physicists, psychologists, biologists, engineers, educationalists, linguists, mathematicians, artists and computer scientists work together. Based on his lab's research, Sigman explains, for example, why people who speak more than one language are less prone to dementia or how we trust our judgements. Over the course of his impressive career, Dr Sigman has explored the inner workings of the human brain, cultivated a remarkable interdisciplinary vision and deciphered the cerebral processes which controls how we learn, think, feel and dream.

Marc Elsberg is an Austrian bestselling author and an internationally successful thriller expert. With the successes of "BLACKOUT" and "ZERO", he has established himself in politics and business as a sought-after expert and source of inspiration on the topics of energy, IT security and modern society. Before becoming a master of the scientific thriller, Marc Elsberg was a strategy consultant and creative director for advertising in Vienna and Hamburg and a columnist for the Austrian daily newspaper "Der Standard". He is one of the few recent German-language authors attracting international attention with his descriptions of real threat scenarios and a subtle blend of fiction and reality. Suspense and action paired with facts and background information are Elsberg's ingredients for his five bestsellers, which have been translated many times and won international awards. Marc Elsberg always writes with his finger on the pulse of the times and his intensive research makes him an expert on the topics he writes about. He is considered a thought leader who transforms realistic future scenarios into gripping books and opens up new perspectives on explosive current issues.

Prof. Dr Gabriel Felbermayr is one of the leading trade and foreign trade experts and one of the most sought-after economists when it comes to explaining global economic and trade policy interrelationships. He has been President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy since March 2019. From October 2021 on, he will head the Austrian Institute for Economic Research in Vienna. After studying in Linz and earning his doctorate in Florence, his international career first took him to McKinsey, before he became an assistant professor in Tübingen and a professor in Hohenheim. Before taking office as IfW President, Felbermayr was Professor of Economics at Ludwig Maximilian University and Head of the Centre for Foreign Trade at the Ifo Institute in Munich. Topics such as the TTIP trade agreement or post-Brexit Britain have turned him into a highly demanded expert in recent years. Gabriel Felbermayr is an advisor in politics and society and regularly takes a stand on important topics such as tariffs, export credits and free trade agreements - and in doing so always is a Europe and free trade optimist.

Rutger Bregman is a historian and journalist and one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers. He became internationally known in 2019 with his taxation rant against the business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Handelsblatt calls him an anti-establishment star. After studying history at Utrecht University and the University of California, Bregman works as a journalist. He writes for the "Washington Post", the BBC and for Dutch media, produces a successful podcast and his books have become bestsellers. In "Utopia for Realists" he calls for open borders, an unconditional basic income and the 15-hour week. In his most recent book, "Humankind", he examines the nature of human beings, who he believes are fundamentally good. Bregman has already been nominated twice for the prestigious European PressPrize. Rutger Bregman's ideas for improving the world are innovative and courageous and leave his readers as well as his audience hopeful about the future.
Speaker Board 2019

