Dietmar Gombotz is co-founder of UGP materials, a spin-off of TU Wien in the area of high-performance-polymers. He further is one of three Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the TUWien I2nkubator Programm. He founded SPHARES GmbH and a small software company called S3. He has been head of the organization JungeWirtschaft Wien (representing young entrepreneurs) and has strong ties into the start-upcommunity by co-organizing a diverse set of events and mentoring start-ups. Dietmar was part of the first batch of the I2C Diploma Supplement course on innovation. His background includes a diploma in business informatics, a bachelor in computer science and a bachelor in informatics & economics. His focus in his mentoring is market-validation and go-to-market strategy.

Juergen Jelly founded Idea To Market with the objective to offer full service to people and companies that want to realize their ideas or projects. From the first day on until the successful realization and even further. Jürgen is a serial entrepreneur in several industries, consultant, coach, mentor and author. He studied European Economy and Business Management at the University of Applied Science and the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria and “Leadership” at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. Jürgen founded his first company at the age of 23. While he is really passionate about being an entrepreneur, a part of his heart remains academic. This is why – since 2007 – he is lecturer, coach and mentor at the Institute of “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Even if he calls himself a practitioner, he tends to say, that a good theory generates an enormous amount of practice. Juergen has managed and led dozens of projects in several industries like food & beverages, healthcare, pharmaceutical, renewable energy, IT, technology, research, marketing, sports, consumer goods, arts, restaurants, logistics and many more. If it is not about business, it’s about sports. Jürgen is a very ambitious sportsman and competed in masters swimming, tennis tournaments, ski races, cross-country skiing, military pentathlonand some other sports. Beside that he loves to discover the world and is interested in close to everything.

Mark Anthony is a Nomadic Researcher, Trans-disciplinary Lecturer and UX designer actively engaged in shaping near future solutions to every day sociotechnical problems. You will find Mark working at the intersections of Marketing, ServiceDesign and New-media experimentation. Mark has been a part of the i²c START academy Family since the very beginning.

Stefan Kreppelis the start-up representative of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and responsible for the start-up related funding and financing schemes with in this organisation. Moreover he is an economical expert and strategically advisor for the entrepreneurial topic. Stefan has a Diploma in environmental engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Christian Bulfon has close to 20 years in Semiconductor Capital Equipment international experience including residency in Singapore and Silicon Valley/US. At Lam Research AG, Villach, hewas Managing Director heading the Operations, before opening his own consulting business in 2015. With his international and broad expertise in Business & Finance Operations, Development & Engineering, Production, Logistics, Purchasing, Quality, Sales and Customer Service he is engaged as Operations Head / Interim COO for various fast growing production related businesses. He is invested as Business Angel in three Start-ups and is also anactive mentor in the start-up scene. Christian is married, father of one kid and holds a degree in technical physics (TU Vienna) supplemented by an entrepreneurial leadership program (UC Berkeley).

Founder and CEO of New Venture Scouting Werner Wutscher has many years of experience in leading positions in the public and private sector and has acquired a profound knowledge of management in complex organisations and holds numerous board functions. Due to its origins, it has always been closely linked to the agricultural sector and has a broad network in this sector. With the step into selfemployment, he gained experience as a business angel in founding seven start-ups ("Austrian Business Angel of theYear 2012"). With New Venture Scouting (founded in 2013), he combines this experience by combining start-ups and established companies. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Birgit Hofreiter is the Director of the of the cross-faculty TUW Innovation Incubation Center (i²c) and the CEO and founder of the TUW i²ncubator. From 2009 until 2011 Birgit was assistant professor at the Chair forBusiness Process Management at the University of Liechtenstein. During that time, she was also Head of the Competence Center on Interorganizational Business Collaborations (CC-B2x) she set up. She finished her master in business informatics at Vienna University of Technology and she received a doctor’s degree from the University of Vienna. From 2006 until 2008 Birgit was a Post Doc Research Fellow at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) based on her research work in Business Informatics that was awarded with a FWF Erwin Schrödinger Grant (J2634-N15) by the Austrian Science Fund. Birgit Hofreiter has a long time working experience in Business-to-Businessand e-Government interoperability by working for the United Nations Center For Trade Facilitation and e-Business (UN/CEFACT) to develop standards and recommendations for interoperability used in interorganizational projects. In particular, she was contributor to UN/CEFACT’s Techniques and Methodologies Group (TMG) and in this role co-editor of UN/CEFACT’s Modeling Methodology – a UML-based approach towards B2B and e-Government system design. Birgit Hofreiter is on the PC/organizing committee of several major ebusiness related conferences. She is member of the steering committee of the IEEE Conference on Business Informatics (formerly Conference on Commerce and Enterprise Computing) as well as of the IEEE Technical Committee on Business Informatics Systems (formerly Electronic Commerce). Additionally, she is on the editorial board of community related journals.

