SPEAKERS
We are proud to have an awesome line-up of speakers. Some of them can be seen here:
Dr. Kai Herbertz
CEO & Founder • Herbertz EntertainmentDr. Kai Herbertz designed and programmed the video game “XPLOSIVE” in 1995 as a member of a three-person team. He founded the games company Herbertz Entertainment UG (haftungsbeschränkt) in June 2016 and released his first commercial board game at the SPIEL16 games fair in Essen in October 2016.
His second game “Albedo” sold out at SPIEL17 and was subsequently re-released with new artwork in 2018. Albedo’s success led to two expansions, which were funded on Kickstarter. He is currently working on two board games and one video game, all of which are in early stages of development.
Jaqueline Martin
Founder • Gentleland | Creative Lead • Cultures Interactive e.V.Jaqueline Martin is a computer scientist, lead artist and founder of an art and consulting agency who believes in the power of games as an interdisciplinary medium. She began her journey in the game industry by creating assets for game developers around the world as a Unity Store Publisher. Now she dreams of expanding her empathy-driven agency that helps developers take their game from early prototype to secured funding.
Her biggest successes so far have been consulting on the gamification of Switzerland’s biggest music festival and painting two murals in the heart of Berlin.
Khang Pham
CEO and Co-Founder • TxK Gaming StudiosKhang is co-founder of TxK Gaming Studios, a German startup company based in Düsseldorf. They are the developers behind the world’s most funded Kickstarter VR game project: Dungeon Full Dive.
With Dungeon Full Dive they plan to revolutionize the tabletop gaming industry, by creating the most immersive tabletop platform ever.
Tom Bockhorn
Lead Developer & Co-Founder • TxK Gaming StudiosTom is a huge rpg nerd and long-time Game Master. Apart from writing his own adventures, Tom is specialized in Game programming and currently working on the first-ever immersive virtual pen-and-paper experience: Dungeon Full Dive.
With this, Tom combines his passion of playing tabletop rpgs with his experience in VR- and Game Development.
Sebastian Först
Co-Founder • Manasoup Network and 3D ArtistSebastian is a voice over ip and collaboration specialist from Bavaria, who co-founded the indie studio Manasoup Interactive in 2018. After a growing desire to connect German-speaking game developers, he transformed the studio into the Manasoup Network. There he helps beginners in the focus areas of 3D modeling, sculpting and digital art.
Andreas Olf
Co-Founder • Manasoup Network and DeveloperAndreas is a professional developer who co-founded the indie studio Manasoup Interactive in 2018, which later transitioned into the non-profit Manasoup Network. As part of the network, he helps aspiring game developers with technical issues, finding teams, and connecting with the scene. In recent years, he has helped several leading companies develop software and apps, built their own development departments, and integrated agile software architectures into their daily workflow.
Dominic Riemenschneider
Art Historian & StreamerDominic Riemenschneider is an independent Art Historian, living in Berlin. He is focussed on Content Curation and Cultural Consulting for arts & culture, creative industries, new media, gaming industry.
On Twitch he is streaming about Art, Religion and Worldbuilding in Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror. The formats include topic streams, in-world tourist tours with games and a TWITCHcast with guests. A new format connecting art & culture with media & production is in planning.
Furthermore, he consults the church and parishes and thus manages to link communication, conception, art and fantasy.
Christiane Stein
Board Member • Seedbox VenturesChristiane Stein is a female Tech-Journalist and was a TV- Host on the news Channel (n-tv) for several years. She is an expert for technology, digitization and the metaverse on conferences and events. She deeply dived in Web3 since the end of 2020 and is an NFT collector with projects like CloneX and World of Woman.
Marcin Kugla
Managing Director • Red Potion StudiosMarcin worked in marketing, sales, and project management for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic Entertainment, and Red Potion Studios. In the past 10 years, he has helped some start-ups in their initial phase, and he provides guidance for the Cardano gaming community, as well! Now educating people in terms of NFT´s. Showing that this space definitively consisting of more then ape pics 🙂
Christian Mahnke
CEO & Co-Founder • Ear RealityChristian Mahnke is an award-winning interactive storyteller and founder of EarReality.
He is the author of the interactive audiobook series “Der Zauberwald” and the interactive fantasy story “Der Eiserne Falke”, which won the Amazon Alexa Games Skill Award in 2018. In search of the perfect story, he is constantly working on new interactive audio formats.
With its Voice Game Engine TWIST, EarReality offers authors and business partners an easy to use no-coding solution to create interactive audio stories and deploy them on multiple platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Discord, apps, websites, cars, and even games.
Inka McAtee
CEO & Art Direction • KnotHorn StudioInka is currently writing her master thesis in Intermedia Design. In her spare time, she runs every aspect of KnotHorn studio – from finance over project management to handling all the art decisions. She is also regularly teaching game design and art design at high schools. Additionally, Inka is the vice chairwoman of gamesAHEAD eV, an organization dedicated to assisting the founding of new game studios.
