Product

Daniel is an industrial designer and product visualization artist from Austria. During his studies he got to work for agencies in Munich and Seattle, before joining NIO, an automotive startup from China.

He founded a furniture company in hydesk.co where he tries to solve the health-risk factor “sitting” for home-office workers and digital nomads.

Daniel also teaches animation and motion graphics at the University of Applied Sciences Vienna.

With more than 20 years of experience, Ferkaran has worked for a diverse range of industries spanning consumer electronics, automotive, home automation and IoT, industrial, lifestyle as well as the medical and music sectors. His work has earned him over 15 international design awards.

Fer is a founder of the Munich-based product strategy and design studio, Phosphor. He has worked in Europe and Asia as an independent design consultant for start-ups, world-renowned design agencies and global corporations.

Barbara, an industrial and CMF designer, co-founded Phosphor after working independently for world-leading design agencies such as Designit and Designaffairs, serving clients including Samsung, LG and Bosch.

Over the years Barbara has gained extensive experience and knowledge working on CMF (Color, Material and Finish) projects, as well as trend forecasts for various corporations. 

She has received several international design awards including multiple iF Design Awards, Rat für Formgebung nominations and several Red Dot Awards.

Mike’s career as a mechanical engineer started 30 years ago. As one of the first freelancers in Germany to use 3D CAD programs, Mike has solved many complex construction, tooling and manufacturing problems for everyone from renowned companies to deep tech startups.

His core strengths are the development of ingenious mechanical solutions and rapid prototypes, as well as matching injection molding tool design and manufacturing support during ramp up.

Igor has 20+ years of experience in software development, 10+ in product management and cloud software, and 5+ in IoT, digitalization, and corporate innovation. He helps startups and innovation teams create and develop products on edge between hardware and software while always considering essential business aspects to ensure they are a future success. His specialty is taking a hands-on and agile approach to product development and prototyping to reach fast results.

In recent years, Igor worked on various projects for startups and big organizations, such as electric vehicle charging, industrial automation, computer vision, and machine learning or developing multiple apps and cloud solutions.

Besides, he also founded REFLEKTION LIGHT SCULPTURES, a minimalistic lamp and sculpture brand that won a German Design Award in 2020.

Gunnar has a background as a mechatronic engineer with a master's degree in innovation and technology management. He has 17+ years of expertise in industrial machinery, manufacturing, and product development.

Gunnar founded a corporate startup with up to 40 team members. He started as a technology consultant, mainly in charge of technology management, product & organizational development, and recruiting. While the team was growing, he took the lead of the cross-functional R&D team.

Gunnar has experience in numerous development and research projects equipped with a deep technical understanding of various fields.

Andreas’ work as a designer encompasses a wide range of industrial design fields such as consumer electronics, domestic appliances, sports goods, furniture, lighting, and strategic design consulting. He gained extensive knowledge in multidisciplinary design management and creative direction through his 15 years of global experience across both corporates and consultancies.

He successfully brought numerous products and services to the market and won many international design awards. He is fluent in the entire innovation process, from upstream strategy to implementation and commercialization.

Besides founding his own design practice, he is also a founding partner of the furniture and home accessories brand Caussa.

By studying electrical engineering with a focus on data and information technology, Mario turned his passion into his profession over 20 years ago. He started his professional career at BMW in Munich, where he developed software for the engine control of gasoline engines.

After a few years, he wanted to broaden his horizons and worked at several small startups/companies in alternative drives and renewable energies. Meaningful, sustainable projects have always been his incentive.

In addition to embedded software development in C/C++, he gained significant experience in hardware prototyping, creating hardware architectures for functionally safe ECUs, documentation of software and hardware for approval/certification, and optimization of control algorithms.

After his studies of electrical-engineering and information technology, Adriano worked as an engineer for an E²MS provider. He was developing products and electronics as a service for different customers in different applications and technological fields with the goal of series production (design-to-manufacture).

Software engineering always came as a part of those projects. Examples range from embedded software for test and validation, complex motor-control algorithms in the e-mobility sector to PC-based software for service and support of products in the field.

Later, the focus of work shifted to project management and system engineering extending the expertise of product-design and engineering. In the recent years Adriano worked as a
freelance software engineer for different applications and customers.

Her activities cover various fields ranging from forecasts in healthcare to classification models in the energy sector. Among them, one area of special attention is the processing of sensor data for process optimization and predictive maintenance.

Her portfolio includes the implementation of individual software solutions, support in AI-projects, and trainings for machine learning. She sets a special focus on the introduction of AI in companies that have not yet ventured into the topic. In collaboration, she discusses application possibilities and develops prototypes.

Even though she is proficient in various programming languages, in the field of AI she implements predominantly with Python.

Sebastian has always had a keen interest in technology. With almost a decade’s worth of experience as a project and product manager, he has driven a broad spectrum of development projects, ranging from embedded systems for hardware products to web-based online systems.

After launching his career with a consultancy and service provider, Sebastian co-founded vSens, a satellite-based irrigation advisor for agriculture.

Later, he joined BLOKS, a Munich based hardware and software company, working  as a product and program manager. Here Sebastian helped drive the development of multiple products and establish product development and innovation processes.

With over a decade of experience with complex software and electrical systems, Dennis was able to bring various projects in automotive as well as the outdoor consumer market to life. With his strong technical background and experience in product management, he is able to build the bridge between two distinct worlds.

In recent years Dennis worked in the e-mobility sector and has played a major role in defining product specifications and building up development processes in international teams.  