Before founding acccoi partners GmbH in 2016 Martin (52) built and leadCisco’s Open Innovation Programs in EMEAR (‘Entrepreneurs inResidence’ and ‘ChallengeUp!’) where 22 Start Up’s in IoT have beenincubated and accelerated in a 6 months cycle and got the opportunityfor co-working on a global scale with Cisco Business Units and partners(e.g. Intel and Dt. Telekom). For the Entrepreneurs he could contribute hisexperience in VC funding, Business Modeling & -Development andintegration into Corporate Structures for growth while ensuring the Co-Innovation impact for Cisco and its partners. As member of Cisco’s‘Founders Round Table’ he contributed with Thought Leadership to theExecutive Board of Cisco. Also leading corporates in Finance (e.g. RBI),mobility (KAPSCH) and Agriculture (RWA-Lagerhaus, BayWa) adopted theacccoi innovation methodology.Martin joined Cisco with the acquisition of ‘SolveDirect’, the world’slargest Service Ticket Exchange which he co-founded in 2000 and servedas CEO until the first acquisition by Brain Force Holding AG in 2007 wherehe then joined the leadership team. In 2010 SolveDirect was demergedagain and Martin led the globalization until Cisco’s acquisition in 2013.Before founding SolveDirect, Martin held several management positionsin IBM in the 90’s where he shaped the transformation of the IBM ServicesBusiness from Technical Support Services to IBM Global Services from aGo To Market and Sales perspective.Martin holds a degree from the Vienna University of Economics andBusiness and specialized in Computer Science, Marketing and BusinessEthics. He guest lectured at the Department for E-Governance andAdministration of Danube University. His international experience hegained with Matsushita (Japan), Euro Motorcars (US) and Schoeller Papier(Germany). He is an active supporter of AIESEC and mentors start-upentrepreneurs globally (e.g. GIN – Global Incubators Network). Martin livesin Vienna, Austria, and enjoys spending time with his family, mountainbiking, travel and growing organic food.

After multiple stops in the startup scene, Max joined WhatAVenture as one of the first employees and since then helped growing the team to more than 30 people in 4 countries before becoming the Lead Partner in Germany. Over the past years he has developed and implemented innovation strategies - for niche champions up to multinational corporates alike - across sectors like energy, logistics, automotive and finance. His key areas of expertise are innovation management, intrapreneurship, synergies between corporates and startups as well as open innovation around technologies.He regularly mentors and speaks for innovation and startup initiatives such as Founder Institute, Entrepreneurship Avenue,Intrapreneurship Conference, Elevate, Nexuslab, Startup Liveand Pioneers Festival. Additionally he is sharing his experienceas a Lecturer at the Technical University of Vienna and trainer for the diploma innovation management at BFI.

As senior investment manager of tecnet equity, Thomas Ecker is primarily active in the field of information and communication technologies. Beyond a secondary education with a specialisation in computer science, he had a log career in IT(software) and the tourism industry (as a travel agent and working for Austrian Airlines) before moving into the area of financing in 1997. Mr. Ecker spent several semesters studying international business administration at the University of Vienna and at Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh. He is a certified portfolio and fund manager (CPM©) and has participated incourses of the Austrian Association for Financial Analyses and Asset Management (ÖVFA).

wikifolio is the leading European market place for trading and investment strategies by private and professional traders. Traders publish their portfolios as "wikifolios" and Investors can follow the traders of their choice via exchange-listed financial products. I am an internationally oriented start-up enthusiast with diverse business background and a track-record in FinTech. I assess myself as a quick learner, a strong communicator and experienced public speaker who is very active in the Austrian & European entrepreneurship community.Wherever I can, I try to find the right balance between strategic thinking and operational execution in the projects I pursue. I have noticed that one of my biggest strenghts is being open minded and adaptable. I like to be part of driven teams which pursue ideas that have impact. Equally I like empowering others to pursue their ideas. I do believe in the perspective that ultimately "all business is people business".

Lisa-Marie Fassl is the Managing Director of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, Austria’s leading network for business angels which connects promising startups with investors. Before moving to Vienna, Lisa was an active member of the startup community in Styria, where she cofounded the npo IdeenTriebwerk Graz. During her studies she focused on Business Information Systems and Entrepreneurship, which led to various scientific studies on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austria. Having experienced the Austrian startup community from different perspectives for several years, she’s continually co-founding new projects, her latest being femalefounders.at, a network for women in the startup community.