Björn Loesing
Lead Game Designer & Monetization Specialist • KnotHorn StudioBjörn has been in the games industry for nearly 30 years now. He’s covered everything in the games industry apart from actually drawing or programming things. He’s handling the game design, marketing and monetization for KnotHorn Studio, which is a fancy way of saying that he’s the Idea Guy.
Martin Wisniowski
Fullstack-Developer, Media-Artist and Founder • Indie-Studio Storm ElectricityMartin studied urban planning and works as full-stack developer, media-artist and game-designer. Since over 15 years he realised many different artworks like installations with video-projectors, interventions in the public space, playful experimental setups, pixel-artworks in galleries or media-art installations. One of the bigger projects was the project “Cologne Mine”, a large scale urban game, that was anyone able to play in the public space if Cologne in Summer 2020.
Currently he makes hybrid projects with AR in the context of theater and researches in procedurally generated 3d-content with his project “the endless city”. In December 2021 he decided to follow his passion of 2d-shooting games and founded the indie-studio “Storm Electricity”.
Paul Redetzky
Co-Founder & CEO • Emergo Entertainment GmbHPaul has been developing games since he was 13 and has developed a passion for creating interactive media. He studied Media Studies (B.A) & Video Game Studies (M.SC, Computer Science) at the University of Bayreuth. Afterward, he co-founded Emergo Entertainment a company you could describe in two ways: A game studio with the goal of connecting the games industry with other industries – or an agency developing the next level of media through interactivity. Paul’s passion for game development has always been analyzing systems and coming up with interesting ways of realizing them as interactive media. Emergo Entertainment is the perfect opportunity to apply this passion in- and outside the games industry.
Güncem Campagna
Managing Director • Tech and Teach gGmbHGüncem has a degree in Economics and worked in international marketing for corporations for many years. In 2016, she launched an educational initiative to increase diversity in the tech scene. Tech and Teach emerged from this initiative, offering target group-oriented programs for digital skills and IT training with its Coding School and Coding for Tomorrow initiatives.
Senad Hrnjadovic
Chief Executive Officer • SenAm GamesSenad is an indie game developer from Munich, Germany, and founder of SenAm Games, a studio with a network of diverse and experienced freelance collaborators spread across the globe. The studio was founded with the aim of delivering more than just a traditional video game experience in their releases, with social relevance, learning, and experiencing the real world key objectives for SenAm Games.
Vera Koltermann
Head of Employer Branding & Solutions • StepStoneVera Koltermann combines many years of expertise in marketing and branding. In 2014 she discovered the topic of employer branding and since then engaged in various projects and workshops. Initially, as Lead Consulting & Campaigning at DEBA GmbH, then, since May 2021, at StepStone as Head of Employer Branding & Solutions.
Finding new solutions, being effective in a wide variety of work cultures and getting better together is what drives her. With her team containing various expertise and services, she holistically combines the topics Employer Branding & Recruiting. Vera liks to experiment, to discover and break new ground when it comes to enhance her customers’ Candidate Delivery. This also applies to in-game recruiting & employer branding. Her credo: “Practice what you preach!”
Christian Schiffer
Founder • WASTED-Magazin | Writer / Editor / Moderator / Head of Netzwelt • Bayerischer RundfunkChristian Schiffer works as a writer and editor at Bayerischer Rundfunk. His thematic priorities include politics, pop culture and digital media. Together with Christian Alt he is the author of “Angela Merkel is Hitler’s daughter – in the land of conspiracy theories” (Carl Hanser Verlag). He is also the editor of WASTED, an online magazine about digital games.
Sonja Grunau
Managing Director • Ford Aus- und WeiterbildungSonja is primarily curious and open to surprises. She loves good conversations, being with people and playing games that you can understand directly without the instructions.
Through her constant engagement with leadership, change, strategy and organization, she sees herself as a sparring partner to actively shape the future.
As managing director of Ford Aus- und Weiterbildung (Ford training and further education), she is a source of ideas with business acumen and meanwhile a lot of experience in different areas of the industry. Over the years she has managed to maintain her enthusiasm for people in learning and change processes. By the way, she makes some decisions with learnings from rock, paper, scissors.
Jan Buchner
Head of Construction Planning / Order Handling • SMS group GmbHJan Buchner can look back on many years of project management experience in mechanical and plant engineering and is currently responsible for assembly planning and the execution of major projects at SMS group GmbH in Düsseldorf. The path led him from Dubai via Brazil, Indonesia, China, the USA and Iceland, among other places. In addition to his job in a business worth tons and millions, he has been a passionate gamer since the old Amiga days and years ago recognized many advantages in approaches and solutions that the gaming industry can offer to traditional mechanical and plant engineering. He is currently leading the gradual introduction of virtual and augmented reality at the SMS group from a user perspective and is testing possibilities for gamification in industrial applications.
