For an overview of past speakers at DLD, follow these links:
DLD07 Speakers, DLD06 Speakers and DLD05 Program.

We are delighted that Honda Motors humanoid robot ASIMO will join the DLD06. The development of a robot that can move like, interact with and be of assistance to humans is recognised as one of the great technological challenges of the 21st Century. ASIMO (standing for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility) is regarded by many as one of the most advanced bipedal robots in the world.

In terms of ASIMO’s movement, Honda has studied and used as its model the complex co-ordinated movements of the human body. ASIMO’s proportions and joint positions resemble those of a human being and, in many respects, it possesses a range of movement comparable to that of humans.

Utilising new advanced motion technology, ASIMO not only walks forwards and backwards but also turns sideways, climbs up and down stairs, and turns corners. As such, ASIMO is the closest robot yet to replicating the natural walking motion of humans. Question of the Hour: Is Asimo a "he", or "she", or an "it"?

We have the pleasure to confirm the following speakers:

• Anina, Model with a passion for technology, 360°Fashion (tbc)
• Paola Antonelli, Curator, MOMA
• ASIMO, humanoid robot, Honda Motors
• Rainer Beaujean, CEO, T-Online
• Boris Benedek, Producer, 91 words for snow
• David Benedek, Producer, 91 words for snow
• Adam Bird, managing partner of Booz Allen Hamilton's Global Media and Consumer Practice and a Member of Booz Allen’s Board of Directors
• Dr. Martin Braun, Managing Director, Burda Digital Ventures
• Bazon Brock, Professor for Aesthetics, University of Wuppertal
• Pascal Cagni, Vice President, Apple Europe
• Thomas Crampton, Correspondent, International Herald Tribune
  
• Ted Cohen, Senior VP, Digital Development & Distribution, EMI Music
• Stefanie Czerny, Managing Director Marketing & Communications, Hubert Burda Media
• Emanuele Della Valle, CEO Formapura
• Daniel Dubno, Producer and Technologist, CBS News
• Paul van Dyk, DJ
  
• Esther Dyson, Editor, ReLease 1.0, CNET Networks
• George Dyson, Author, Baidarka; Project Orion; Darwin Among the Machines
  
• Jyri Engeström, Aula, Helsinki
• Gerhard Florin, Senior VP and Managing Director, Electronic Arts Europe
• Ivar Fougstedt, Marketing Director, Burton Snowboards Europe
• Eyal Gever, Founder & CEO, Gizmoz
  
• Markus Giesler, Professor of Marketing, York University's Schulich School of Business
• Dan Gillmor, Founder & Director, Center for Citizen Media
  
• Rudolf Gröger, CEO, o2 Germany
• Michelle Guthrie, Chief Executive Officer of STAR
• Christoph Hartmann, Managing Director, 2K (tbc)
  
• Lars Hinrichs, CEO, openBC
• Philipp Justus, Senior VP and General Manager Europe, eBay
• Arne Kahlke, Managing Director, Elitepartner
• Timm Kehler, Vice President Marketing Predevelopment and Innovation Projects at BMW Group
• Hans-Peter Kleebinder, Head of Marketing, MINI Germany
  
• Edgar Koerner, President of the Honda Research Institute Europe, Offenbach
• David Kirkpatrick, Senior Editor Internet & Technology, Fortune (tbc)
• Rick Y. Kim, Director Global Business, Cyworld.com
  
• Georg Kofler, Chairman, Premiere
• Thomas Madsen Mygdal, CEO & Founder, 23h.com.reboot
  
• Loic Le Meur, Executive VP and General Manager EMEA, six apart
• Noam Levavi CEO, YCD Multimedia Ltd.
  
• Gabe McIntyre, Founder, XOLO TV
  
• Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products and User Experience, Google (tbc)
  
• Thomas Middelhoff, Chairman, KarstadtQuelle
• Hans Ulrich Obrist, Curator
• Chemi Peres, Managing General Partner & Co-Founder of Pitango Venture Capital
• Felix Petersen, Founders, plazes.com
• Chris Pirkner, Vice President Corporate Development, MoodLogic (tbc)
• Ernst Poeppel, is chairman (and founder) of the institute of Medical Psychology and of the Human Studies Center, both at Munich
• Bernd Radig, Professor of Informatics at Technical University Munich (TMU)
• Ernst Raue, Member of the Board, Deutsche Messe AG
  
• Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media
• Marcel Reichart, Managing Director marketing & Communications, Hubert Burda Media
• Andrew Robertson, CEO, BBDO Worldwide
• Joerg Rohleder, Focus Magazin
  
• Randall Rothenberg, Director Intellectual Capital, Booz Allen Hamilton
  
• Stefan Sagmeister, Artist and Graphic Designer, Sagmeister Inc.
• Oliver Samwer, Founder Jamba!
  