Evgeniia Filippova is a researcher within Marie-Curie Project STREAM, Smart Sensor Technologies and Training for Radiation Enhanced Applications and Measurements. Within this project, she is responsible for analyzing STREAM technologies with regards to their potential commercial applications and providing entrepreneurial training for scientists from CERN, CIS, TU Berlin,AMS, etc. As a STREAM Researcher, Ms. Filippova is currently employed at the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the WU Vienna where she teaches a broad range of courses inentrepreneurship, business modelling and FinTechs. Before joining STREAM and WU Vienna, Ms. Filippova worked at K1Gründerservice at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena where she supported scientists to transfer their research results into successful business models. Ms. Filippova holds a Master Degree in Economics and Finance from Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena and fluently speaks four languages.

Mag. Florian Glatt-Wodzynski is marketing consultant with adouble focus on management accounting and innovation. He has a proven track record of over 15 years across the whole value chain. His last responsibility was as country Marketing Manager for the Austrian subsidiary of an international healthcare company. Previously, he performed in marketing and management accounting for IT companies (Oracle and IBM), as well as in Life Sciences (Boehringer Ingelheim, JnJ). Florian’s area of expertise spans from quantitative strategy including developing the business model, targeting and pricing to execution by developing targets, KPIs, initiatives and automation. Clients value his holistic approach to measurerigorously marketing efforts for effectiveness and efficiency –following the rationale that you can only manage what you can measure. Florian graduated with a double degree CEMS Masterfrom HEC Paris and the Vienna University for Economics and Business. He lives in Vienna and is fluent in French, English and German.

Strong security background and extensive experience in the cryptocurrency eco-system. After building an international security company he co-founded the Austrian Cryptocurrency Broker XTrader24 and is actively involved in promoting cryptocurrency projects on different levels.

Fabian Greiler is Junior Partner at Venionaire Capital, a company specialized in Venture Capital, Digital Transformation and Innovation Management. He supports portfolio companies, clients and partners at Venionaire in Marketing and PR strategies with focus on growth. Previously, he worked as a Consultant at a PR agency. During his study of Communication Science, he gathered journalistic knowledge working for several media houses

Magdalena is Director of Operations at the I.E.C.T. – Institute for Entrepreneurship Cambridge – Tirol, a private institution based in Innsbruck. Together with their partners from Cambridge/UK, they support entrepreneurs with know-how, smart money and their nationally and internationally linked network, funding and resources. Magdalena studied Management and Economics and Interior Architecture in Austria and Germany and developed the I.E.C.T. together with her father and uncle three years ago. Being part of several programmes, she coaches young entrepreneurs on their way to a successful market entry and helps them analyzing their ideas/companies from the investor’s and customers’ perspective.

Hon. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Michael Heiss is Principal for Open Innovation at Siemens. He studied Electrical Engineering in Vienna, made apost-doc at M.I.T., started his industry career at Boschand is since 1996 with Siemens in various leading positions for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology Management. He is also Chair of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Chapter Central Europe and Vice-Chair of IEEE Austria.

Christoph Herwig, process engineer from RWTH Aachen,worked in industry in the design and commissioning of large chemical facilities prior to enter his interdisciplinary PhDstudies at EPFL, Switzerland in bioprocess identification. Subsequently, he positioned himself at the interface between bioprocess development and facility design of biopharmaceutical facilities. Since 2008, he is full professor for biochemical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology. The research area focuses on the development of methods for integrated, science-based and efficient bioprocess development along PAT and QbD principles. The product fields are circular economy and biopharmaceuticals within industry driven scientific projects. In 2013 he founded the Data Science company Exputec, successfully providing Software and Services to the biotech industry and heading for enabling affordable drugs for the world...

Chris Houghtaling maximizes the returns on investments in marketing and sales organizations across industries by bridging people, processes, strategies and technologies that empower people to meet the hopes, dreams and desires of their customers. Chris is a husband, father of three girls, consultant, coach, mentor, trainer, university lecturer, guest author, and founder of VisioneersPartner and Path2Revenue. He brings international sales and marketing expertise to organizations of all sizes, from startups to global corporations and has improved the performance of 1000’sof professionals from over 100 countries. Path2Revenue is Chris’ most recent initiative and will provide startups and SMEs a roadmap for the marketing and sales of a product from the idea stage to globalization. Path2Revenue is the result of Chris’s determination that everyone, even early stage startups, understands the urgency in focusing - and speaking with - the customer from the day an idea becomes a living startup. Empowering young founders with a path from basic marketing through launch and scaling, to going global helps these startups to reach the results they dream about.

Mr. Walter Ischia is the Director of Business Development at I.E.C.T Herman Hauser. His core competences are business development and startup networks.