Jürgen “tante” Geuter
Research Director • ART+COM | independent writertante is an independent theorist working on the intersection of technology, politics and the social. He is a de-evangelist and luddite.
He writes and speaks (but mostly writes) about the social consequences of the digital turn as well as the structure of the digital itself.
tante holds a diploma with a major in computer science with a minor in philosophy. He is no longer associated with academia in any way.
He has written for a number of German and international publications such as ZEITOnline, Spiegel Online, VICE/Motherboard, Golem, Boundary2 and others.
Bastian Pätzold
Senior Director, Global Partnerships, Esports & Gaming • SPORTFIVEBastian has been with the sports rights marketer Sportfive for 10 years and has been responsible for global brand partnerships in the esports & gaming sector for almost two years. Sportfive has implemented more than 100 strategic esports partnerships in the last 2 years and is the exclusive marketer of the strongest and most popular platforms worldwide.
Asema Hassan
Software Engineer | Games | VR | AI | WTM & WIGJ Ambassador | #IamRemarkable FacilitatorAsema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast. She started her career back in 2012 as a Software Engineer Asema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast who started her career back in 2012 working on Educational Games. In 2015, she moved to Germany for her Masters and started working as VR Programmer in DZNE-Magdeburg. After graduation, she became Lead Software Engineer (VR) and has been responsible for managing a small development team. She also co-founded an IGDA Chapter for the gaming community in Pakistan. She believes in women empowerment and wants to help grow the tech/gaming community by advocating the importance of diversity. She has led community chapters in Magdeburg and the Berlin Area focusing mainly on diversity and inclusion. In 2020, Asema became an ambassador for Women techmakers (WTM) as well as Women in Games (WiGJ) and is also a #IamRemarkable Facilitator, the Google initiative to empower women and underrepresented groups in tech industry.
Danial Ghods
Freelance DesignerDanial Ghods is a multidisciplinary designer who loves to set things in motion and wrangle problems, both macro and micro. His work pays tribute to the mundane and discovers visual metaphors. When not working on commercial projects, he likes to tinker with electronics and personal projects.
Prof. Dr. Hanns Christian Schmidt
Professor for Game Design • Macromedia University of Applied SciencesProf. Dr. Hanns Christian Schmidt is Professor of Game Design at the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute for Media Culture and Theatre at the University of Cologne. He did his doctorate on transmedial storyworlds in serial narratives and worked in a research project at the Cologne Game Lab (TH Köln) that dealt with the acquisition of game literacy among children. His research interests include game studies & game design, game literacy, transmediality, intermediality, film and television studies and Lego bricks.
Jeremiah Costello
CEO • Gamma Minus UG & Voice ActorJeremiah Costello is one of the founders of Gamma Minus UG, an independent game development studio founded in 2018.
Previously he also founded t-recs studios GmbH as well as Native Prime SAS – two game localization companies. He is currently working on Rough Justice: ’84, an 80s synth-noir strategy game with puzzles, dice and cards. The game has garnered a number of accolades including, the Epic MegaGrant, Nordic Games Discovery Contest Qualifier, and won the Indie Cup Unreal Engine ’22 award.
Dr. Amelie Eilken
CEO & Founder • Neozoa EntertainmentDr. Amelie Eilken is founder, CEO and app / game developer of Neozoa Entertainment. This small app and game development studio focuses on innovative (mobile) games based on smart algorithms and interesting real-world problems as well as niche apps.
In her current work she combines her passion for gaming with her vast experience in mathematics, algorithms as well as IT, business and data science gained during her years in strategy and IT consultancy, the corporate world and academia.
Merih Türkoglu
Research Assistant • Hochschule Ruhr West University of applied SciencesMerih is a bit half-baked, but loves giving talks and learning more about the creation of video games and artificial intelligence. Whenever there is an idea to combine AI with games, he does not waste a second of his time to do so. From reverse engineering games for training an AI or trying not to build the next Skyrim NPC, he is passionate about researching AI in general. Besides AI based projects, he loves developing prototypes of his favorite video game mechanics.
Thomas Riedel
Tech journalist, Metaverse expert, PodcasterThomas Riedel is a freelance tech journalist from Cologne. As a child of the 90s, he grew up with Ace of Base, Hero Quest and the Game Boy, tinkering with websites and screwing desktop PCs. After studying philosophy in Tübingen, he moved to Cologne. During his traineeship at a Cologne city magazine, he devised the idea for the startup Nerdhub, which he shut down after four years and some painful learnings. Further stations are Mediencluster NRW as Communication Officer and Event Manager for Gamescom and DMEXCO, deutsche-startups.de as editor and the magazine Digitale Leute as editor and organizer of the Digitale Leute Summit. For over ten years, the science fiction nerd has worked as a freelance journalist, moderator, and curator for tech events. Today, the father of a teenage daughter reports on tech, startup, and new-work trends. He also produces and manages podcasts with his Droid Boy production label. Current podcasts of his own are: “Future Future” and “The Metaverse Podcast.”