• Hannes Schwaderer, CEO, Intel Germany
  
• Yat Siu, Founder and CEO, Outblaze
  
• Kevin Slavin, Managing Director and Co-Founder, area/code
• Sven Slezák, STARnetONE, internet pioneer
• Timo J. Soininen, CEO of Sulake Corporation Ltd
• Anne Urbauer, editor-in-chief, Amica Germany
  
• Joseph Vardi, Principal, International Technologies Ventures
• Oded Vardi, Founder, Superna
  
• Martin Varsavsky, Founder, FON 
• Boris Wasmuth, Managing Director Marketing and Co-Founder, GameDuell.com
• Annette Weber, Editor-in-Chief, InStyle
• Jochen Wegner, editor-in-chief, Focus-Online
• Andreas Weigend,  Data Mining Expert
• Philipp Welte, Geschäftsführer Burda People Group
• Christoph Wilfert, Business & Marketing Officer, Microsoft Deutschland
• Stefan Winners, CEO Tomorrow Focus AG
  
• Wolfram Winter, Managing Dircetor of NBC Universal Global Networks Deutschland

Anina, Model & Blogger, 360° Fashion

Anina is an American model from Michigan. she is currently living in Paris, France. Anina is passionate about technology and has been collaborating with Nokia Corporation for the last 1.5 years. More information about her and her projects can be found on her website. Her most visual project with Nokia Corporation is the 360fashion.anina.net website. Anina enjoys yoga, snowboarding, travel, art, cinema, music, and speaks 5 languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, (and some Japanese). She hand-coded her entire website & wap site.

Paola Antonelli, Curator, MOMA

Paola Antonelli joined The Museum of Modern Art in February 1994 and is a Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design. Her first acclaimed exhibition for MoMA, Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design (1995), was followed by several others, covering all facets of architecture and design in the contemporary world. er most recent exhibition, SAFE: Design Takes On Risk (10/16/2005-1/2/2006) was devoted to objects designed to protect our body and soul. Her goal is indeed to make design the most loved, understood, and celebrated subject of the XXI century. She currently working on a book about foods from all over the world as examples of outstanding design and on trying to get a Boeing 747 into the collection of The Museum of Modern Art.

Boris Benedek, Producer, Blank Paper Studio

Boris Benedek (born in Munich in 1977) toured the World-Cup from 1997-2002 and became German Champion in 1998. During this time he also stared as a rider in numerous Videos.
After ending his professional career in 2002, Boris graduated from Film School and switched behind the camera, filming, editing and directing Snowboard Films, becoming one of the first producers in the alternative sports field to explore magazine-insertion as an alternative distribution channel.
His releases include "Follow" in 2003 and "FollowUP" in 2004.

In 2005 Boris and David Benedek decided to fuse their talents and - along with 2 partners - founded Canada-Europe-based Production Company, Blank Paper Studio.
Their Production "91words for Snow" is currently available as a magazine insert in multiple Snowboard magazines around the Globe.

Their current production "91words for Snow" is available on DVD as a cover mounted supplement to various snowboard magazines around the globe. This new distribution form makes this concept driven production available to snowboarders worldwide with approximately 300 000 copies, far more than any other snowboard film has ever reached.

David Benedek, Producer/ Director, Blank Paper Studio

David Benedek (born in 1980 in Munich) followed his older brother’s (Boris Benedek) path to become a professional Snowboarder, winning some of the sport’s most prestigious international competitions and being voted "Rider of the Year" in the USA for two years in a row.
In 2002 he co-founded the US-based Production company “Robot Food” and served as their art director and co-director for 3 years, winning various awards within as well as outside of the sport.
Today he is also considered as one of the world’s best Freestyle Snowboarders.

In 2005 the two brothers Boris and David Benedek decided to fuse their talents and -along with 2 partners- founded Canada-Europe-based Production Company, Blank Paper Studio.
Their Production "91words for Snow" is currently available as a magazine insert in multiple Snowboard magazines around the Globe.

Their current production "91words for Snow" is available on DVD as a cover mounted supplement to various snowboard magazines around the globe. This new distribution form makes this concept driven production available to snowboarders worldwide with approximately 300 000 copies, far more than any other snowboard film has ever reached.