Philipp Kinsky is founder and partner of Herbst Kinsky attorneys at law, a member of the Vienna mentoring group,involved in the startup business since over ten years and avery active Business Angel.

Lisa-Marie Fassl is the Managing Director of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, Austria’s leading network for business angels which connects promising startups with investors. Before moving to Vienna, Lisa was an active member of the startup community in Styria, where she cofounded the npo IdeenTriebwerk Graz. During her studies she focused on Business Information Systems and Entrepreneurship, which led to various scientific studies on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Austria. Having experienced the Austrian startup community from different perspectives for several years, she’s continually co-founding new projects, her latest being femalefounders.at, a network for women in the startup community.

Coming from an IT and Business Process Integration background I was surprised about the low level of integration in outsourced Manufacturing of Electronic Goods which leads to a huge disconnect between the Product Designer and the Manufacturer. QualityLine technology provides real time data collection from every corner of the manufacturing line and automatically collects and analyze the testing data from automated testing equipment (such as ATE, ICT, functional testing stations, etc..). Fast ROI is achieved by remotely integrating with any kind oftesting station located on manufacturing lines, analyzing the data (using KPI) and then presenting in interactive analytics dashboards for further data mining and root cause analysis. The huge promise of "Industry 4.0" relies on such innovations that deliver results immediately and do not require to wait for the ressources of an integration project or the reinvest in new equipment! acccoi (yes: with 3 'C's !) stands for ACCeleration & COInnovation - helping to turn innovation into real business success for both, Start Ups and Corporates in Europe and the US. www.acccoi.com

Stefan Kreppel is the start-up representative of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and responsible for the start-up related funding and financing schemes with in this organisation. Moreover he is an economical expert and strategically advisor for the entrepreneurial topic. Stefan has a Diploma in environmental engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Christian Bulfon has close to 20 years in Semiconductor Capital Equipment international experience including residency in Singapore and Silicon Valley/US. At Lam Research AG, Villach, hewas Managing Director heading the Operations, before opening his own consulting business in 2015. With his international and broad expertise in Business & Finance Operations, Development & Engineering, Production, Logistics, Purchasing, Quality, Sales and Customer Service he is engaged as Operations Head / Interim COO for various fast growing production related businesses. He is invested as Business Angel in three Start-ups and is also anactive mentor in the start-up scene. Christian is married, father of one kid and holds a degree in technical physics (TU Vienna) supplemented by an entrepreneurial leadership program (UC Berkeley).

Hon. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Michael Heiss is Principal for Open Innovation at Siemens. He studied Electrical Engineering in Vienna, made apost-doc at M.I.T., started his industry career at Boschand is since 1996 with Siemens in various leading positions for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology Management. He is also Chair of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Chapter Central Europe and Vice-Chair of IEEE Austria.

Chris Houghtaling maximizes the returns on investments in marketing and sales organizations across industries by bridging people, processes, strategies and technologies that empower people to meet the hopes, dreams and desires of their customers. Chris is a husband, father of three girls, consultant, coach, mentor, trainer, university lecturer, guest author, and founder of VisioneersPartner and Path2Revenue. He brings international sales and marketing expertise to organizations of all sizes, from startups to global corporations and has improved the performance of 1000’sof professionals from over 100 countries. Path2Revenue is Chris’ most recent initiative and will provide startups and SMEs a roadmap for the marketing and sales of a product from the idea stage to globalization. Path2Revenue is the result of Chris’s determination that everyone, even early stage startups, understands the urgency in focusing - and speaking with - the customer from the day an idea becomes a living startup. Empowering young founders with a path from basic marketing through launch and scaling, to going global helps these startups to reach the results they dream about.

Juergen Jelly founded Idea To Market with the objective to offer full service to people and companies that want to realize their ideas or projects. From the first day on until the successful realization and even further. Jürgen is a serial entrepreneur in several industries, consultant, coach, mentor and author. He studied European Economy and Business Management at the University of Applied Science and the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria and “Leadership” at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. Jürgen founded his first company at the age of 23. While he is really passionate about being an entrepreneur, a part of his heart remains academic. This is why – since 2007 – he is lecturer, coach and mentor at the Institute of “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Even if he calls himself a practitioner, he tends to say, that a good theory generates an enormous amount of practice. Juergen has managed and led dozens of projects in several industries like food & beverages, healthcare, pharmaceutical, renewable energy, IT, technology, research, marketing, sports, consumer goods, arts, restaurants, logistics and many more. If it is not about business, it’s about sports. Jürgen is a very ambitious sportsman and competed in masters swimming, tennis tournaments, ski races, cross-country skiing, military pentathlonand some other sports. Beside that he loves to discover the world and is interested in close to everything.