Stefan Wilhelm
Inclusive Video Game Developer | M.Sc Computer Science (focus on Neuroinformatics/Cognitive Robotics & Game Development)During his master’s studies of computer science in Ilmenau, Stefan, who always was a bit of gamer himself, discovered his love for game development. When noticing how few real gaming opportunities there are for blind and ill-sighted people, he decided to work on games that are accessible for them while still being attractive for non-blind people. Currently, Stefan and his team develop a 3D video game that will bring blind and non-blind people together in an EXIST-funded project.
Orchid Stachelig
Partnerships Manager • Indie CupOrchid has 4 cats and is an indie-focused community manager who escaped classic TV news in favour of the games industry. She’s been in charge of community and social media for games like HEADLINER, Hyper Light Drifter – Special Edition, Fatal Velocity and lots more, and has taken care of content creator relations at Game Jolt. Orchid is now connecting people with Indie Cup, the digital festival of indie games.
Steven Vinyl (Stefan Angelov)
Composer and Founder • Music for MetaverseSteven started his journey in the music world as a classical pianist at the age of 10. Throughout his ten years of music studies he developed a love for composition, mainly for film and games (as an avid gamer) and moved to Germany in the summer of ’16 to pursue his dream. After being introduced into the web3 world by a friend he embarked on a journey there, found a welcoming community and is currently working on a few games, collaborating with fellow NFT artists, launching his own music NFT collections and working on an upcoming NFT documentary series.
In the summer of ’22 Steven founded Music for Metaverse, a brand providing complete audio services for games. He’s also an exclusive artist for “Cafe de Anatolia” under the name of “Desertum”.
Dr. Kai Herbertz
CEO & Founder • Herbertz EntertainmentDr. Kai Herbertz designed and programmed the video game “XPLOSIVE” in 1995 as a member of a three-person team. He founded the games company Herbertz Entertainment UG (haftungsbeschränkt) in June 2016 and released his first commercial board game at the SPIEL16 games fair in Essen in October 2016.
His second game “Albedo” sold out at SPIEL17 and was subsequently re-released with new artwork in 2018. Albedo’s success led to two expansions, which were funded on Kickstarter. He is currently working on two board games and one video game, all of which are in early stages of development.
Jaqueline Martin
Founder • Gentleland | Creative Lead • Cultures Interactive e.V.Jaqueline Martin is a computer scientist, lead artist and founder of an art and consulting agency who believes in the power of games as an interdisciplinary medium. She began her journey in the game industry by creating assets for game developers around the world as a Unity Store Publisher. Now she dreams of expanding her empathy-driven agency that helps developers take their game from early prototype to secured funding.
Her biggest successes so far have been consulting on the gamification of Switzerland’s biggest music festival and painting two murals in the heart of Berlin.
Khang Pham
CEO and Co-Founder • TxK Gaming StudiosKhang is co-founder of TxK Gaming Studios, a German startup company based in Düsseldorf. They are the developers behind the world’s most funded Kickstarter VR game project: Dungeon Full Dive.
With Dungeon Full Dive they plan to revolutionize the tabletop gaming industry, by creating the most immersive tabletop platform ever.
Tom Bockhorn
Lead Developer & Co-Founder • TxK Gaming StudiosTom is a huge rpg nerd and long-time Game Master. Apart from writing his own adventures, Tom is specialized in Game programming and currently working on the first-ever immersive virtual pen-and-paper experience: Dungeon Full Dive.
With this, Tom combines his passion of playing tabletop rpgs with his experience in VR- and Game Development.
Sebastian Först
Co-Founder • Manasoup Network and 3D ArtistSebastian is a voice over ip and collaboration specialist from Bavaria, who co-founded the indie studio Manasoup Interactive in 2018. After a growing desire to connect German-speaking game developers, he transformed the studio into the Manasoup Network. There he helps beginners in the focus areas of 3D modeling, sculpting and digital art.
Andreas Olf
Co-Founder • Manasoup Network and DeveloperAndreas is a professional developer who co-founded the indie studio Manasoup Interactive in 2018, which later transitioned into the non-profit Manasoup Network. As part of the network, he helps aspiring game developers with technical issues, finding teams, and connecting with the scene. In recent years, he has helped several leading companies develop software and apps, built their own development departments, and integrated agile software architectures into their daily workflow.
Dominic Riemenschneider
Art Historian & StreamerDominic Riemenschneider is an independent Art Historian, living in Berlin. He is focussed on Content Curation and Cultural Consulting for arts & culture, creative industries, new media, gaming industry.
On Twitch he is streaming about Art, Religion and Worldbuilding in Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror. The formats include topic streams, in-world tourist tours with games and a TWITCHcast with guests. A new format connecting art & culture with media & production is in planning.
Furthermore, he consults the church and parishes and thus manages to link communication, conception, art and fantasy.