Adam Bird, managing partner of Booz Allen Hamilton's Global Media and Consumer Practice and a Member of Booz Allen’s Board of Directors

Mr. Bird advises the top management of the leading media, entertainment, leisure and consumer companies on their most critical business issues. His client work has spanned all major media, entertainment and information segments consumer goods, and leisure companies. His work includes strategy development, post-merger integration, performance improvement and change management.
Adam Bird has been a recipient of the Booz Allen’s Eagle Award (for extraordinary leadership), as well as its Professional Excellence Award (for outstanding and innovative client service).
In 2006, Mr. Bird was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Media Center and of the International Council of the Museum of Television and Radio.

Dr. Christoph Braun is Managing Director of Burda Digital Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital arm of Hubert Burda Media and developer of Internet and mobile-based business models. He also serves as Director Treasury for the group. In addition, Christoph is chairman of the board at Abebooks, Inc., the world’s largest platform for used and rare books.

Before joining Burda in 1997, he worked for McKinsey&Company, Inc. in Frankfurt and San Francisco on a client portfolio in the FMCG and media industry. Christoph holds an MBA from The Tuck School at Dartmouth, and earned his Doctorate in business at the University of Munich.

Bazon Brock, Professor for Aesthetics, University of Wuppertal

Bazon Brock was born 1936 in Stolp/Pommern. From 1957-1965 he studied German language and literature studies, philosophy, art history, and political science in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Zurich. At the same time he was educated in dramaturgy.

In 1959 he was involved for the first time in happenings (along with Hundertwasser, Alan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik). 1968 he founded the establishment for visitor schools for documenta schools in Kassel.

1965-1978 Bazon Brock was appointed assistant professor for non-normative aesthetics at the University of Visual Arts in Hamburg.

From 1978 until 1980 he worked as professor for design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Starting 1980 Bazon Brock became university professor for aesthetics and design theory at the Bergisch University in Wuppertal, department of architecture, design and art.

Since 1957 he has conducted more than 1600 action teachings, theatre plays and productions for theory theatre, audio books, polemics, events in museums, galleries, archives, theatres and international universities.

1992 he was awarded and honorary doctor for technical science at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich.

He is co-founder of the theory theatre and the research group „Kultur und Strategie“

Current work focus lies on neural aesthetics and imaging science.

Most recent publication: "Der Barbar als Kulturheld – Ästhetik des Unterlassens – Kritik der Wahrheit", DuMont, Cologne 2004

Thomas Crampton, Correspondent, International Herald Tribune

Thomas Crampton has worked as a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune for nearly a decade, reporting from five continents, writing a column on Asia and leading the newspaper's coverage of Asian politics, economics and culture. Based in Paris since April 2005, he has been specializing on the emergence of new media and its impact on society.

Previous postings include covering the 2004 United States presidential campaign for the IHT's parent newspaper, The New York Times, along with the US hurricanes, the 9-11 commission as well as a range of other domestic issues. Prior to that he worked for a decade across Asia, Africa and Europe, covering many aspects of the rise of China, Asia's financial crisis, the SARS outbreak, Sudan's civil war, earthquakes and a range of cultural topics.

In addition to citations from Amnesty International for his articles and photography, Mr. Crampton has served as a judge for several journalism awards and worked in numerous organizations promoting freedom of expression and the training of journalists.

Stephanie Czerny, Managing director Marketing & Communications, Hubert Burda Media

Stephanie Czerny studied political science and communications at the Ludwig-Maximillians-University in Munich. Furthermore she earned a degree in journalism at the German School of Journalism. She started her career as a researcher in international maritime law for the Science and Politics Foundation (Institute for International Affairs). In 1995 she joined the Hubert Burda Media group and held several executive posts in new media activities. In 1998 she moved to the office of Dr Hubert Burda, assuming the position of Corporate Strategy Director. In 2004 she became Managing Director of Hubert Burda Media Marketing & Communications GmbH.
Stephanie focusses on developing branding and communication initiatives such as the Burda Brand Club and “Connect the Unexpected.” In addition she holds various executive positions in cultural and environmental organizations. She is married and the mother of four children.

Yanir Farber, President of Browzwear International

Yanir Farber is the President of Browzwear, a leading technology company with a digital 3D design and fitting solutions for the global fashion industry, among its clients one can find Benetton, Nike, Adidas, Russell, Levi’s and many other apparel brands. The company is about to launch their new venture "Stylezone" that is targeting the global teenage market through an online fashion oriented game and community
Prior to joining BrowZwear Mr. Farber has founded and directed Tefen’s, a leading Israeli industrial engineering company, European Office. . In addition, Mr. Farber was the General Manager and COO of Cubital, an international manufacturer of Rapid Prototyping systems. Mr. Farber holds a B.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering & Management from Tel Aviv University.

