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.

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.

FH-Prof. Mag. Dr. Peter Burgstaller, LLM is a graduate of the JKU Linz and London University (London School of Economics). In 2007, he received a Visiting Scholarship on patent law and technology transfer research at Harvard University/Cambridge. Peter Burgstaller has been a lawyer in Linz since 2000 (www.lawfirm.eu). Since 2010, Peter Burgstaller has a professorship for IT and IP law at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Campus Hagenberg; he is also a lecturer at the Kunstuniversität Linz in the department of copyright. Peter Burgstaller has extensive publications and lecture activities on IT and IP law as well as IT compliance/governance in Germany and abroad. The London “Intellectual Asset Management Magazine” ranked Peter Burgstaller as one of the "250 World's Leading Patent & Technology Licensing Lawyers" in 2010 and 2011/2012.

Mag. Florian Glatt-Wodzynski is marketing consultant with a double 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 measure rigorously 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 Master from HEC Paris and the Vienna University for Economics and Business. He lives in Vienna and is fluent in French, English and German.

Michael Nouri, MA was born in 1961 in Vienna and completed his education in Austria and USA. He was working as creative director in Vienna, New York and Shanghai. He supervised projects, among others for Erste Bank, T-Mobile, Vontobel and Expo Shanghai. He is the founder and managing partner of cdc | Brandcreation. His activities include positioning, intercultural communication, brand identity and communication design. He has teaching experience as lecturer at the University of Vienna/ Journalism (Branding since 2006) and giving various other lectures (such as Shanghai University, Communication Design Dep.). He studied Communication Design at the Parson School of Design in NYC and did a Master at the Danube University Krems in Intercultural Studies.

Alex Pinter is co-founder of Trayn, a platform for strength and conditioning coaches to create fully individualized training programs for athletes faster and easier. It was officially launched in 2014 with selected professional sports teams in the US and Canada. Prior to that, he was a strategy consultant at Accenture for many years and worked with numerous international clients across Europe (main industry focus: consumer goods, retail, high-tech, and chemicals).

Dipl.-Ing. Bernhard Voith is a European patent and trademark attorney at Weiser & Voith Patentanwälte in Vienna. He holds a degree in electrical engineering from TU Wien. After a 10-year professional experience in engineering, sales and marketing in industrial automation and telecommunications industry in Austria, Switzerland, France, US and UK, he started working as a patent and license manager in the Austrian promotional environment. Bernhard Voith also studied European management at the Ashridge Business School as well as patent and license management at the Management Center Innsbruck. He lectured on “intellectual property rights” at the Medical University of Vienna, the University of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Vienna.

Walter Siebert has been a trainer and consultant for 25 years with core competence in cooperation, leadership and change management. He is specialized in experience based training and development and has been working for major companies in 28 countries. He is lecturer at the Universität Wien and Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien for cooperation and experiential learning.

Dr. Erich Prem, the CEO of eutema Technology Management GmbH,  has a degree in informatics and a doctorate in technical sciences from Vienna University of Technology. He was a scientist at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) and at the AI Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT (USA). He is the author of more than 40 scientific publications. Dr. Prem has worked in many national and international research projects as a scientist or project leader. He also was the Austrian expert in the Information Society Technologies Committee of the EU and the programme manager for the Austrian ICT research program FIT-IT.

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 within this organisation. Moreover, he is an economical expert and strategical advisor for the entrepreneurial topic. Stefan has a Diploma in environmental engineering and a Master of Business Administration.

Hon.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. habil. Michael Heiss studied Electrical Engineering at TU Wien, made a post-doc at MIT in Boston, started his industry career at Bosch and is since 1996 with Siemens in various leading positions for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology Management always with a focus on Open Innovation and Knowledge Networking. He is also Vice Chair of IEEE Austria and Chair of the IEEE Technology Management Council, Chapter Central Europe

Dr. Wolfgang Graf  is an attorney-at-law in the Viennese law firm Graf Patsch Taucher. Mr. Graf holds degrees from the University of Vienna law school (Mag. iur. Dr. iur.) and the Pennsylvania State University (LL.M.). He is admitted to practice law both in Austria and N.Y. Mr. Graf specializes mainly in corporate and mergers & acquisitions. He is a lecturer at the University for Applied Sciences Wr. Neustadt and author of a book on data protection law and several articles on corporate law. Mr Graf is vice-president of the “Institute for Forensic Analysis”, a private institute analyzing capital market related publications and the prevention of business and capital markets related white collar crime.

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.

Albrecht Karlusch works as a Corporate Entrepreneur for PALFINGER. In this role he searchs for disruptive technologies and business models to create valuable spin-offs or joint ventures. After the successfull accquisition of the required technologies he acts as the CEO with the responsibility to set-up a team, realize business strategy, direct product development and enter markets. Previously he was a lecturer and researcher at the Department for Strategy and Innovation at Vienna University of Economics and Business. He taught innovation-related courses for students from different universities, such as from business school, technical university or medical university. Besides his activities at university, Albrecht Karlusch was an consultant for innovation projects and a reviewer in public funding programs. Before that he was the CEO of a tech company for more than six years, wherein he was responsible for the financials, the shareholder management and international relationships. In his time the company raised more than EUR 2,5 millions, built up production capacities in Romania and agreed a license partnership with a company in the United States. Albrecht Karlusch holds a bachelor and master degree in Computer Science from Technical University of Vienna. He completed a professional MBA program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at Danube University Krems. He also completed additional study programs at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (Asia Business Program), Technical University Munich, Harvard Business School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Entrepreneurship Programs).

Chris Houghtaling currently is a marketing, sales and performance management expert with 25 plus years of empowering teams and individuals to reach results beyond their own expectations. His experiences range from high-tech, pharmaceutical to service sectors. He holds a dual MBA degree in International Business from the University of South Carolina, USA and the Business and Economics University of Vienna, Austria where he is a member of the International Alumni Board. Chris has been involved in finding new organizations and has also turned around several teams, raising them to high growth and profitability. In every position, Chris has focused on developing the people he worked with through an emphasis on coaching and consulting. He is passionate about letting his success be the success he brings to others. This passion has lead him to being a lecturer at three University of Applied Sciences and working with Start-ups since 2014 holding workshops, speaking and mentoring, including six category winners between Pioneers of the Balkans and the Pioneers Festival 2016.

Max Ditzel currently works as Acceleration Manager at WhatAVenture and is in charge of the setup and support of acceleration and incubation programs that guided more than 750 startups and 250 corporate innovation teams. Besides that he is responsible for the development and implementation of innovation strategies for leading companies in fields like energy, logistics and finance. His activities are mainly focusing on intrapreneurship, synergies between corporates and startups as well as open innovation around technologies. Furthermore, Max is an experienced mentor and speaker for innovation and startup initiatives such as Startup Live, Pioneers of the Balkans, Founder Institute, Pioneers Festival as well as lecturer for the diploma Innovationmanagement at BFI.