Christiane Stein
Board Member • Seedbox VenturesChristiane Stein is a female Tech-Journalist and was a TV- Host on the news Channel (n-tv) for several years. She is an expert for technology, digitization and the metaverse on conferences and events. She deeply dived in Web3 since the end of 2020 and is an NFT collector with projects like CloneX and World of Woman.
Marcin Kugla
Managing Director • Red Potion StudiosMarcin worked in marketing, sales, and project management for THQ, Ubisoft, CI Games, Daedalic Entertainment, and Red Potion Studios. In the past 10 years, he has helped some start-ups in their initial phase, and he provides guidance for the Cardano gaming community, as well! Now educating people in terms of NFT´s. Showing that this space definitively consisting of more then ape pics 🙂
Christian Mahnke
CEO & Co-Founder • Ear RealityChristian Mahnke is an award-winning interactive storyteller and founder of EarReality.
He is the author of the interactive audiobook series “Der Zauberwald” and the interactive fantasy story “Der Eiserne Falke”, which won the Amazon Alexa Games Skill Award in 2018. In search of the perfect story, he is constantly working on new interactive audio formats.
With its Voice Game Engine TWIST, EarReality offers authors and business partners an easy to use no-coding solution to create interactive audio stories and deploy them on multiple platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Discord, apps, websites, cars, and even games.
Inka McAtee
CEO & Art Direction • KnotHorn StudioInka is currently writing her master thesis in Intermedia Design. In her spare time, she runs every aspect of KnotHorn studio – from finance over project management to handling all the art decisions. She is also regularly teaching game design and art design at high schools. Additionally, Inka is the vice chairwoman of gamesAHEAD eV, an organization dedicated to assisting the founding of new game studios.
Björn Loesing
Lead Game Designer & Monetization Specialist • KnotHorn StudioBjörn has been in the games industry for nearly 30 years now. He’s covered everything in the games industry apart from actually drawing or programming things. He’s handling the game design, marketing and monetization for KnotHorn Studio, which is a fancy way of saying that he’s the Idea Guy.
Martin Wisniowski
Fullstack-Developer, Media-Artist and Founder • Indie-Studio Storm ElectricityMartin studied urban planning and works as full-stack developer, media-artist and game-designer. Since over 15 years he realised many different artworks like installations with video-projectors, interventions in the public space, playful experimental setups, pixel-artworks in galleries or media-art installations. One of the bigger projects was the project “Cologne Mine”, a large scale urban game, that was anyone able to play in the public space if Cologne in Summer 2020.
Currently he makes hybrid projects with AR in the context of theater and researches in procedurally generated 3d-content with his project “the endless city”. In December 2021 he decided to follow his passion of 2d-shooting games and founded the indie-studio “Storm Electricity”.
Paul Redetzky
Co-Founder & CEO • Emergo Entertainment GmbHPaul has been developing games since he was 13 and has developed a passion for creating interactive media. He studied Media Studies (B.A) & Video Game Studies (M.SC, Computer Science) at the University of Bayreuth. Afterward, he co-founded Emergo Entertainment a company you could describe in two ways: A game studio with the goal of connecting the games industry with other industries – or an agency developing the next level of media through interactivity. Paul’s passion for game development has always been analyzing systems and coming up with interesting ways of realizing them as interactive media. Emergo Entertainment is the perfect opportunity to apply this passion in- and outside the games industry.
Güncem Campagna
Managing Director • Tech and Teach gGmbHGüncem has a degree in Economics and worked in international marketing for corporations for many years. In 2016, she launched an educational initiative to increase diversity in the tech scene. Tech and Teach emerged from this initiative, offering target group-oriented programs for digital skills and IT training with its Coding School and Coding for Tomorrow initiatives.
Senad Hrnjadovic
Chief Executive Officer • SenAm GamesSenad is an indie game developer from Munich, Germany, and founder of SenAm Games, a studio with a network of diverse and experienced freelance collaborators spread across the globe. The studio was founded with the aim of delivering more than just a traditional video game experience in their releases, with social relevance, learning, and experiencing the real world key objectives for SenAm Games.
Vera Koltermann
Head of Employer Branding & Solutions • StepStoneVera Koltermann combines many years of expertise in marketing and branding. In 2014 she discovered the topic of employer branding and since then engaged in various projects and workshops. Initially, as Lead Consulting & Campaigning at DEBA GmbH, then, since May 2021, at StepStone as Head of Employer Branding & Solutions.
Finding new solutions, being effective in a wide variety of work cultures and getting better together is what drives her. With her team containing various expertise and services, she holistically combines the topics Employer Branding & Recruiting. Vera liks to experiment, to discover and break new ground when it comes to enhance her customers’ Candidate Delivery. This also applies to in-game recruiting & employer branding. Her credo: “Practice what you preach!”
