GREENTECH FESTIVAL SPEAKERS 2021

Coen van Oostrom is Founder & CEO of EDGE, a global leader in tech-enabled, sustainable & healthy building development. EDGE is an OVG Real Estate company, which Coen founded in 1997. OVG’s portfolio consists of more than a million square meters of development in The Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom and United States. Coen aims to radicalize sustainability through powerful innovations and seeks to effect further change in infrastructure and urban development, while drawing inspiration from global leaders. Galvanized by a meeting with Al Gore and his climate change documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Coen became convinced of the green promise of untapped technologies, making it the company’s mission to deliver new standards of tech-driven responsible urban office development.

Donya Amer’s career started with an apprenticeship as a bank clerk in Cologne. Her subsequent studies in business administration took her from Cologne University to the University of California at Berkley. After graduating in business administration with a major in finance and human resources, she joined IBM in Frankfurt, where she held customer and consulting-related positions in the field of digital transformation for 17 years. In 2017 she moved to Bosch. For around three years, she was part of the Bosch IT management team, responsible for the business interface of internal IT, before taking over as CEO of the newly founded Bosch Climate Solutions GmbH in 2020. In her free time, she enjoys diving – and often encounters with plastic in the water.

Tim is one of the four co-founders of Hardt Hyperloop. Hardt has realized Europe’s first operational hyperloop and is often seen as the most advanced European hyperloop initiative. Tim has a background in mechanical engineering at the Delft University of Technology, where he built record-breaking electric race cars among others. Prior to Hardt, Tim was the team captain of the Delft Hyperloop team, which won Elon Musk’s hyperloop competition. It is Tim’s passion to work with an amazing team with loads of ambition to do the extraordinary.

Dr. Nicola Kimm is the Global Head of Sustainability, Environment, Health & Safety for Signify. In this role she has led the company to its position as a recognized sustainability leader and its achievement of carbon neutrality. Nicola is also a non-executive board member at EQT AB. She has held international and multi-disciplinary roles in engineering, operations, communications and sustainability in Europe, Asia, and the US in the electronics, chemicals and food industries. She holds a PhD in Economics and Business Engineering, MSc and BSc degrees in Chemical Engineering and a BSc in Ecology.

Dr. Frederik Zohm has been the Executive Board member for Research and Development at MAN Truck & Bus SE since 2017. In 2003 he completed his postgraduate studies at the Technical University of Aachen where he had previously completed his studies in production technology and industrial engineering. He started his career at a university-related consultancy firm in Aachen, before he switched in 2005 to Procurement at the Daimler Trucks subsidiary EvoBus GmbH. From 2009 through to 2012, Dr. Frederik Zohm led Procurement at Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Cooperation in Tokyo. Between 2012 and 2016, he was responsible for global sales and Powertrain Product Planning at Daimler Trucks. In 2017, Dr. Frederik Zohm joined Volkswagen Truck & Bus AG and led alliance management for their strategic partnership with U.S. Truck manufacturer Navistar.

Jörg Singer has been Mayor of Helgoland since 2011. He studied business engineering in Germany and the USA. He subsequently worked for various companies in the high-tech industry. E.g. Lufthansa. During his professional career, innovation and change management has become his aptitude. Leading Helgoland into a new life cycle has been his most comprehensive transformation project the past ten years. Now his vision is to harvest 1 Million tons of Green Hydrogen from the Northsea. What has been an utopia for years will become a reality very soon.

Nicole is an experienced attorney and nonprofit executive. She co-founded the Material Innovation Initiative after identifying the rich potential of the next-gen materials market through her work catapulting plant-based foods into the mainstream. In her previous role as director of international engagement at the Good Food Institute, Nicole worked with key audiences around the world including companies, entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, and government officials to promote the development of alternatives to animal products. Her expertise in the field and in bringing together stakeholders made her a sought after speaker at conferences and high profile meetings in locations like Israel, Estonia, Poland, London, Brazil, India, and across the U.S.

Holger is the President of BMW Group Designworks, the design consultancy that globally works for clients in diverse industries spanning Mobility and Digital Life. As president he is leading the global design consulting firm and its three studios with 140 employees from its headquarters in California. Prior to his present role, Holger held the in-house position of Head of Design User Experience for BMW Group. He brings extensive experience in Product Design, Creative Consulting, and Interaction Design and Design Management as well as deep insights into the thinking, processes and design culture of the BMW Group.

After studying Theoretical Mathematics and Applied Mathematics in The Netherlands, Liduine joined Picnic, in the team responsible for the last part of Picnic’s supply chain, in which it delivers groceries from cityhubs to customers’ homes with proprietary electric vehicles.
First Liduine has worked on further improvement of the efficiency of the Picnic Milkman Model. She now focuses on applying insights of last mile driving behaviour to further improve safety. Together with 6 specialists, Liduine developed the Picnic Driving Coach, using real time feedback and gamification to drastically decrease the number of incidents and thus making neighbourhoods safer.