Ivar Fougstedt, Marketing Director, Burton Snowboards Europe

Ivar Fougstedt joined Burton Snowboards Europe in 2000 as their Creative Coordinator. In 2005 he was announced Marketing Director for the European Burton organization where his responsibilities include advertising, brand management and the European specific marketing strategy for the world´s finest snowboard company Burton Snowboards,their goggles brand ANON and the protection brand RED.

Prior to joining the snow industry he worked in the advertising world for 10 years with various clients including Sony Europe in Germany, where he also completed his degree in marketing communications. Originally from Finland, he has lived abroad his whole life with stops in Japan, France, Germany and currently Austria where the Burton European HQ is situated, at the pulse of the snowboarding world in between snowy peaks.

Rudolf Gröger, CEO, O2 Germany

Rudolf Gröger was born in 1954.
In 1996 he started his career as a Spokesman of the German Management Board
at Siemens AG (Information & Communication Products and SNI AG). In 1999 he joined the Deutsche Telekom AG and was Spokesman of the Board, Information- and Communications-Systems. 2001 he worked as a Managing Director of Sales & Distribution for the T-Systems GmbH, Regions and Business Lines.
As a Managing Director of Sales & Distribution, International and Business Lines he represented the debis Systemhaus GmbH.
In October 2001 he became CEO of O2 GmbH & Co. OHG Germany (former VIAG Interkom GmbH & Co. Since 04/2003 Rudolf Gröger is member of the board mm O2 plc. Rudolf Gröger is also member of WTB (Business and Economic Council) of the Bavarian Government and of the Board BITKOM.

Lars Hinrichs is co-founder and Managing Director of Xing, formally known as OpenBC. Lars started his career as an entrepreneur in 1998 at the age of 22 after working as a consultant at different new media firms.

In 1998 Lars initiated “politics digital” a well received and award winning platform in the area of politics and new media. In 2000 Lars established Boettcher Hinrichs AG, a consulting company and development house for enterprise communication.

Since 2001 Lars has concentrated on being an investment and funding advisor as he has accomplished several successful financing rounds for various enterprises. Lars advises portfolio companies with business development and business building strategies.

With his broad spectrum of activities and high level memberships in various organizations, e.g. the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), Lars has an excellent network of contacts worldwide. The idea of enabling networking between his contacts has inspired him to build up openBC.

Rick Y. Kim, Director Global Business, Cyworld.com

Rick Y. Kim is an executive with 14 years of experience in the internet, IT, and media/entertainment industries. Through his background in sales, product marketing, marketing communications, strategy, and global business development, he has garnered a comprehensive outlook on the uniqueness of the Asian culture in business and everyday life. Rick's latest role is as lead of the global business team at SK Communications, a Korean internet portal company. In the past 12 months he was involved with setting up overseas operations in China and Japan , as well as formulating plans for U.S. and European operations. Rick grew up in Seoul and Hong Kong, and received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Yonsei University, the top rated private university in Korea . He is an avid early adopter of consumer technology and an outspoken proponent of the open web environment. He currently resides in Seoul , Korea with his wife.

2004.9 – Present: SK Communications Global Business Team, Cyworld Business Development Director
2003.3 – 2004.9: SK Communications Business Strategy Team Leader
2000.11 – 2002.7: FIFA Worldcup Taskforce Team, Project Manager
1999.9 – 2003.1: Yahoo! Korea Senior Marketing Manager
Prior to 1999: Country Marketing Manager at Parametric Technology Corporation, a product development automation software company; International Label Manager, EMI Music Inc.

Hans-Peter Kleebinder, Head of Marketing, MINI Germany

Dr. Hans-Peter Kleebinder was born 1965 in Ingolstadt/Germany and holds a Master Degree in Economics and Politics from Munich University and a Marketing PHD in “International Public Relations“ from University St. Gallen, Switzerland.

He started his career as a freelancer with BURDA publications in Munich/New York and as a consultant at DIGMAR AG, one of the pioneers in digital marketing in Switzerland.

In 1992 he has joined the BMW Group with different marketing responsibilities, e.g. Marketing Strategy, Event Marketing, Relationship Marketing and Internet and as Product Launch Manager for the BMW 3Series.

In 1998 he became Head of the BMW Group “Zukunftswerkstatt eMarketing” before he took over his current position in 2003 as Head of Marketing for MINI Germany.