Dietmar Gombotz is CEO & founder of SPHARES, an early stage start-up from Vienna. SPHARES allows you to share data like with dropbox, only between different systems and different data objects. He previous worked as founder of a small software-consulting company (S3), has been head of the Junge Wirtschaft Wien (anorganization of young entrepreneur’s) and has strong ties into the start-up community being the director of “StartUp Grind Vienna”. Dietmar was part of the first batch of the I2C Diploma Supplement course on innovation. His background includes a diploma in business informatics, a bachelor in computer science and a bachelor in informatics & economics.

Mark is an early adopter, participatory observer and informed critic of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and socio-techno experiences. He is an university lecturer, academic researcher and User Experience (UX) Designer actively researching and reflecting upon the impact and influence of technologies on humanity. Mark lectures at the University of Applied Sciences in Steyr and Hagenberg while conducting his doctoral research at the Center for Human Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. He is applying theory into practice and is actively engaged in service design for technology enhanced education, healthcare delivery and creating e-patient scenarios.
- https://twitter.com/MAMK
- http://at.linkedin.com/in/mamkramer
- http://www.xing.com/profile/MarkAM_KramerSeite

Michael Altrichter is Business Angel of the Year 2014 and Impact Investor in Austria. Michael has a fascinating story to tell: Before becoming an investor Michael started Paysafecard and Payolution in the down‐fall of the Dot‐Com bubble. After selling his companies to the british company Skrill, he is now involved in 10 internet Start‐Ups , for example rublys, wikifolio or Diagnosia. Those of you who followed i²c’s Public Lecture Serie in 2014 know Michael already as an inspiring person who has lots of insights to share and plenty of tips on how to get investors money. He is also well known for his deals on the start‐up show "2 Millionen in 2 Minuten" on Puls 4 as well as for discussions as panelist on the startup scene in Austria. Michael holds a degree in technical physics, is married and father of two. He is passionate about music and mountaineering.

Mag. Daniel Cronin is a passionate marketer and public speaker. He studied at the Vienna University of Economics and Business where he qualified with a Masters in Economics & Social Science. He wrote his thesis on Mobile Marketing and in 2011 became a founding member of the full-service app-agency “all about apps”, where he was Head of Marketing. Daniel is Co-Founder and Member of the Board of AustrianStartups and lectures Mobile Business and Marketing at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg. He presented the show “2Minuten, 2Millionen – die PULS4 Startup-Show” on national TV. Daniel has also hosted many events and panels including Startup Week 2011, Pioneers Festival 2012 & 2013 as well as the World Business Dialogue and the EBAN Annual Congress, both in 2013.

Nicolas Gonzalez Garrido has 15 years of experience designing products for a wide range of clients, from start‐ups to Fortune 500 companies in USA, South America,Europe and Asia. Nicolas has postgraduate studies in Strategic Design Management and in Marketing. He currently teaches Innovation and Creativity Techniques at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, is the founder of StudioKanso.com, Co‐Founder of HardwareTribe.com, mentor at Startup Live and Hardware.CO.

Dietmar Gombotz is CEO & founder of SPHARES, an early stage start-up from Vienna. SPHARES allows you to share data like with dropbox, only between different systems and different data objects. He previous worked as founder of a small software-consulting company (S3), has been head of the JungeWirtschaft Wien (an organization of young entrepreneur’s) and has strong ties into the start-up community being the director of “StartUp Grind Vienna”. Dietmar was part of the first batch of the I2C Diploma Supplement course on innovation. His background includes a diploma in business informatics, a bachelor in computer science and a bachelor in informatics & economics.

Hansi Hansmann was born in Austria and studied economics in Vienna. He spent the major part of his professional life working as an executive in the pharmaceutical industry in Austria, Germany, UK and Spain. He gathered several years of entrepreneurial experience running successfully his own pharmaceutical company in Spain after conducting a management buyout of a big pharmaceutical plant, making an exit in 2003. Since this time he is active as investor and business angel. He currently holds investments with a geographical focus on Austria, Germany, UK and Spain both internet and in the health industry. His investments (in total more than 30) include busuu (London), renesim (Munich), diagnosia, durchblicker, mysugr, whatchado, tractive, shpock, linemetrics, anyline, kiweno and pioneers (see www.hansmengroup.com). He led runtastic to an extraordinary exit in August 2015. He is president of the ‘Austrian Angels Investors Association’, is now based in Vienna and tries to find spare time to ride his mountain bike.