Christian Schiffer
Founder • WASTED-Magazin | Writer / Editor / Moderator / Head of Netzwelt • Bayerischer RundfunkChristian Schiffer works as a writer and editor at Bayerischer Rundfunk. His thematic priorities include politics, pop culture and digital media. Together with Christian Alt he is the author of “Angela Merkel is Hitler’s daughter – in the land of conspiracy theories” (Carl Hanser Verlag). He is also the editor of WASTED, an online magazine about digital games.
Sonja Grunau
Managing Director • Ford Aus- und WeiterbildungSonja is primarily curious and open to surprises. She loves good conversations, being with people and playing games that you can understand directly without the instructions.
Through her constant engagement with leadership, change, strategy and organization, she sees herself as a sparring partner to actively shape the future.
As managing director of Ford Aus- und Weiterbildung (Ford training and further education), she is a source of ideas with business acumen and meanwhile a lot of experience in different areas of the industry. Over the years she has managed to maintain her enthusiasm for people in learning and change processes. By the way, she makes some decisions with learnings from rock, paper, scissors.
Jan Buchner
Head of Construction Planning / Order Handling • SMS group GmbHJan Buchner can look back on many years of project management experience in mechanical and plant engineering and is currently responsible for assembly planning and the execution of major projects at SMS group GmbH in Düsseldorf. The path led him from Dubai via Brazil, Indonesia, China, the USA and Iceland, among other places. In addition to his job in a business worth tons and millions, he has been a passionate gamer since the old Amiga days and years ago recognized many advantages in approaches and solutions that the gaming industry can offer to traditional mechanical and plant engineering. He is currently leading the gradual introduction of virtual and augmented reality at the SMS group from a user perspective and is testing possibilities for gamification in industrial applications.
Jürgen “tante” Geuter
Research Director • ART+COM | independent writertante is an independent theorist working on the intersection of technology, politics and the social. He is a de-evangelist and luddite.
He writes and speaks (but mostly writes) about the social consequences of the digital turn as well as the structure of the digital itself.
tante holds a diploma with a major in computer science with a minor in philosophy. He is no longer associated with academia in any way.
He has written for a number of German and international publications such as ZEITOnline, Spiegel Online, VICE/Motherboard, Golem, Boundary2 and others.
Bastian Pätzold
Senior Director, Global Partnerships, Esports & Gaming • SPORTFIVEBastian has been with the sports rights marketer Sportfive for 10 years and has been responsible for global brand partnerships in the esports & gaming sector for almost two years. Sportfive has implemented more than 100 strategic esports partnerships in the last 2 years and is the exclusive marketer of the strongest and most popular platforms worldwide.
Asema Hassan
Software Engineer | Games | VR | AI | WTM & WIGJ Ambassador | #IamRemarkable FacilitatorAsema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast. She started her career back in 2012 as a Software Engineer Asema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast who started her career back in 2012 working on Educational Games. In 2015, she moved to Germany for her Masters and started working as VR Programmer in DZNE-Magdeburg. After graduation, she became Lead Software Engineer (VR) and has been responsible for managing a small development team. She also co-founded an IGDA Chapter for the gaming community in Pakistan. She believes in women empowerment and wants to help grow the tech/gaming community by advocating the importance of diversity. She has led community chapters in Magdeburg and the Berlin Area focusing mainly on diversity and inclusion. In 2020, Asema became an ambassador for Women techmakers (WTM) as well as Women in Games (WiGJ) and is also a #IamRemarkable Facilitator, the Google initiative to empower women and underrepresented groups in tech industry.
Danial Ghods
Freelance DesignerDanial Ghods is a multidisciplinary designer who loves to set things in motion and wrangle problems, both macro and micro. His work pays tribute to the mundane and discovers visual metaphors. When not working on commercial projects, he likes to tinker with electronics and personal projects.
Prof. Dr. Hanns Christian Schmidt
Professor for Game Design • Macromedia University of Applied SciencesProf. Dr. Hanns Christian Schmidt is Professor of Game Design at the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute for Media Culture and Theatre at the University of Cologne. He did his doctorate on transmedial storyworlds in serial narratives and worked in a research project at the Cologne Game Lab (TH Köln) that dealt with the acquisition of game literacy among children. His research interests include game studies & game design, game literacy, transmediality, intermediality, film and television studies and Lego bricks.
Jeremiah Costello
CEO • Gamma Minus UG & Voice ActorJeremiah Costello is one of the founders of Gamma Minus UG, an independent game development studio founded in 2018.
Previously he also founded t-recs studios GmbH as well as Native Prime SAS – two game localization companies. He is currently working on Rough Justice: ’84, an 80s synth-noir strategy game with puzzles, dice and cards. The game has garnered a number of accolades including, the Epic MegaGrant, Nordic Games Discovery Contest Qualifier, and won the Indie Cup Unreal Engine ’22 award.
Dr. Amelie Eilken
CEO & Founder • Neozoa EntertainmentDr. Amelie Eilken is founder, CEO and app / game developer of Neozoa Entertainment. This small app and game development studio focuses on innovative (mobile) games based on smart algorithms and interesting real-world problems as well as niche apps.