Edgar Koerner, President of the Honda Research Institute Europe, Offenbach

Edgar Körner studied electrical engineering, control engineering, and biomedical cybernetics at the Ilmenau Institute of Technology, Germany. From 1976 to 1984 he served as an assistant professor/senior staff researcher establishing the bionics research laboratory at the same university. The research activities included experimental work in neurophysiology and neural systems modelling. From 1984 to 1987, he joined the Bioholonics Project of JRDC (Tokyo) as a research fellow dealing with brain-like vision systems. Back at the Ilmenau Institute of Technology, he continued research in biological vision and neurofuzzy control systems as an associate professor. In 1988, Dr. Körner was appointed full professor for biocybernetics and head of the Department of Neurocomputing and Cognitive Systems. In 1992 he moved to Japan to join Honda R&D’s Wako Research Center near Tokyo, focusing as a chief scientist on the brain-like computation research. In 1997 he started research in computational neuroscience, evolutionary technology, and cognitive robotics at Honda R&D Europe, where he served as an executive vice president and head of the Future Technology Research Divison. Since 2003, he serves as the president of the Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH with focus on brain-like artifical neural systems and self organization of knowledge representation for autonomous robots.

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, Founder and CEO, 23, reboot

Thomas is the founder and CEO of the european photo sharing service "23" that's working to make connecting with others through photos so easy even your granddad can do it. Thomas has 11 years of experience leading startup companies and designing disruptive products since co-founding the first danish internet consulting company and first danish portal in 1995.

Thomas is also well-known for being the founder and host of the annual European gathering for practical digital visionaries "reboot", which he has produced seven times since 1998. Thomas is an activist for a new era of conversation, creation, organization, co-operation, work and creation of meaning – and agenda that he actively pursues through entrepreneurial activities, investments, speaking engagements, blogging, gatherings and activist work.

Thomas Middelhoff, CEO, KarstadtQuelle AG

After a four year period as chairman of the management at the Mohndruck GmbH, in the board of directors of the department of pressure and industrial companies of the Bertelsmann AG (today Avarto), in 1994 Dr Thomas Middelhoff became the board member of the Bertelsmann AG for which he was also responsible as chairman of the board from 1998 on. In 2003 he joined Partner Investcorp. for two years in London. Since 12 May 2005 Middelhoff is chairman of the board of the KarstadtQuelle AG, Essen.

Dr Thomas Middelhoff also was a member in the supervisory boards of the following companies: America Online, Inc, Dulles (in 1995-2000); Metro AG, Cologne (in 1998-2000); since 2003 he holds a supervisory board mandate at The New York Times Company; since 2004 APCOA and in 2004 he added Polestar to his area of responsibility.

Dan Melinger, Co-Founder and CEO, Kamida and Socialight Co-Creator

Dan Melinger is a communications theorist and technologist. He is a co-founder
and the CEO of Kamida, the makers of the location-based messaging platform,
Socialight.

Melinger's research interests include exploring new consumption models for
decentralized media distribution and he has written extensively on the subject.
His undergraduate thesis explored the potential impacts of P2P before Napster
became a dirty word. Also along these lines, Melinger is part of the
organization and blog, unmediated.org.

As a technology consultant, Melinger has worked with international banks,
helping them to develop and deploy mobile solutions. He also has experience in
radio and television production, both interactive and traditional. Melinger
holds a Master's degree from New York University's Interactive
Telecommunications Program (ITP) and a B.A. in Communications from the Annenberg
School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Chemi Peres, Managing General Partner & Co-Founder of Pitango Venture Capital

Pitango manages over $1 billion in committed capital, and is invested in more than 100 companies.
Chemi founded and managed the Mofet Israel Technology Fund, a venture capital fund publicly traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange. Prior to Mofet, he was VP Marketing & Business Development at Decision Systems Israel (DSI), and a Senior Consultant to Israel Aircraft Industries. He also served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
He previously served on the boards of publicly traded companies and currently serves on the board of several Pitango portfolio companies.

Until 2004 Chemi served as the Chairman of IVA (Israel Venture Association) and continues on its Executive Board. He serves on the boards of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) Seed Fund; Koor Industries (NYSE: KOR); Weitzmann Institute of Science as well as boards of non-for-profit organizations, such as IVN (Israel Venture Network) and MATAN.

Chemi holds an MBA and a BSC degrees in Industrial Engineering and Management from Tel-Aviv University. He serves as Board Member of Ramot- commercial arm of the University and is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Management.

Felix Petersen, Founders, plazes.com

Felix Petersen, born and raised in Berlin, has been busy with remote data transmissions since the late eighties and has been building things on the Internet since 1997.