Juergen Jelly founded Idea To Market with the objective to offer full service to people and companies that want to realize their ideas or projects. From the first day on until the successful realization and even further. Juergen is a serial entrepreneur in several industries, consultant, coach, mentor and author. He studied European Economy and Business Management at the University of Applied Science and the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria and “Leadership” at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. Juergen founded his first company at the age of 23. While he is really passionate about being an entrepreneur, a part of his heart remains academic. This is why – since 2007 – he is lecturer, coach and mentor at the Institute of “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Even if he calls himself a practitioner, he tends to say, that a good theory generates an enormous amount of practice. Juergen has managed and led dozens of projects in several industries like food & beverages, healthcare, pharmaceutical, renewable energy, IT, technology, research, marketing, sports, consumer goods, arts, restaurants, logistics and many more. If it is not about business, it’s about sports. Juergen is a very ambitious sportsman and competed in masters swimming, tennis tournaments, ski races, cross-country skiing, military pentathlon and some other sports. Beside that he loves to discover the world and is interested in close to everything.

Mark A. M. Kramer is an early adopter, participatory observer and informed critic of information and communications technologies and social-media services. He is an experienced university lecturer, academic researcher and participatory observer, actively reflecting upon and covering the intersection between mobile technology usage and its impact on our societies. Mark lectures at the University of Applied Sciences in Steyr and Hagenberg while conducting his doctoral research at the ICT&S Center of the University of Salzburg. He is applying theory into practice engaged in service design for healthcare delivery and e-patient scenarios.

Stefan Kreppelis the start-up representative of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and responsible for the start-up related funding and financing schemes with in this organisation. Moreover he is an economical expert and strategically advisor for the entrepreneurial topic. Stefan has a Diploma in environmental engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Martin Giesswein has been active for ca. 15 years in the IT industry. He was General Manager at Nokia, successfully sold the Immobilien.net and is currently working in parallel  as a freelance author, lecturer, trainer and "Business Designer " with de focus Smart City Development, StartUps, exits, management and overall marketing strategies.

Thomas Peruzzi acts as an advisor to different companies all over the world like laterpay.de, admoment.ru, meinkauf.at and the asiaventure group or as a member of the board for crate data. Beside that he invests in companies like nanosatisfi, delvenews, mountix, netzshopping, diestrategisten and more. For companies all over the world he offers tech. and product due diligences which he delivers to famous media companies in Europe, private offices and institutional investors. If applicable and needed he takes over interims responsibilities like CTO, COO roles. Before he founded and ran his own company, aicooma, for roughly 10 years.

Specialties: strategy, IT architecture, IT operations, Technical Due Dilligence, innovation, IT strategy, IT scaling, internationalisation, product‐IT‐interface, big data and IoT 

Alexander Franz has spent over 15 years introducing new products. He lived through times of building new businesses, rapid growth and consolidation. He has developed new products with a mobile phone operator and a large media company. Thus he knows innovation processes and product management in large enterprises. As one of the first employees at a fast-growing internet agency he also knows the startup perspective. During his time at one of the “Fast Five” consulting firms he gained experience with a broad range of business problems. Alexander Franz studied business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and graduated with a Magister degree (equivalent to Master of Science). His concentrations were in entrepreneurship & innovation, as well as in organizational behavior and management. In addition, he has spent an exchange semester at Babson College in the U.S., one of the world’s most highly ranked business schools for entrepreneurship.

Christian Bulfon has close to 20 years in Semiconductor Capital Equipment, Multi‐year international experience in Asia, USA & Europe, Leadership/Management in: General Management, Business & Finance Operations, Development & Engineering, Production, Logistics, Purchasing, Facilities, EH&S, Quality, Sales, Process Application and Customer Service.

Werner Wutscher is an Austrian Business Angel (Business Angel of the year 2012) and founder of New Venture Scouting. His goal is to connect the worlds of startups and corporations. He is also an expert in the field of sustainability, specifically focusing von retail and greentech. He holds several advisory board functions in Austria, India and Jordan. Before that he was 14 years in senior management and federal administration. Born as a son of farmers in the mountains of Carinthia, Werner Wutscher strongly believes that sustainability is the key strategy for the future. Sector wise he gained his expertise in the area of food and green tec. As Business Angel he supported the founders and holds investments in seven start-up companies. Before that he was working for 14 years in top management positions in the Austrian Federal Government and in corporate companies such as the Agrana Beteiligungs AG and REWE International AG. Werner Wutscher holds a law degree from Karl-Franzens-University in Graz and a Master’s degree from Harvard University, USA. He acts globally and serves in the board of various companies in Austria, Mumbai and Amman like Kelag AG, Zielpunkt GmbH and Godavari Biorefineries Ltd. He strongly believes in an active civil society, therefore he is engaged as Member of the board of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, in the Austrian Business Council for Sustainable Development (respact) and Vice-President of the National Park “Hohe Tauern”. In 2009 he was nominated Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum Davos (WEF) and coordinates the Global Shaper initiative of the WEF.