Anders Indset is considered the "rock star among business philosophers". He is the founder of Sa. | shapingwork academy, the first corporate and executive education academy based on practical philosophy. Anders Indset is a guest lecturer at leading international business schools and a member of the supervisory board of the German Tech Entrepreneurship Center, as well as adviser to international CEOs and leading politicians. As one of the world's leading business philosophers, he brings together the philosophy of the past with the technology and science of tomorrow.
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Dr. Aubrey de Grey is researcher on aging and said to be the world’s foremost advocate of the provocative view that medical technology will one day allow humans to control the aging process. He challenges the most basic assumption that aging is invitable. He is biomedical gerontologist, devised the SENS platform, and established SENS Research Foundation to implement it. SENS is a California-based biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the aging process. He is Vice President of AgeX Therapeutics which is focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics targeting human aging. Dr. de Grey received his BA in computer science and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world’s highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging, a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Aging Association, and sits on the editorial and scientific advisory boards of numerous journals and organizations.
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John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists. His work is centred on the relationships between economics, finance and business. In 2015, he put forward the thesis that over the past 40 years, the expansion of the financial services industry in both size and scope has damaged - or at least not helped - prospects for health in the real economy. Kay was the first dean of Oxford’s Said Business School and has held chairs at London Business School, the University of Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Born and educated in Edinburgh, he has been a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers. Following the outcome of the referendum on British membership of the European Union in June 2016, he was appointed a member of the Standing Council on Scotland and Europe appointed by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.
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Lera Boroditsky is a celebrated cognitive scientist and professor of language and cognition. Boroditsky is known for her research relating to cognitive science and how language affects the way we think. One of her main research topics focuses on how people with different linguistic backgrounds act or have different behaviours when exposed to certain events. Born in Belarus in 1976, Lera Boroditsky studied cognitive science at Northwestern University and earned her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at Stanford University. After working at the MIT faculty and in Stanford, she is now a professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Faculty of Cognitive Sciences. For the US magazine Utne Reader she is "one of 25 visionaries changing the world". She is a Searle Scholar, McDonnell Scholar, winner of a career award from the National Science Foundation and an excellent scientist from the American Psychological Association.
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Mohammed Ashour is co-founder and CEO of Aspire Food Group, a verticallyintegrated agriculture and food company that addresses global food sustainability by developing the most advanced insect farming technology in the world. In 2013, he and four fellow McGill University graduate students had won the prestigious, $1 million Hult Prize for their business model they’d devised to tackle ending world hunger by farming edible bugs. Today Aspire Food Group is a global industry leader of the movement with 65 full-time employees. A Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, Mohammed is regarded as a leading voice in social enterprise and alternative protein. He has been featured in media like the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Forbes. Mohammed pursued an MD-MBA dual-degree at McGill University and holds an M.Sc. degree in Neuroscience from McGill University and a B.Sc. degree in Life Sciences from the University of Toronto.
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Duncan Wardle is the former Vice President of Innovation & Creativity at the Walt Disney Company and developed some of Disney’s most innovative ideas and strategies. Duncan founded the Creative Catalyst Team which was used to teach employees across all the Disney properties how to develop their own “thinking toolkit” which would enable them to strategically and repeatedly create moments of innovation within their business units. After 25 years at Disney and after the massive success of his toolkit, Duncan has launched his creative consulting company id8 & innov8 which has quickly become one of the top innovation consulting firms in the world. Duncan shares his creative consultant services and innovation workshops with employees and executives at companies such as Ford, McKinsey, Coca-Cola and Apple. For his work he was honoured with the “Outstanding American Citizen Award”,a Hons. Doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University and the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award.
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Ricardo Semler is internationally recognised as a catalyst of change for employee-empowered leadership. He is a champion of the employee-friendly radical corporate democracy he implemented as CEO of Semco Partners for over 20 years. Under his ownership, revenue has grown from 4 million US Dollars in 1982 to 212 million US Dollars in 2003 and his innovative business management policies have attracted widespread interest around the world. He believes that if we simply ask why we do things and devolve power to employees, we’re able to create wiser companies – ones that are simultaneously more productive and have happier workforce. Ricardo is the best-selling author of the classic Maverick and The Seven-day- Weekend. He was Professor of Leadership at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, and is working to bring radical corporate democracy to education through Lumiar School. Ricardo Semler was named one of the “Global Leaders of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
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A marketing professional with over 20-years’ experience in brand management and global marketing. Raluca’s passions lie into imagining and designing innovative concepts, programs and brands with social impact. In 2012, Raluca set-up and led the department “Social Innovation”, a new pillar of global marketing, at Red Bull. Focused on the idea of “giving wings to people and ideas” they developed a comprehensive Development Program as well as Academies for Social Entrepreneurs across 4 continents. With the belief that all businesses could do good while doing well, no matter if small or big, Raluca took an entrepreneurial turn, including co-founding Urban Monkey – a brand with social impact at its core. She aims to further leverage her experience, contribute expertise and catalyze the power of marketing and business communities for changing the narrative on social impact (CSR 2.0) and contributing to the education and development of a new generations as key for a better future.