Felix Petersen is co-founder and member of the board of plazes.com, a bottom-up approach to spatial interaction and location oriented service platform, sometimes also dubbed “Mobile Social Software”. Plazes has been written and talked about up and down the blogosphere and its supporters and developer community include some of the brightest minds in cyberspace. Plazes was featured several times in publications like Wired, Red Herring and others as well as Editor´s pick for “Best of new Web” over at Businessweek.

He currently lives with his lovely wife in Berlin and enjoys things like food, cooking, media hacking and robotics.

If for some reason you feel like finding out more, go to:
beta.plazes.com/whereis/felixpetersen

Prof. Poeppel has served as chairman in the Helmholtz Center in Jülich being responsible for environmental research and life sciences.

He has done research in the brain sciences and psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at two Max Planck Institutes in Germany. He has been guest professor at several universities in Europe and East Asia as well as in the USA.

His interdiscplinary and international activities have gained high visibility: He cooperates for instance with the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Peking University, the Nencki Institute in Warsaw, the Pawlow-Institute in St. Petersburg, the MIT in USA, or University College in London.

Prof. Poeppel as a researcher has always worked closely together with industry, bringing scientific results quickly to market.

Bernd Radig, Professor of Informatics at Technical University Munich (TMU)

Since 1986 Bernd Radig is Professor of Informatics at the Technische Universität München (TUM). The main topics of his chair are image and image sequence understanding and knowledge based systems. 1988 he founded the Bavarian Research Centre for Knowledge Based Systems, a university institute common to the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, the University of Passau and the TUM. There he focussed on technology transfer of scientific results to commercial applications, cooperating in many projects with about 100 Bavarian companies. The idea of tight cooperation between fundamental research and Bavarian industry was further developed by the creation of Bavarian Research Cooperations, whose research topic ranged from East Europe Area Studies to Applications of Nano Technology. 1993 he founded the Association of Bavarian Research Cooperations, which presently has 20 Cooperations as members, where near to 400 scientists do research in advanced technologies.
His current research interest is the continuous, online analysis of image sequences, e.g. of human faces to classifiy their emotions from their mimics, the interpretation of video streams from soccer games to automatically describe the characteristics of a game, the teams and the players, or the analysis of the output of cameras mounted on autonomous mobile platforms, which play robot soccer.

Dr Marcel Silvester Reichart is Managing Director R&D, Marketing and Communications at Hubert Burda Media and Co-Host DLD, assignments he shares with Stephanie Czerny. For the last five years, Marcel has been working for Hubert Burda Media, initially as Chief of the Publisher's Staff and Director of Business Development.

Born 1972 in Southern Germany, he studied business, political science and history in Koblenz (WHU), Lyon, Washington D.C. and Rome. During his doctorate he acted as associate to former German Federal Minister of Economy Dr Otto Graf Lambsdorff and as a consultant, amongst others, for Roland Oetker. Marcel co-built the European media incubator Venturepark formed by Pixelpark, Goldman Sachs, Telefónica and BertelsmannSpringer as well as its investments.

Marcel is a former scholar of the German National Merit Foundation, a Young Leader of the Atlantik-Brücke and a founding member of the New Media Council of the Free Democratic Party in Germany. In 2005 he has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Joerg Rohleder, Focus Magazin

Born (1976) and raised in Stuttgart, Germany, Jörg Rohleder started writing at the early age of 17 for a local newspaper. During his years as a student of political science, history and literature in Tübingen and London he cultivated his skills as a writer at various publications, focusing on Zeitgeist related topics and contemporary culture. He joined Focus Magazin after working as a correspondant for Springer Foreign News Service in London and New York in 2000, where he currently writes for the modern life section.

Hannes Schwaderer, CEO, Intel Germany

After completing a degree in management, Hannes Schwaderer joined Intel’s Munich office in 1994 as Retail Marketing Manager. In 1998 he took over the position of Market development Manager EMEA and was responsible for Intel’s relationship with Compaq in Europe.

In 1999 he moved to the position of Marketing Manager Central Europe and held that position for the next three years.

In August 2002 Hannes Schwaderer took over the position of Country Manager Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He is responsible for all marketing and sales activities in these countries.

Additionally he is an executive member of the Initiative D21 and spokesperson of the steering committee for education, qualification and equal opportunities.

In August 2004 Hannes Schwaderer was appointed as Managing Director Central Europe.

Hannes Schwaderer is married and has 3 children.

Kevin Slavin, Managing Director and Co-Founder, area/code

Kevin Slavin is the Managing Director and co-Founder of area/code, the New York-based big games developer. He has worked in corporate communications for technology-based clients for 13 years, including IBM, Compaq, Dell, TiVo, Time/Warner Cable, Microsoft, Wild Tangent and Qwest Wireless.