Mag. Dr. Birgit Hofreiter is responsible for the business development and activities undertaken by the i²c. What started with the program design and management of a supplementary curriculum on innovation for master students at the Faculty of Informatics at TU Wien, grew within 3 years into a cross-faculty Innovation Center offering different services: amongst other things a StartAcademy for Scientists - a unique concept for R&D transfer at Universities. In this StartAcademy scientists investigate the business potential of conducted R&D projects/PhD topics. Additionally, she fathered the i²c Award - a realisation grant for conducted PhD research with high business potential. Birgit is advisory board member of Austrian Startups and co-initiator & steering committee member of the IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics - An academic conference and outlet for applied informatics. Repeatedly, she acts as innovation scout and jury member.

Michael Altrichter co-founded paysafecard.com Wertkarten AG, starting it from scratch in 2000 and selling it to Skrill, a strategic partner in payment. After founding and selling his second payment company, payolution, he now has shareholdings in 12+ start-ups and is simultaneously an active member of the advisory board at Wikifolio (a social trading investment platform, www.wikifolio.com), rublys (digital scratch cards for smart phones, www.rublys.com) and Reef Interactive (3D diving maps, www.reef-interactive.com). Michael is an enthusiastic entrepreneur and serious Business Angel, who loves to help highly committed teams developing brilliant business ideas to become successfull companies. Recently he became the fifth Ashoka Network Support Member in Austria. Ashoka is a global non-profit organization that identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs.

Mag. Daniel Cronin is a passionate marketer and public speaker. He studied at the Vienna University of Economics and Business where he qualified with a Masters in Economics & Social Science. He wrote his thesis on Mobile Marketing and in 2011 became a founding member of the full-service app-agency “all about apps”, where he was Head of Marketing. Daniel is Co-Founder and Member of the Board of AustrianStartups and lectures Mobile Business and Marketing at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg. He presented the show “2Minuten, 2Millionen – die PULS4 Startup-Show” on national TV. Daniel has also hosted many events and panels including Startup Week 2011, Pioneers Festival 2012 & 2013 as well as the World Business Dialogue and the EBAN Annual Congress, both in 2013.

Mag. Dr. Birgit Hofreiter is responsible for the business development and activities undertaken by the i²c. What started with the program design and management of a supplementary curriculum on innovation for master students at the Faculty of Informatics at TU Wien, grew within 3 years into a cross-faculty Innovation Center offering different services: amongst other things a StartAcademy for Scientists - a unique concept for R&D transfer at Universities. In this StartAcademy scientists investigate the business potential of conducted R&D projects/PhD topics. Additionally, she fathered the i²c Award - a realisation grant for conducted PhD research with high business potential. Birgit is advisory board member of Austrian Startups and co-initiator & steering committee member of the IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics - An academic conference and outlet for applied informatics. Repeatedly, she acts as innovation scout and jury member.

Werner Wutscher is an Austrian Business Angel (Business Angel of the year 2012) and founder of New Venture Scouting. His goal is to connect the worlds of startups and corporations. He is also an expert in the field of sustainability, specifically focusing von retail and greentech. He holds several advisory board functions in Austria, India and Jordan. Before that he was 14 years in senior management and federal administration.

Born as a son of farmers in the mountains of Carinthia, Werner Wutscher strongly believes that sustainability is the key strategy for the future. Sector wise he gained his expertise in the area of food and green tec. As Business Angel he supported the founders and holds investments in seven start-up companies. Before that he was working for 14 years in top management positions in the Austrian Federal Government and in corporate companies such as the Agrana Beteiligungs AG and REWE International AG. Werner Wutscher holds a law degree from Karl-Franzens-University in Graz and a Master’s degree from Harvard University, USA.

He acts globally and serves in the board of various companies in Austria, Mumbai and Amman like Kelag AG, Zielpunkt GmbH and Godavari Biorefineries Ltd. He strongly believes in an active civil society, therefore he is engaged as Member of the board of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, in the Austrian Business Council for Sustainable Development (respact) and Vice-President of the National Park “Hohe Tauern”. In 2009 he was nominated Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum Davos (WEF) and coordinates the Global Shaper initiative of the WEF.

Daniel Horak holds a Master Degree in Business Information Systems, from the Fachhochschule Technikum, as well as a master’s in Business Management from the FH Wien. Before he co-founded CONDA in 2012, he gained experience as an entrepreneur and founder of his first startup, Spoken Language System in 2007. Currently, Daniel is the managing director for marketing & sales at CONDA, the Austrian crowdinvesting platform, and is well connected in the Austrian startup community.

