Dr. Yasar Aydin is a research associate and member of teaching staff in the Faculty of Economic and Social Science at the University of Hamburg. His research and teaching field comprises migration movements and immigration policy, social exclusion, nationalism, theories of modernity and capitalist modernization, social philosophy and political theory. In a recent study into migrants’ motivation for choosing particular destinations, he examined their use of social networks as a factor in their decisions.
Yasar Aydin studied Social Economics at the University of Hamburg before gaining a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Lancaster (UK). The University of Hamburg awarded him a doctorate in 2009.

After graduating in German philology and educational science Christine Enterlein started her career in Human Resources and Operations. She worked 14 years at Deutsche Bank, lastly as HR director for German internet banking pioneer BANK24. In 2011 Christine joined software and consulting company AKRA GmbH as Key Account and Resource Manager. A self-confessed “music, film & art nerd” Christine lives and breathes social media and loves her hometown Hamburg. For many years Christine has been actively involved in the Hamburg film scene e.g. managing all social media activities for UNERHÖRT! Music Film Festival until recently and supporting independent filmmakers.

Prof. Peter Kabel, born July 29th 1962 in Stuttgart, Germany
Founder of several successful companies in the area of media, technology and design – among others: „Büro Hamburg GmbH“ (1991), „Trendbüro Hamburg GmbH“ (1993), „Kabel New Media AG“ (1993) and „Tone Consultants GmbH“ (2001).
From 2004 to 2007 he acted as member of the board of „Jung von Matt AG“, one of the most influencial advertising agencies of the German speaking countries.
Since 2007 portfolio management of Lakshmi GmbH – a private equity and vc-firm based in Hamburg.
Peter Kabel teaches as full professor at „Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg“ and received many mentions for innovation and creativity– inter alia he was decorated as „Entrepreneur of the Year 2001“, an international award founded by Ernst&Young and Deutche Börse AG.

Economist and philosopher Agnieszka Krzeminska focused on the technological developments in the internet and their social adoption at an early stage of her career. From 1996 she developed the Siemens Automotive Intranet and worked thereafter for big internet agencies. Since 2010 she runs Social Media Führerschein for Awareness, Training and Strategy in the field of Social Media. Her customers include, among others, MOPO, Mediengruppe DuMont and Carlsen Verlag.

Krzeminska is co-founder of the nationwide expanding group Digital Media Women. She actively promotes women’s competence boost and their exposition on conferences and panels in the field of digital media, as she does it herself as an expert for digital developments and the society.

In her role as facilitator of network-building in the south of Hamburg, Melanie-Gitte Lansmann, Director of channel hamburg e.V., creates links between economic and urban development and people in the area surrounding channel hamburg. channel hamburg e.V. is currently establishing a social media community within this hub of innovation.Melanie-Gitte Lansmann gained a diploma in Business Administration, specialising in Tourism and Marketing, and was involved in organising EXPO 2000 in her role as Director of the Tourism Centre in Hanover. She went on to work at PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a manager in the area of tourism consulting, where she developed concepts for connecting tourist destinations and regions across Germany.

As a freelance journalist and passionate networker, Carolin Neumann is both writing about digital media and trying to actively shape the future of journalism. She is the editor-in-chief of VOCER, a non profit online magazine for media critique and debates, and supervises the development of their Innovation Media Lab, a fellowship programme for promising talents looking to experiment with new journalism outside the scopes of traditional media. Carolin studied Journalism and Public Relations and went into business for herself right out of university. She gives seminars on digital journalism, is a frequent at speaker at conferences and writes a weekly online column indulging in what she considers a healthy scepticism towards all things technological. In 2010 she initiated what is now a German wide business network aiming at making women more visible in the professional digital sphere, the Digital Media Women e.V..

Matthias Onken started his career as a journalist in 1995. He has worked as chief editor of “BILD Hamburg” and “Hamburger Morgenpost” and was also editor of the local newspaper “Pinneberger Tageblatt” and the local magazine “Szene Hamburg”.In 2011 he founded the agency Matthias Onken media. Now he works as an author, columnist and presenter. He is also a strategic consultant in politics, economy, media and
sports.
Matthias is active within the “Hamburger Presseclub” as a tutor for young journalists within the German press organisation „Deutscher Journalistenverband“. He organises and hosts social events and is an experienced public speaker, expert and presenter on TV and on stage.
Matthias has a wide network in media, business and politics. He is active in the social networks Facebook, Xing and Google+. Matthias is father to two children.

Torsten Panzeris chairman of the board of PR Club Hamburg and currently acting as a communication consultant, trainer and speaker specialised in PR, Word of Mouth Marketing and Social Media.

Recently he was managing partner and spokesman of the Social Media Akademie, focused on social media and online marketing training. After his studies of History, Philosophy and Economics he started his career as a trainee in a PR agency; followed up by joining the internet agency denkwerk in cologne as head of PR and marketing. In addition to this role he was responsible for the marketing communication of several spin off start-ups and for the founding of a division dealing with online relations as a new type of online PR communication during the times of the new economy.