Matthew Griffin is recognised as one of the world’s foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts. He helps investors, multi-nationals, regulators and sovereign governments around the world to envision, build and lead the future. Asides from being a member of Centrica's prestigious Technology and Innovation Committee and mentoring XPrize teams, he re-envisions global education and training with the G20, and helps the world’s largest organisations to envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries. The award-winning futurist and founder of the 311 Institute helps bringing the future to life and to demystify the hundreds of emerging technologies that are helping visionaries and entrepreneurs to build and shape the future. Matthew’s ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled.
Speaker Board 2018

Suzanne Grieger-Langer is Europe's undisputed profiling expert. The economic profiler not only helps to identify personal potential and personnel development, but also to prevent fraud. The Formula Infiltration® developed by her is considered a milestone in fraud detection. In addition, Suzanne Grieger-Langer examines suitable candidates for filling highly paid posts, discloses the potential of employees and decodes the motivation and preferences of negotiating partners. For more than 20 years, Suzanne Grieger-Langer has been instructing not only decision makers in business and science, but also agents. Suzanne Grieger-Langer is a lecturer and lecturer of the most prestigious business schools in Europe.

Hiroshi Ishiguro is the most prominent researcher on androids in Japan and is considered the "pop star of Japanese robotics research". He built an android in his own image, sometimes doubling it in lectures. He is the director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University's Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, one of the world's leading robot research organizations. Ishiguro is considered one of the most radical representatives of a coming society in which humans and androids coexist. His research focuses on creating robots that are as similar as possible to humans. He is convinced that it is possible to create a robot that can not be distinguished from a human being.

Anna Rosling Rönnlund has a personal mission: she wants to make the world visually understandable and thus more tolerant. Anna is co-founder and board member of the Gapminder Foundation and Head of Design & User Experience at Gapminder. Together with Hans and Ola Rosling, she founded Gapminder to counter the devastating global ignorance with the help of a generally understandable, fact-based worldview. For example, as part of her Dollar Street project, she uses photographs to show the living conditions of different income groups around the world. Prior to founding Gapminder, Anna developed the interface for the popular Bubble Chart Tool Trendalyzer, which was purchased by Google, where Anna worked as a senior usability designer.

Thomas J. Sargent is one of the most influential economists of our time and one of the founders of the New Classic Macroeconomics. He is winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2011 and since 2002 he is the first W.R. Berkley Professor of Economics at the University of New York. Since 1987, Tom Sargent is Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Together with Christopher A. Sims, Thomas J. Sargent received the 2011 Nobel Prize in Economics for groundbreaking work on macroeconomics and groundbreaking research into rational expectations. A central part of Thomas J. Sargent's research focuses on people's decision-making and rational expectations. His thesis of policy inefficiency states that politically driven monetary and fiscal policies are predictable and thus have no real impact on the economy.

A groundbreaking study made Julia Shaw overnight the shooting star of legal psychology. In her false-memory study, she implanted 70% of her subjects via suggestive questioning methods a wrong memory. Since then she has been called the Memory Hackerin. Internationally, she advises the police, the Bundeswehr, lawyers, the judiciary and the economy. In 2017, she founded a company in Silicon Valley that uses artificial intelligence to combat discrimination in the economy. Dr. Julia Shaw is a bestselling author, lecturer and researcher in the Department of Psychology at University College London, where she researches in the fields of legal psychology, memory and artificial intelligence. Her non-fiction debut "The Memory Illusion - The Deceptive Memory" became a bestseller in 2016 and is published in 14 languages.