In her current work she combines her passion for gaming with her vast experience in mathematics, algorithms as well as IT, business and data science gained during her years in strategy and IT consultancy, the corporate world and academia.
Merih Türkoglu
Research Assistant • Hochschule Ruhr West University of applied SciencesMerih is a bit half-baked, but loves giving talks and learning more about the creation of video games and artificial intelligence. Whenever there is an idea to combine AI with games, he does not waste a second of his time to do so. From reverse engineering games for training an AI or trying not to build the next Skyrim NPC, he is passionate about researching AI in general. Besides AI based projects, he loves developing prototypes of his favorite video game mechanics.
Thomas Riedel
Tech journalist, Metaverse expert, PodcasterThomas Riedel is a freelance tech journalist from Cologne. As a child of the 90s, he grew up with Ace of Base, Hero Quest and the Game Boy, tinkering with websites and screwing desktop PCs. After studying philosophy in Tübingen, he moved to Cologne. During his traineeship at a Cologne city magazine, he devised the idea for the startup Nerdhub, which he shut down after four years and some painful learnings. Further stations are Mediencluster NRW as Communication Officer and Event Manager for Gamescom and DMEXCO, deutsche-startups.de as editor and the magazine Digitale Leute as editor and organizer of the Digitale Leute Summit. For over ten years, the science fiction nerd has worked as a freelance journalist, moderator, and curator for tech events. Today, the father of a teenage daughter reports on tech, startup, and new-work trends. He also produces and manages podcasts with his Droid Boy production label. Current podcasts of his own are: “Future Future” and “The Metaverse Podcast.”
Stefan Wilhelm
Inclusive Video Game Developer | M.Sc Computer Science (focus on Neuroinformatics/Cognitive Robotics & Game Development)During his master’s studies of computer science in Ilmenau, Stefan, who always was a bit of gamer himself, discovered his love for game development. When noticing how few real gaming opportunities there are for blind and ill-sighted people, he decided to work on games that are accessible for them while still being attractive for non-blind people. Currently, Stefan and his team develop a 3D video game that will bring blind and non-blind people together in an EXIST-funded project.
Orchid Stachelig
Partnerships Manager • Indie CupOrchid has 4 cats and is an indie-focused community manager who escaped classic TV news in favour of the games industry. She’s been in charge of community and social media for games like HEADLINER, Hyper Light Drifter – Special Edition, Fatal Velocity and lots more, and has taken care of content creator relations at Game Jolt. Orchid is now connecting people with Indie Cup, the digital festival of indie games.
Steven Vinyl (Stefan Angelov)
Composer and Founder • Music for MetaverseSteven started his journey in the music world as a classical pianist at the age of 10. Throughout his ten years of music studies he developed a love for composition, mainly for film and games (as an avid gamer) and moved to Germany in the summer of ’16 to pursue his dream. After being introduced into the web3 world by a friend he embarked on a journey there, found a welcoming community and is currently working on a few games, collaborating with fellow NFT artists, launching his own music NFT collections and working on an upcoming NFT documentary series.
In the summer of ’22 Steven founded Music for Metaverse, a brand providing complete audio services for games. He’s also an exclusive artist for “Cafe de Anatolia” under the name of “Desertum”.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The #G4L FINAL BOSS Conference Advisory Board and key people
Dr. phil. rer. cult. Rudolf Inderst
Professor for Game Design IU International University of Applied Sciences
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Rudolf Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies. He is a professor for Game Design at IU. Your are welcome to follow him on Twitter: @benflavor
Dr. Amelie Eilken
CEO & Founder Neozoa Entertainment
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Dr. Amelie Eilken is founder, CEO and app / game developer of Neozoa Entertainment. This small app and game development studio focuses on innovative (mobile) games based on smart algorithms and interesting real-world problems as well as niche apps.
In her current work she combines her passion for gaming with her vast experience in mathematics, algorithms as well as IT, business and data science gained during her years in strategy and IT consultancy, the corporate world and academia. Another passion of hers is HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) – fencing with historical European weapons from dagger over swords to halberds and pikes based on contemporary treatises from the medieval and renaissance times. In this area she is an internationally renowned trainer, member of the German national squad for longsword and also vice president of the DDHF, the German federation for historical fencing.
Johanna Daher
Youtuber, Journalist at MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Johanna started falling in love with games, when her Dad introduced her as a kid to the DOS “Jump ‘n’ Run” games. She grew up, always gaming, studied Journalistic (B.A.) at the TU Dortmund and “Media and Game Conception” (M.A.) at Hochschule Harz. Finally combining both topics in her master thesis about News Games. She started her own YouTube channel as a platform for indie game developers – giving them and their games a voice. In her videos, she also shows how games can be used for learning in schools. She can’t wait to support the Indies at the #G4L at a New Blood Ambassador and as a part of the Indie Award judges.