The serial entrepreneur started up several types of communication agencies like ad publica PR and a German subsidiary of Buzzer, an international Word of Mouth Marketing agency situated in Amsterdam.

Egbert Rühl is Managing Director of Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft mbH, a municipal institution founded in 2010 for the promotion of Hamburg’s creative industries. The institution breaks new ground in the development of promotion formats for the creative industries in the hanseatic city. The offers range from low-threshold, individual consultations, workshops, networking events, a coaching program, help in financing issues and property development thereby covering the entire range of promotion issues. Additionally to these wide-ranging and perfect fitting offers Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft seeks to stimulate the political and theoretical debate on the potential and development of the creative industries.Prior to his employment in Hamburg Mr. Ruehl was working his entire professional life in very different positions and structures as an art enabler in many categories.

Doing something in-between organizing, designing and creative problem-solving,
Ruben Schmidtmann worked as a project manager at Airbnb and co-founded
Lautwerfer, an event production company, in Berlin. Now he is the CEO of betahaus
Hamburg.

As a cultural scientist, Sanja Stankovic is fond of every form of communication and its development – jobwise as well as in private. The emphases of her professional activity is put on the fields of public relations, digital strategy and on mobile applications. Since the beginning of 2011 she manages the division for digital strategy and social media at Nordpol+ Hamburg. Before, she established the international social media-department for NAVIGON AG and worked as a social media manager at segmenta pr for national and international clients.Being one of the founders of the Digital Media Women, she is responsible for press requests concerning topics like working conditions for women in the web and competent reference person for expert opinions regarding digital trends and developments. Furthermore, she herself contributes to the goal of making women more visible on public podiums: In 2011 she was present as a speaker at re:publica for the first time, covering the topic of the power of language within communication about the internet.

Within the State Chancellery, Jens Unrau is the contact person for the media- and IT-Companies in Hamburg. Among other things he is responsible for the Hamburg@work initiative which gives the city a powerful network that supports the companies in Hamburg’s digital industry in their development and continually promotes networking and connectivity within the industry. With more than 2,500 members from over 650 companies from the digital branch, Hamburg@work is Germany’s largest network in the industry.Furthermore Mr. Unrau is accountable for the projects “Gamecity Hamburg” and “NewStorytelling”. Hamburg is unique among the leading German media centres in developing the project “Gamecity Hamburg”, an extensive package of measures to promote the gaming industry. “NewStorytelling” deals with the influence of new technologies on journalism.

Sven Wiesner has gained experience in all fields of social media for more than six years now.In the beginning he worked as freelance consultant for major enterprises and agencies in questions of online communication 2.0.

Since April 2010 he runs the social media agency beesocial GmbH together with Pedro Anacker.

He became CEO and partner in January 2011. As an active web 2.0 user he organises events like Gadgetnight and TwittNite in Hamburg and is an active part of the social media scene.
www.webzweipunktnull.de

Peter Wippermann is Founder of Trendbuero – Consultancy for Social Change GmbH in 1992;
Professor of Communication Design at Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen and Member of the Advisory Board of hamburgunddesign, designxport, Nestlé, Future Forum and Markenartikel magazine (brand organization).In the past, he has worked as an Art Director at Rowohlt-Verlag and ZEITmagazin.
In 1988, he founded Editorial Design Agentur Buero Hamburg together with Juergen Kaffer.
In 1990, he developed the events “Talk with Tomorrow” for Philip Morris and was the executive editor of the future magazine “Übermorgen”.In 1993, he was appointed Professor of Communication Design at the University of Essen.
In 2002 he co-founded the LeadAcademy for Media Design and Media Marketing.
In 2010 he was appointed Member of the Advisory Board of the Nestlé Future Forum.

Andrea Frahm has over ten years of proven marketing, PR and multimedia experience working across the creative and digital industries. Andrea worked as Marketing Director at Universal Music Germany as well as in Universal’s International headquarter in London, where she was responsible for global album roll outs and marketing campaigns, such as Rihanna, Mariah Carey and The Killers, pioneering digital music distribution from very early on. After a stopover at a leading UK leading Digital Communication agency where she was in charge of digital marketing strategies for major film clients such as Disney, Paramount and Sony Pictures, Andrea decided to take matters into her own hands and start her own business specialising in Marketing & Social Media Consultancy for the creative industries as well as for high potential Internet Startups. Furthermore, Andrea Frahm recently joined a founder team from New York launching a revolutionary new lingerie e-commerce startup in Berlin in February 2013: www.editionlingerie.com. In order to successfully increase her clients’ brand awareness and social user engagement, Andrea utilises her extended international contact network and focuses on two of her favourite and very powerful ingredients: Creative partnerships and crossmedial synergies. In addition to her marketing consultancy activities, Andrea travels regularly between the most popular startup hubs Berlin, London and Tel Aviv to get inspired and to keep up with the extraordinary pace of innovation in the local marketplace.
Andrea continues to write for her own online magazine BerlinDoneThereDoneThat.com as well as for selected news outlets for digital innovation in Europe.