Since 2015 she has been the CEO of Plan Shop GmbH and made her passion a profession. While being in the Fashion Business since 1991 as a Designer, Manager and Creative Director her heart always belonged to stylish, posh, iconic and beautiful products made by empowered women and men all over the world. People, who have the talent and knowledge of traditional handicrafts and take this to a modern level. People, who are careful with resources and our planet. She always tried to give these people the possibility to participate in the global trade system.

Max grew up as the son of a development aid worker in China and experienced the stark contrast between the comfort of technology and malnutrition at an early age. While traveling the world and living in New Zealand and the EU he understood the link between the harm our global food systems are having on the planetary boundaries. Inspired by Vertical Farming he came up with the vision of bringing the revolutionary concept into everyones home and founded Agrilution in 2013 – which is part of the Miele Group since end 2019

Michael is a Senior Advisor at the Bank of England and the United Nations Development Program. Michael leads the BoEs work on green finance and is a co-founder of the Bank’s fintech accelerator. In his roles, he provides independent advice and guidance on issues relating to green finance, technology and sustainability. Michael represented the UK as co-chair, along with China, of the G20 Sustainable Finance Study Group (SFSG) from 2016 to 2018. He actively contributes to international discussions at venues such as Chatham House, Harvard University and the World Economic Forum on key sustainable finance policies such as net zero carbon and greenfintech. Before joining the public sector, Michael spent more than twenty-five years at leading investment banks in the financial markets of New York and London.

Vanessa started her activism in 2019, when she began a solitary strike after becoming concerned with unusually high temperatures in her home country. Vanessa has since been outspoken about a variety of climate issues. Vanessa initiated a project, instaling solar panels and institutional cooking stoves in schools. Reducing the amount of used firewood, cutting down emissions and ensuring clean cooking also enables learning experiences for students, their parents and teachers about the importance of protecting the planet.

Marc Nodorft is co-founder of the European environmental platform DEUS. He is head of project coordination for the mFUND project DEUS Smart Air supported by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) and has worked in the past mainly in project development in the Central Asian region. Among other things, he has led projects on the use of catalysts and filters to reduce SMOG in emerging economies

Boris Herrmann is a professional offshore sailor from Hamburg. On 8th November 2020 Boris set off on the Vendee Globe, a solo non-stop race around the globe as the first German to ever attempt this mission. He arrived after 80 days at sea, sailing through the Southern Ocean in the toughest conditions in the world and completed this emission free. The team’s main mission is to create awareness around climate change and solutions. He carries the message A Race We Must Win on his sails and is furthering scientific knowledge on all his sailing missions with an onboard laboratory.

Melati Wijsen is a 20 year old full-time changemaker. She founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags with her younger sister and has been leading the movement driven by youth since 2013. She also started the people movement One Island One Voice and the social enterprise, Mountain Mamas. Melati has spoken on world stages such as TED and the UN and has also been selected as FORBES top ten most inspiring women in the country. She has been honoured by TIME as part of the annual list of most influential teens in the world along with CNN Heroes Young Wonders and FORBES 30 under 30. Today, Melati is excited about her new youth empowerment project; YOUTHTOPIA, empowering youth through meaningful and short peer to peer programs and providing them the tools they need to be change makers.

Co-founding Boreal Light GmbH in 2014 in Berlin, Dr. Beheshti has designed and manufactured one of the most simple and highly affordable solar desalination system with great chance of operating safely in the most remote parts of the world. At Boreal Light GmbH, Dr. Beheshti has developed both technologies of drinking water supply and irrigation water supply for the off-grid parts of the planet. Establishing WaterKiosk Ltd has been the most infield initiative co-founded by Dr. Beheshti in East Africa to secure the access of local communities to products and services offered by Boreal Light GmbH. The rich in-field experiences, along his strong management skill make Dr. Beheshti always a great candidate to give speech in whatever events focusing on development and sustainability of the unprivileged parts of the world.

Allison Dring is CEO and Co Founder of Made of Air, a company producing carbon negative materials for manufacturing. She is an experienced entrepreneur, initiating climate positive technologies and applying them to real world building applications. Previously, as Co Founder of Elegant Embellishments, she invented and manufactures proslve370e, an award winning facade module that reduces urban air pollution.
She is a veteran speaker on topics involving technology and the environment, including a 2013 TEDx Berlin talk entitled “Ornament & Climate”, and serves as Advisory Board Member for Creating Urban Tech Berlin, the Lifeboat Foundation, and is a member of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Network.

Vanessa Weber is considered by many to be the voice of small and medium-sized businesses. She is a blogger and specialist author for well-known media, an influencer on the topics of modern entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership, and a popular and multiple award-winning speaker at major congresses and conferences. She is the managing director of Werkzeug Weber and a passionate entrepreneur. She focuses on innovations and new business areas as well as sustainability – in her company, but also socially in terms of climate protection and education as well as reconciling economy and ecology. She founded the Vanessa Weber Foundation for Education and Sustainability, an activist in various environmental and climate protection movements, and involved in committees of various national and international business and professional associations.

