Speaker

• 
  Thorkil Sonne
  

  Thorkil Sonne

  When Thorkil Sonne’s youngest son was diagnosed with autism (spectrum disorder) the family realized that the boy would never meet the social skills requested by the labor market.

  Therefore Thorkil founded Specialisterne (The Specialists) in 2004 for specialist people with autism as a company tailored to provide understanding and support for the individual. In return the consultants with autism use their skills to solve valuable tasks for business partners at market terms.

  Thorkil is an Ashoka Globalizer Fellow as founder and CEO of the Not-for-Profit Specialist People Foundation. The foundations vision is to make societies respect and accommodate specialist people as worthy and valuable citizens. The goal is to enable one million jobs.

  Twitter: @spfnd | Website: www.specialisternefoundation.com | LinkedIn: Thorkil Sonne www.linkedin.com/in/thorkil-sonne-0660022/

• 
  Georg Schürmann
  

  Georg Schürmann

  Before joining Triodos Bank, Europe’s leading sustainability bank, in July 2009 as Managing Director of the German branch, Georg Schürmann (age 47) worked for 20 years at Deutsche Bank in the Private and Business Client Division. In 2001, he became Regional Director with responsibility for Deutsche Bank’s branch network in Munich and south Bavaria. In 2005, he was summoned to Deutsche Bank’s headquarter as Managing Director, where e.g. he introduced the “student loan” for the German market. From 2006 to 2009 he was Member of Deutsche Bank’s Management Board of Private Banking Germany.

  At Triodos Bank’s German branch, which opened in December 2009, Georg Schürmann is responsible for retail clients and institutional investors.

  LinkedIn: Georg Schürmann www.linkedin.com/in/georg-schürmann-8a303b56/

• 
  Jeroo Billimoria
  

  Jeroo Billimoria

  Jeroo Billimoria is a serial social entrepreneur who has founded six organizations including Aflatoun. Jeroo was named an Ashoka Innovator in 1999 and received the Schwab Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs in 2001 among many other awards for her work. She was also featured in David Bornstein's book "How to Change the World".

  From 1991 to 1999, she was a Lecturer at the University Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is also the founder / honorary secretary of the Childline India Foundation (1996-present) and the founder / president of MelJol (1991-present). Jeroo moved to Amsterdam and founded Child Helpline International in 2003. Aflatoun was founded in 2005. She is currently in the process of launching her next organization, Child Finance International.

  Twitter: @JerooBillimoria | Website: childfinanceinternational.org | LinkedIn: Jeroo Billimoria www.linkedin.com/in/jeroobillimoria/

• 
  Bart Weetjens
  

  Bart Weetjens

  Product development engineer Bart Weetjens has a focus on appropriate technologies for developing countries. In 1998, Bart initiated the use of HeroRATS: trained giant African pouched rats as an alternative and sustainable landmine detector, in response to the global landmine challenge. Since 2000 APOPO addresses humanitarian detection challenges in Africa: the detection of landmines and screening for Tuberculosis. HeroRATS received multiple international recognitions. Bart is an ASHOKA fellow and a SCHWAB fellow, and a permanent member to the Global Agenda Councils. In 2009, he won the SKOLL Awards for social entrepreneurship.

  Bart is a Zen Buddhist monk. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Tanzania.

  Twitter: @BartWeetjens | Website: www.apopo.org/en | LinkedIn: Bart Weetjens www.linkedin.com/in/bart-weetjens-2792786/

• 
  Wolfram Putz
  

  Wolfram Putz

  Wolfram Putz studied architecture in Germany at the Technische Universität Braunschweig where he graduated as Dipl.-Ing. Arch, at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City and at the Southern Californian Institute of Architecture, USA, where he received his Master.

  In 1998 Wolfram Putz established GRAFT in Los Angeles together with Thomas Willemeit and Lars Krückeberg. GRAFT has won numerous national and international awards and garnered international fame with a widespread following throughout its ten year existence. GRAFT today employs 100 architects and artists worldwide.

  Twitter: @wolframputz | Website: www.graftlab.com | LinkedIn: Wolfram Putz www.linkedin.com/in/wolfram-putz-03368b29/

• 
  Kai Hill
  

  Kai Hill

  Kai Hill had worked in the brand management and strategic brand consulting business for 15 years.

  He studied sociology, mass media communication and fundraising at the University of California of Los Angeles. Besides he was a guest critic as well as a guest speaker at the Technical University of Berlin.