Paul Mason ist ein preisgekrönter britischer Journalist und einer der führenden Politik- und Wirtschaftsreporter Großbritanniens. Von 2001 bis 2013 war er Wirtschaftsredakteur und Business Korrespondent bei BBC Newsnight. Anschließend war er bis 2016 Wirtschaftsredakteur der Channel 4 News. Er hat eine Reihe vielbeachteter Bücher über Ökonomie, Globalisierung und Politik geschrieben, darunter „Postkapitalismus: Grundrisse einer kommenden Ökonomie“. Darin beschreibt er die Bedrohung des Kapitalismus durch die digitale Revolution sowie das Potential der digitalen Revolution, unsere Vorstellung von Arbeit, Produktion und Werten neu zu definieren. Paul Mason ist regelmäßig als Analyst und Kommentator in TV- und Hörfunksendungen zu Gast und nimmt dabei Stellung zu Trump, Brexit, dem Phänomen Jeremy Corbyn sowie zu sozialer Gerechtigkeit in der Ökonomie.

Sven Gábor Jánszky ist Deutschlands führender Trend- und Zukunftsforscher und Direktor des innovativsten Business-ThinkTanks Deutschlands, der vor allem für seine radikalen Zukunftsdebatten bekannt ist. In seinen wegweisenden Trendanalysen wirft Jánszky einen Blick in die Zukunft und nimmt Trends sowie deren Konsequenzen unter die Lupe. Seit zehn Jahren treffen sich auf seine Einladung hin 300 CEOs und Innovationschefs der deutschen Wirtschaft zum renommierten 2b AHEAD ThinkTank, wo sie gemeinsam Zukunftsszenarien und Strategieempfehlungen entwerfen. Mit der speziellen Methode des ThinkTanks werden dabei jene Trends analysiert, die in den kommenden Jahren unser Leben bestimmen werden. Sven Gábor Jánszky lehrt im Masterstudiengang „Leadership Studies“ an der Karlshochschule International University in Karlsruhe.

Michal Kosinski berechnet den Charakter von Menschen anhand ihrer Facebook-Likes. Er ist Assistenzprofessor für Organisationsverhalten an der Stanford University Graduate School of Business und koordiniert das myPersonality Project, in dessen Rahmen 200 Forscher weltweit mehr als acht Millionen Facebook Profile analysieren. Die Forschung des Standford Professors konzentriert sich auf den digitalen Fußabdruck und was dieser über sexuelle Orientierung, politische Gesinnung oder Interessen von Menschen aussagt. Computergestützte Methoden wie Big Data Mining helfen ihm bei der Auswertung der digitalen Spuren. Michal Kosinski erlangte weltweite Berühmtheit, weil sich Donald Trump – mit Hilfe von Cambridge Analytica - seine Technologie im Wahlkampf zunutze gemacht haben soll.

Pascal Finette is an internet entrepreneur from the start. He is co-founder of consulting firm radical Ventures and vice president of Startup Solutions & Entrepreneurship Chair at Singularity University. The native German has previously worked for Mozilla, eBay and Google. He has been living in Silicon Valley for many years and supports startups with his knowledge and experience. As a lecturer at Singularity University, he gives entrepreneurs the technological tools and visions to effectively master global challenges. Pascal Finette is a big fan of technology and believes that the Internet will change humanity profoundly, because in the networked and globalized world, new technologies are much faster than they used to be.

Milosz Matuschek is a successful start-up entrepreneur in the blockchain sector. He is a journalist and author and as a publicist, intellectual flaneur and lateral thinker is always up to date. After studying law and social sciences in Munich, Paris, Regensburg and Berlin and his doctoral thesis, Milosz Matuschek taught German law and comparative law at the Sorbonne in Paris for five years. Since 2017 he is the founder and managing director of the blockchain start-up "Eternitas", which deals with automated estate administration and execution of wills. Milosz Matuschek is a successful author of several books and numerous contributions for predominantly German-speaking media such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Standard or NZZ. He is primarily concerned with the transformation of the world through disruptive innovations such as blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Richard David Precht ist einer der profiliertesten Intellektuellen im deutschsprachigen Raum. Sein Fokus sind kulturelle, philosophische und ethische Themen. Der Philosoph, Bestseller-Autor und Publizist ist Honorarprofessor für Philosophie an der Leuphana Universität in Lüneburg sowie an der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Vor allem als Autor erfolgreicher populärwissenschaftlicher Bücher zu philosophischen Themen wird Richard David Precht einer breiten Öffentlichkeit bekannt – darunter „Wer bin ich? Und wenn ja, wie viele?“. Precht schreibt regelmäßig in den großen deutschen Zeitungen als Essayist und Kolumnist und ist als Moderator im deutschen Fernsehen tätig.
Speaker Board 2017