Dominik Schiener is an entrepreneur from Italy and the Co-Founder of IOTA and the IOTA Foundation. He has been in the Blockchain ecosystem since 2012 and has founded several startups in Switzerland and Germany. With IOTA he is working to establish trust to the Internet of Things and bring forth the emergencyof a Machine Economy. Through distributed ledgers he hopes to empower peopleall around the world through financial inclusion and new economic opportunities.

Driven by a profound belief in the potential of people, the power of humanity, and the genius of nature, Ole dedicates himself to combating some of the greatest threats to life on earth. With 20 years of experience from leading change and inspiring hope as a problem-solver, his critical takeaway is that global challenges must be recognized and solved from the edges. We must think big, start small, act fast, and design to scale exponentially. In 2019 Ole took the helm of ClimateTech start-up Desert Control, fueled by a passion for creating hope for a better future for “people and planet.” He is a global steward for our planet’s vital soil ecosystem, dedicated to stop and reverse desertification and soil degradation.

Anna Alex is founder and CCO of Planetly which is a climate-tech-company developing digital tools enabling companies to analyze, reduce and compensate their CO₂ emissions. Inspired by the “Leaders For Climate Action” initiative which Anna joined in 2019, she founded Planetly together with Benedikt Franke. It’s Planetly’s declared goal to make the business world carbon-neutral. She strongly believes that data and technology has what it takes to provide companies with the required transparency of their CO₂ footprint leading to actionable steps to reduce it.

Timon believes in the creative power of highly connected experts and entrepreneurs. With the founding of The Drivery GmbH in 2018, he created a marketplace for mobility innovators. In a unique environment the exchange of ideas and concepts between visionaries, investors, and politicians in accelerating innovation. Timon has distinguished himself as an MDAX executive, an entrepreneur, and a corporate venturing specialist with several successful foundations.

Alexander Piutti is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and innovation coach, who is deeply committed to social impact.

Sandya Lang has been the Sustainability Manager for Nudie Jeans since 2011. Prior to Nudie Jeans, she worked with t-shirt production in Sri Lanka and shoe production in Vietnam. She has extensive experience at the factory level and it is the improved working conditions in the supply chain that is her main interest. Within Nudie Jeans, she is responsible for the brand’s sustainability program and works daily with social compliance in the supply chain and the two main focus areas of transparency and living wages. She has a master’s degree in Development studies focusing on corporate social responsibility at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Steffen Szeidl studied architecture at Technische Universität Darmstadt and ETH Zurich. He joined Drees & Sommer in Frankfurt in 2006 and moved to Drees & Sommer Switzerland in 2008. He started to develop the Drees & Sommer location in Switzerland as Managing Director, expanding it to over 200 employees by 2015. He has been a member of the Executive Board of the Drees & Sommer SE since January 2015 and is responsible for Finance, IT and Corporate Communications in addition to the Group’s digitization strategy. In addition, he drives innovation and future topics forward.

Lavinia is an advocate for social & environmental justice. She has more than 10 years of proven experience in the world of ethically driven business with a focus on textiles. Lavinia joined ARMEDANGELS (Social Fashion Company GmbH) as the Corporate Responsibility Manager in late 2017. Prior to joining ARMEDANGELS, Lavinia researched in the field of Child Labour in global trade, audited, consulted, and supported numerous manufacturers, distributors & brands in China, Bangladesh, Europe, India, Myanmar, Turkey and South America supporting with the implementation of codes of conduct and textile industry standards in the areas of fair and safe working conditions and chemical management. She loves field operations and digging deeper at the factory level, and also working on strategic innovations.

Studied Applied Geography, for 25 yrs in the Media Industry, running Strategy & Innovation at Ströer

Christian has been CEO of EnergyNest since 2014. He has more than 20 years’ experience in product development and executing market entries in the international tech sector in Europe, USA, Japan, China, India and UAE. Christian is focusing on the future-oriented implementation of industrial energy storage solutions, to the benefit of both businesses and environment. Earlier stations in his career include McKinsey and BMW Group amongst others. Christian holds a PhD in Marketing and a master’s degree in Business Administration. Prior to university, he completed his military service and participated in NATO’s peace-keeping mission in former Yugoslavia.

David Lais is a social entrepreneur and the founder of several innovative start-ups in the area of payments. He started his first company at the age of 16 and by pure chance entered the payments industry. In 2015, a life-changing event sparked his decision to act on climate change. He decided to the purpose of sustainable and socially impactful technology. In the ensuing months, he launched the non-for profit Organization for Sustainable Consumption, and co-founded ecolytiq, leveraging publicly available and payments data to enable sustainable banking. To David, technology is not a means to an end, but when used correctly, it is an indispensable tool. “We need to use the large pool of existing data for positive societal change, and not just for maximizing profit.”