  In 2006 Kai started the social profit organisation *stars of tomorrow. Linked to the Soccer World Cups 2006 in Germany and 2010 in South Africa stars of tomorrow has become a compact organisation, focussing on development projects for orphans and street children in need in South Africa. The life situation of these children is compounded by the fact that South Africa has the world’s highest incidence of HIV/AIDS.

  LinkedIn: Kai Hill www.linkedin.com/in/kai-hill-1774aa73/

• 
  Jan Schierhorn
  

  Jan Schierhorn

  Jan’s career started straight after his school days. Over the past 20 years, the studied marketing communications graduate and allrounder has worked for international branded companies and goods. His key activities revolve around sampling, ambient media, events and interdisciplinary consulting. Following a humanistic world view, the father of three has dedicated himself to charity projects for the past five years. The “Lebensbaum‐Projekt”, that raises funds for multiple problem families, marks the cornerstone of his work.

  His current project “Das Geld haengt an den Baeumen” provides jobs for disabled people by discovering unutilized resources. In 2009, the project was rewarded with the Koerber‐Stiftung Award “Anstiften” and in 2010 it was awarded the “Deutschland, Land der Ideen” prize.

  Website: www.dasgeldhaengtandenbaeumen.de/jan/

• 
  Ernst Pöppel
  

  Ernst Pöppel

  Prof. Pöppel is founder of the Institute of Medical Psychology and has been chairman until his retirement on September 30, 2008 and he is chairman of the Human Studies Center, both at Munich University. He 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 interdisciplinary and international activities have gained high visibility: He cooperates e.g. 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. Pöppel as a researcher has always worked closely together with industry, bringing scientific results quickly to the market.

  Twitter: @poeppel_ernst

• 
  Joachim Sauter
  

  Joachim Sauter

  Since the early 1980s, Joachim Sauter has been working as a media artist and designer. From the beginning, Joachim Sauter has focussed on digital technologies and is experimenting how they can be used to express content, form and narration.

  Fuelled by this interest, he founded ART+COM in 1988 together with other artists, designers, scientists and technologists. Their goal was to practically research this new up-and-coming medium in the realm of art and design. Until now, he is leading this interdisciplinary group. In the course of his work he was invited to participate on many exhibitions. He received several awards like the Golden Lion, Cannes, the Ars Electronica Interactive Award, the Los Angeles Interactive Media Award, the ADC New York and ADC Germany Gold, the Red Dot Grand Prix, the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany and many other national and international awards.

  Since 1991 he is full professor for "New Media Art and Design" at the University of the Arts, Berlin and since 2001 adjunct professor at UCLA, Los Angeles.

  Twitter: @bla_fasel | Website: www.joachimsauter.com | LinkedIn: Joachim Sauter www.linkedin.com/in/joachim-sauter-73a3901/

• 
  Axel Kufus
  

  Axel Kufus

  After training first to become a joiner and carpenter, Axel Kufus moved to Berlin in 1985 and studied design at the University of the Arts. At the same time, he became a partner at the CrelleWerkstatt, where he worked on the development and production of own serial furniture. With his wife Sibylle Jans he founded the Werkstudio Berlin.

  In 1993, he was asked to join the Bauhaus University in Weimar as a professor for product-design. Since 2004, Axel Kufus has been teaching at the University of the Arts in Berlin, where he is the director of the Institute for Product- and Process-Design. In this position, he has initiated new cooperation-platforms for the experimental developement und application at'Campus Charlottenburg Berlin'.

  Website: www.kufus.de

• 
  John Perry Barlow
  

  John Perry Barlow

  John Perry Barlow is a former Wyoming rancher and Grateful Dead lyricist. A co-founder of EFF, he was the first to apply the term cyberspace to the "place" it presently describes. He has written for a diversity of publications, including Communications of the ACM, Mondo 2000, The New York Times and Time. He has been on the masthead of Wired magazine since it was founded. His piece on the future of copyright, "The Economy of Ideas," is taught in many law schools and his "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" is posted on thousands of websites. In 1997, he was a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and has been, since 1998, a Berkman Fellow at the Harvard Law School. John works actively with several consulting groups, including Diamond Technology Partners, Vanguard and Global Business Network. In 1999, FutureBanker Magazine named him "One of the 25 Most Influential People in Financial Services." He writes, speaks and consults on a broad variety of subjects, particularly digital economy.

  Twitter: @JPBarlow | Facebook: www.facebook.com/johnperrybarlow?ref=nameo