For over five years, Kevin was the Vice President, Digital Markets, at SS+K in New York, which is partially owned by the Hollywood talent agency CAA (Creative Artists Agency). Previously, he served in similar roles at Chiat/Day and DDB, as Creative Director for the New York office of DDB's digital division.

Timo J. Soininen, CEO of Sulake Corporation

Mr. Timo Soininen (40) is the CEO of Sulake Corporation, an interactive entertainment company based in Helsinki, Finland.

Sulake is specialized in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and online communities. The company provides games that are community-driven, non-violent and easy to access and play.

Currently Sulake employs around 225 people and operates in 17 countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA. Sulake’s top brand franchise, Habbo Hotel, is an online game environment designed for teens and has become one of the most popular and fastest growing teen websites in the world. To date, over 41 million Habbo characters have been created, with over 5,4 million unique users visiting Habbo Hotel each month.

Mr. Soininen was appointed CEO of Sulake in August 2001. Prior to this, he worked for online recruitment company StepStone as Marketing Director for Finland and Sweden. Soininen has over ten years’ experience and a proven track record from senior posts in consumer and B2B marketing functions for international brand companies (StepStone Ltd., United Biscuits Ltd./Fazer Biscuits Ltd., SCA Mölnlycke). Soininen holds a M.Sc. (Econ.) degree in Marketing from Helsinki School of Economics.

Anne Urbauer, editor- in-chief, Amica Germany

Anne Urbauer is one of Germanys leading style journalists. She is one of the editors in-chief of Amica Germany, published by Hubert Burda Media. Previous jobs included Stern magazine, German Zeitgeist Zentralorgan Tempo, the iconic weekly newspaper „Die Woche“ where she headed style and modern living departments. She has worked as a contributing editor for London based Wallpaper* magazine from issue 1 to issue 50. Later she launched „Spruce“, the biannual fashion magazine from the Wallpaper* stable , launched „H.O.M.E.“ a Berlin based design magazine, created the MINIInternational magazine which has won numerous awards for the car brand and „Stil“ a new style section for the sunday edition of Neue Züricher Zeitung (NZZ) in Zurich. She has written a book on the Bogner brand and edited „Perspectives“ with Gerd Bulthaup, the kitchen manufacturer and 24 designers, architects, chefs and philosophers contributing. Anne Urbauer has studied Politics, History and Sociology at Munich university (LMU) and she holds a degree in Journalism.

Dr. Joseph (Yossi) Vardi is a chairman of DLD. He is one of Israel’s high-tech veterans, with 35 years experience of founding and participating in building over 30 high-tech companies, in the fields of Internet, software, telecommunications, electro-optics, energy, and the environment.

Several companies Yossi Vardi founded eventually went public, among them Advanced Technologies (Tekem - which became at the time the largest software company in Israel), International Technologies (Lasers), Granite Hacarmel and others

He is the principal of International Technologies, which engages in private high-tech investments for its own account. Yossi is the founding investor and the former Chairman of Mirabilis Ltd, the creator of the highly popular instant messaging program ICQ, which pioneered the internet-wide instant messaging phenomena, making it one of the most successful and popular Internet products of all times, with currently close to 400 million downloads. The company was acquired by AOL, to which he still serves as an advisor. He also serves as a strategic advisor to Amazon.

Among his other recent high-tech involvements, he is an investor in Download Accelerator (which has over 114 million users and delivers millions of files daily), Airlink, a manufacturer of wireless data modems, Scopus, Gtek and a number of other companies.

He is a venture partner and one of the initiators of Pitango - one of Israel’s largest venture capital funds. He was co-founder of Alon, the largest energy distribution company in Israel.

Yossi Vardi has acted as an advisor to the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the Mexican Government, and to the Chairmen and CEOs of Occidental Petroleum, Signal Corp, Allied Signal, Wheelabrator Frye and Siemens-Albis.

Vardi’s entrepreneurial accomplishments have been chronicled by numerous local and foreign business publications. He has received many awards for his achievements, including the Prime minister of Israel hi-tech award for life –achievement , Entrepreneur Of the Year from Tel Aviv University, and CEO!’s Entrepreneurs Hall Of Fame.

Oded Vardi, Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer, Superna Group

Oded is responsible for Superna's business development and managing the Company’s regular operations since its inception in 2003. At this role, Oded brought Superna from a garage stage operation to an award-winning products provider.