Nicklas Bergman is a high technology investor, nanotechnology expert and entrepreneur. He has spent the last 20 years working as a serial entrepreneur and investor focusing on emerging markets and technologies. Nicklas Bergman is an insightful business leader and passionate technology adopter who has a broad knowledge base – including the latest technology trends as well as the latest market research trends, Big Data and different aspects of entrepreneurship. He is a perfect guide when trying to understand what the future will bring.

José is chair of the Venezuelan Node of the Millennium Project, Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo, Japan, and Teaching Fellow at Singularity University in Silicon Valley, USA. He is also an independent consultant, writer, researcher, professor and “tireless traveller”. He has lectured as an Invited Professor at several major institutions as for example the MIT in the USA and Sophia University in Japan.

Nigel Farage is a British politician, founder of the eurosceptic UKIP party and is considered as the face of the Brexit campaign which succeeded in making Great Britain vote for leaving the European Union. Since 1999 Farage is member of the European Parliament, presently as Chair of the “Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group”.

Neil Harbisson is a British artist and Cyborg Activist. He is the world’s first legally recognized cyborg. He was born colour-blind – but thanks to an antenna implanted into his skull, colour becomes audible for him. With his Cyborg Foundation, founded in 2010, Neil Harbisson protects the rights of cyborgs, promotes cyborgism as an art movement and supports people, who want to become cyborgs.

Alon Hillel-Tuch is co-founder of RocketHub, one of the world’s largest crowdfunding platforms that has helped thousands of artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and social leaders raise millions of dollars. Part of RocketHub’s mission is to educate the public on the power of crowdfunding. As CFO and CTO he oversaw RocketHub's partnerships with the White House, U.S. Department of State, Fulbright Foundation, Cisco, Microsoft, Chrysler, and others. Since 2016 he is Managing Partner of Stacked Venture Builder and Dreamit Ventures.

Andrew Keen is an entrepreneur, author and broadcaster who is regarded as one of the world’s leading contemporary analysts of digital business and culture. As a pioneering Silicon Valley based Internet entrepreneur, Andrew founded Audiocafe.com and built it into a popular first generation Internet music company. He has also co-founded a number of other Silicon Valley start-up ventures including afterTV and now.tv. He is currently the host of "Keen On" show, the popular Techcrunch chat show, where he interviews global business luminaries like Sir Martin Sorrell.

Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the Chair in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London (UCL) where she is establishing a new Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (launching Autumn 2017). Mazzucato’s highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem 2013; Public Affairs, 2015) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. She is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and in 2013 she was named as one of the “3 most important thinkers about innovation” in the New Republic.

When it comes to alternate power sources and batteries, Donald R. Sadoway is the man to turn to. Voted one of “Times” magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2012, he is widely recognized as a leading battery and energy storage expert. As a researcher he has focused on environmental ways to extract metals from their ores as well as producing more efficient batteries. His research has often been driven by the desire to reduce the carbon pollution output by various industries. Donald is the co-inventor of a solid polymer electrolyte.

Hans–Werner Sinn held the Chair of Economics at the LMU University in Munich until 2016. He has also gained international recognition as a result of numerous periods of research and guest professorships; he teaches at, amongst others, the London School of Economics, Princeton University, and the University of Oslo. He has conducted research in a number of areas, such as globalisation and emerging markets and demographic change.