During his studies in mechanical engineering and product development, Janosch founded a company as an inventor of a clinometer. He has experienced typical hardware lifecycle end-to-end, from developing first prototypes and filing a patent, to bringing a product to market. 

For his bachelor thesis, Janosch researched at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology, specializing in selective laser melting technologies.

Janosch is also experienced in aquaponics and airlift pumps, and has developed various products and systems for commercial and private use.

Georg is well-versed in electrical and software engineering, allying an analytic mind to a strong scientific background. He started his career as product manager in Dresden’s semiconductor industry and has gone on to hold a wide range of positions from development to project lead and sales. 

In the last 10 years Georg has led automation and logistics projects, worked on AI and big data analytics, IoT devices, e-mobility, medical algorithms, laboratory diagnostic systems, optical inspection systems and more.

Since 2014, Georg has started three companies: a lithium battery startup, a user interface company and an engineering consultancy.

Stefan has worked in the USA, Europe and Asia in various companies in the field of ergonomic office furniture, telecommunication hardware and consumer electronics.

With more than 13 years of experience, Stefan has a strong focus on user-centered design research, product and process analysis, design development, pre-engineering and prototyping.

Stefan has many years of experience in various sectors of the IT and business worlds. He was part of several Silicon Valley startup companies providing solutions for the media, health and communications fields.

His primary focus is based on the development of Cloud-ready micro service environments and REST-compliant API-services for Java and NodeJS platforms, using message-oriented middleware systems and methodologies based on containerized deployment.

Stefan has a wealth of experience in developing web-based and mobile solutions for consumer-oriented and corporate requirements, using the latest JavaScript frameworks and native development technologies for iOS and Android platforms.

With a foundation of 15 years of industry experience in telecommunications and semiconductors, Miles brings a wide skill set to the table which allows him to deliver complex software and hardware solutions. Leveraging his strong technical background and many years in project management (Agile, Waterfall) Miles employs a hands-on approach to place himself in the customer's shoes and deliver projects and solutions on time.

Miles’ most recent adventure has been developing ECU software in the e-mobility sector as a product owner (CSPO), working extensively with hardware teams to elicit and distil product requirements and scale up development processes.

Armin is an expert in the life cycle of industrial electronic products from market evaluation, business case, requirements engineering and R&D project management to marketing of series products and phase-out.

Armin joined Siemens as a telecommunications engineer, working in R&D as a project and product manager and eventually becoming head of product management. Afterwards he joined an engineering service provider as head of consulting and finally became managing director.

Armin has conducted numerous consulting and R&D roles in industrial automation and machinery for customers around the world.

Edwin completed the classical Swiss educational path and started his career with an apprenticeship as a toolmaker in the fittings industry. He later worked as a specialist in the watch industry and in various areas of injection molding and die casting. Afterwards he completed a degree in precision systems engineering in the field of laser optical systems and a second degree in plastics engineering.

Edwin acquired a great deal of know-how across multiple disciplines including domestic appliances, medicine, optical systems, automotive, sports, sanitary and technical products. He specialised further in plastic technology-related areas such as sealed systems (gaskets), air treatment, water filtration, electronic assemblies, and small drives with sensors... but also very simple utensils.

He is an expert in FEM calculations and loves to work on projects from the idea to the serial production. Edwin loves to start with one prototype and scale to 100 million pieces per year, as he has done for several water filter projects

With a strong background in embedded systems, Chris spent the last decade helping the automotive industry transform into a digital business. He worked in a wide range of teams and settings from smaller research up to large multi-platform projects with 10+ suppliers and thousands of project members, working with startups and all tier levels of suppliers. 

From research and prototyping to product definition and on into developing and launching series systems, Chris has been working with the full spectrum of technologies out there, ranging from low level IoT, graphics controllers and feature packed SoCs up to full stack web and app development.

Chris has explored every aspect of software development and gained strong insights in the aligned fields that exist in product development, including systems engineering, product management, integration and hardware development.

With his in-depth studies of mechatronics, Hendrik first developed embedded software for medical devices. After receiving his MBA and founding his own company, he defines himself as an entrepreneurial engineer. Hendrik understands several core technologies – from sensors, over connectivity, to web-based software and apps – but also their business implications. This broad background and depth of knowledge makes it possible for Hendrik to think strategically from a number of angles.

In the recent years Hendrik has worked in the marine electronics sector, defining complex system specifications and taking a hands-on approach to product development.

Steve is an information and telecommunication engineer passionate and focused on developing electronics and embedded software. He worked as a software and electronic engineer in industrial IoT 4.0, medical devices, aerospace, and embedded systems.

With over six years of experience, he can design and develop real-time embedded software IoT systems with safety and performance requirements.

In addition, he applies agile and DevOps principles and practices modular programming, Clean-Code-Development (CDD), and Test-Driven Development (TDD).

Aravinth is an interdisciplinary expert with 17+ years of global experience in science, engineering, arts and sustainability, with core expertise in research, development and production of electro-mechanical embedded systems and digital products.

As an engineer, he worked for two major corporates in the telecom sector and for eight tech startups in the sector of education, smart home, media, agriculture, energy, healthcare and water. He worked in Asia and Europe, where one of his hardware products was sold in 30K+ quantities and one of his software products reached 10M+ users.

As an entrepreneur, he co-founded 7 organizations across Asia & Europe in the sectors of education, sustainability, agriculture, consulting & engineering services.