Prior to co-founding SUPERNA, Oded spent several years as a consultant for investment and high-tech companies such as Elron (NASDAQ:ELRN), TargetMatch.com (traded at TASE) and others. Additionally, he has invested in several start-up companies. Prior to this Oded was founding investor of R U Sure, Ltd., a Web-based comparative shopping developer. Until 1998 Oded worked as an analyst for the Giza Group, first in investment banking firm, and later in their venture capital operations. Oded holds a BA degree in Business Management and Psychology from Tel-Aviv University.

Annette Weber, Editor-in-Chief, InStyle Germany

Annette Weber was born 1960 in Speyer. From 1978 until 1982 she earned a diploma in theatre (dramatics). In 1983 she started first training at and then setting up the Avantgarde Fashion Fair in Munich. Since 1988 she worked as editor at ELLE, BUNTE and InStyle. At the moment she is in the deputy chief in the editorship of InStyle.

Jochen Wegner is editor-in-chief of Focus Online, one of the most widely read German-language news sites with 3 million readers.

Before that Wegner was deputy science editor of Focus News Magazine.
He regularly published cover stories about online media, high tech and research.

Wegner graduated from Cologne School of Journalism. He went on to study Physics and Philosophy, wrote his master's thesis about the chaos theory of the human brain at the Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, the world's biggest center for the surgical treatment.

Jochen Wegner is founder of jonet.org, the largest online forum for journalists in German language. He says he is at work on 1.5 books.

Phillipp Welte, Geschäftsführer Burda People Group

Philipp Welte is a studied political scientist and skilled journalist. He volunteered at “Südwestpresse”, worked several years as an independent journalist and author, before he joined the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, as the eastern german tv station. In 1994 he affiliated to Hubert Burda Media in Munich as spokesman. After five years as Head of Communications he became in 1998 Managing Director of the former BUNTE Verlag. In the year 2000 he established STARnetONE Ltd in Berlin which realizes online and mobile phone services but also events and TV formats such as the BAMBI and the New Faces Awards, for instance. Out of both companies he developed end of 2001 the Burda People Group (BUNTE, InStyle, AMICA, STARnetONE) which is nowadays one of the most successful subsidiary companies of Hubert Burda Media.

Christoph Wilfert, Business & Marketing Officer (BMO) for Microsoft Deutschland GmbH

Christoph Wilfert, Business and Marketing Officer (BMO), has been responsible for the operational business of Microsoft Deutschland GmbH since January 1994.

Previously, the 40 year old with a degree in business management worked as EMEA General Manager and Vice President for Geneva Technology, later Convergys. Before, he was Senior Vice President in the management team of Siemens Communication Devices (Mobile Phones).

Christoph Wilfert has a Diplôme d'Enseignement Supérieur Européen de Management from the Centre d'Etudes of the same name in Reims and an M.B.A. from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He began his professional career at Robert Bosch GmbH. Thereafter, his career path brought him to Mannesmann Sachs AG, and Loewe Opta GmbH.

Christoph Wilfert is married and has five children.

Since June 2005, Stefan Winners is CEO of TOMORROW FOCUS AG. From 2000 - 2005 he was managing director of CyPress, one of Germanys leading Game Magazine Publishers, as well as member of the board of Vogel Media Group. Before that, he was working for serveral years as a sales director for awk outdoor advertisement and Heinze, part of Bertelsmann AG.

Stefan Winners holds a master´s degree in business administration from the University of Passau.

Wolfram Winter, Managing Director of NBC UNIVERSAL Global Networks Deutschland

Wolfram Winter (42) is Managing Director of NBC UNIVERSAL Global Networks Deutschland which operates the TV brands, DAS VIERTE, 13TH STREET, Sci Fi, NBC GIGA and STUDIO UNIVERSAL.

Wolfram Winter studied politics, psychology and social and economic history at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich as well as media marketing at Munich’s Bavarian Academy for Advertising and Marketing (BAW). In 1992 he began his career as head of communications for Antenne Bayern. Afterwards, he was head of the press department at MGM Media Gruppe München, and later division manager for communication and company spokesman for DSF Deutsches Sportfernsehen. Finally he served two years as head of programming for DF1 Das Digitale Fernsehen. From 1998 until 2005, Wolfram Winter has been Managing Director of UNIVERSAL STUDIOS NETWORKS GERMANY.

Wolfram Winter is lecturer at the Munich Academy for Television and Film (HFF) and at the Bavarian Academy for Advertising and Marketing (BAW) in Munich. In addition he is board member of the History Channel Germany as well as of the VPRT and honorary consul of the Republic of Namibia for Bavaria.