Dietmar Gombotz is CEO & founder of SPHARES, an early stage start-up from Vienna. SPHARES allows you to share data like with dropbox, only between different systems and different data objects. He previous worked as founder of a small software-consulting company (S3), has been head of the JungeWirtschaft Wien (an organization of young entrepreneur’s) and has strong ties into the start-up community being the director of “StartUp Grind Vienna”. Dietmar was part of the first batch of the I2C Diploma Supplement course on innovation. His background includes a diploma in business informatics, a bachelor in computer science and a bachelor in informatics & economics.

Stefan Kreppelis the start-up representative of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and responsible for the start-up related funding and financing schemes with in this organisation. Moreover he is an economical expert and strategically advisor for the entrepreneurial topic. Stefan has a Diploma in environmental engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Juergen Jelly founded Idea To Market with the objective to offer full service to people and companies that want to realize their ideas or projects. From the first day on until the successful realization and even further. Juergen is a serial entrepreneur in several industries, consultant, coach, mentor and author. He studied European Economy and Business Management at the University of Applied Science and the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria and “Leadership” at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. Juergen founded his first company at the age of 23. While he is really passionate about being an entrepreneur, a part of his heart remains academic. This is why – since 2007 – he is lecturer, coach and mentor at the Institute of “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Even if he calls himself a practitioner, he tends to say, that a good theory generates an enormous amount of practice. Juergen has managed and led dozens of projects in several industries like food & beverages, healthcare, pharmaceutical, renewable energy, IT, technology, research, marketing, sports, consumer goods, arts, restaurants, logistics and many more. If it is not about business, it’s about sports. Juergen is a very ambitious sportsman and competed in masters swimming, tennis tournaments, ski races, cross-country skiing, military pentathlon and some other sports. Beside that he loves to discover the world and is interested in close to everything.

Katharina Pühringer is Head of Innovations Scouting at CONDA, the leading Austrian Crowdinvesting Platform. She graduated from the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2010, after spending her last term in Toronto, attending an Entrpreneurship MBA class at York University. Already in 2009, she co-founded StartEurope, an initiative for fostering the European startup environment, which was later turned in Pioneers. She was responsible for coordinating international marketing and sales strategies for a big online and offline trading company, before coming back to Vienna and diving into identifying and evaluating innovative business models for financing at her current workplace.

Thomas Peruzzi founded aicooma in Austria, Switzerland and Germany and built it from scratch till earn-out in 2012. He then rejoined University in York for a second Master Study and took over several interims C*O positions in digital startups like laterpay or gigaset elements. Beside that he angel-invested in digital startups like getwiser, spireglobal, adespresso and advised emerging startups with his strong product and Technology background. He is boardmember of Crate and Advisory Board member of admoment, meinkauf, laterpay, refz.co and roq.ad. Thomas lectures Innovation Management and Technology Leadership and is a respected speaker for European Corporates with regards to lean product management and how to avoid the innovator’s dilemma. International VCs and corporate ventures trust his view on technology during due diligence processes.

Daniel Horak Stefan has a strong research background in the field of open innovation and has been running many initiatives in the startup scene. He knows both the corporate and startup world to bring ideas to success. Stefan strongly believes in the positive synergies between startups and established companies and loves to support technologies that make the world a better place.

is project manager for start-up programs at the Vienna Business Agency and has more than 10 years experience as a business consultant in various industries and has supported several start-ups in the Creative Industries. The Vienna Business Agency offers financial support, real estate and urban development incentives as well as free service and advice for Viennese companies and founders. The objective is to strengthen Viennese entrepreneurs, companies and their innovative force. As a result, developing and sustaining the business location and strengthening the position in international competition.

Nicolas Gonzalez Garrido 15 years of experience designing products for a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies in USA, South America,Europe and Asia. Nicolas has postgraduate studies in Strategic Design Management and in Marketing. He currently teaches Innovation and Creativity Techniques at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, is the founder of StudioKanso.com, Co-Founder of HardwareTribe.com, mentor at Startup Live and Hardware.CO.

Mark A. M. Kramer is an early adopter, participatory observer and informed critic of information and communications technologies and social-media services. He is an experienced university lecturer, academic researcher and participatory observer, actively reflecting upon and covering the intersection between mobile technology usage and its impact on our societies. Mark lectures at the University of Applied Sciences in Steyr and Hagenberg while conducting his doctoral research at the ICT&S Center of the University of Salzburg. He is applying theory into practice engaged in service design for healthcare delivery and e-patient scenarios.