Orchid Stachelig
Partnerships Manager Indie Cup
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Orchid has 4 cats and is an indie-focused community manager who escaped classic TV news in favour of the games industry. She’s been in charge of community and social media for games like HEADLINER, Hyper Light Drifter – Special Edition, Fatal Velocity and lots more, and has taken care of content creator relations at Game Jolt. Orchid is now connecting people with Indie Cup, the digital festival of indie games.
Alex Ziska
Managing Partner MEGA GEEKS and creator of #G4L
Conference Director
Alex initially started working on games during the emergence and heyday of user-generated contend in the early 2000s. He would create maps and mods for games like Unreal Tournament ’99 while picking up game design skills without even noticing through developing miniature tabletop rules. He went into the world of sales which led him into the automobile and leasing sectors before he switched paths to enter the games industry. During his studies of marketing communication and business administration, he started his own indie micro-studio. While his work never culminated in any major releases, he built a solid network within the industry and found it fulfilling to gain insights and learn from several fields in the industry, including the games and B2B event business. His subsequent stations include working for Lenovo group’s MEDION, as the departmental head for Cologne-based School of Games’ games business program and for the Mediennetzwerk.NRW project of Mediencluster NRW. During all this time, he envisioned a mega event that in the end would become #G4L. With his company MEGA GEEKS, founded in late 2020, he is now set on turning his vision into reality.
Bernd Berheide
Communications Consultant for Games, Tech and Digital Entertainment
Communications Director
After studying history, political science, and linguistics (M.A.), nothing was more obvious than to turn his lifelong hobby of gaming into a career. His first stations in the games industry were journalism in print, online and TV. But having a knack communications he switched to the „dark side of the force” and has been advising companies in the games and tech for over 20 years.
Hon. Prof. Frank Sliwka
CEO ibMedia Group, COO Epulze, Honorary Professor Link Campus University Rome
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
As an acclaimed and seasoned professional in his field, Frank Sliwka has almost three decades of corporate leadership and entrepreneurship under his belt in the highly competitive games, esports and media industries within both mature and emerging markets across Asia Pacific, the US, and Europe. Throughout his career, he has established a series of successful companies and large-scale events such as the GDC Europe, gamescom, Games Convention Asia, Meliora 42 Entertainment, Global Games Media, German Esports Association and ibMedia.
His unrelenting resolution engenders success, boasting the German Game Developer Award, the European Games Award and Asia’s Sports Industry Award (SPIA Awards) in 2017 and 2018. Currently, Frank Sliwka offers his expertise as COO of Esports Pulze (Epulze) – as the CEO & Founder of ibMedia Group – Asia’s leading B2B Management Consulting company for the digital media industry – and as an Advisory Board member of several companies on business strategies within the industry (e. g. Global Top Round, Epic Meta). Additionally, Frank Sliwka is a Honorary Professor for Esports Management at the Link Campus University Rome (Italy) since 2018.
Christiane Stein
Board Member Seedbox Ventures
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Christiane Stein is a female Tech-Journalist and was a TV- Host on the news Channel (n-tv) for several years. She is an expert for technology, digitization and the metaverse on conferences and events. She deeply dived in Web3 since the end of 2020 and is an NFT collector with projects like CloneX and World of Woman.
Asema Hassan
Software Engineer | Games | VR | AI | WTM & WIGJ Ambassador | #IamRemarkable Facilitator
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Asema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast who started her career back in 2012 working on Educational Games. In 2015, she moved to Germany for her Masters and started working as VR Programmer in DZNE-Magdeburg. After graduation, she became Lead Software Engineer (VR) and has been responsible for managing a small development team. She also co-founded an IGDA Chapter for the gaming community in Pakistan. She believes in women empowerment and wants to help grow the tech/gaming community by advocating the importance of diversity. She has led community chapters in Magdeburg and the Berlin Area focusing mainly on diversity and inclusion. In 2020, Asema became an ambassador for Women techmakers (WTM) as well as Women in Games (WiGJ) and is also a #IamRemarkable Facilitator, the Google initiative to empower women and underrepresented groups in tech industry.
Friedrich Lüder
Chairman of the Board Games & XR Mitteldeutschland e.V. | Business Development Manager Z-Software GmbH
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Just do it – true to this motto, Friedrich is committed to the Games & XR scene in Central Germany with heart and soul. Starting as a child, he was fascinated by the potential of games and has analyzed thousands of games ever since. As a founder, mentor, advisory board member, industry expert and good soul for the region, he uses games & XR technologies as an opportunity for change and to create cross-industry synergies.
Ruth Lemmen
Systemic Coach Specialist for Project and Event Management, Consultancy | Co-Founder and Ambassador Womenize!
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Ruth Lemmen works as a systemic coach and consultant for teams, companies and individuals, as a project manager and as an expert for the European Commission for various European funding programmes.
She is co-founder and ambassador of Womenize! – a platform that promotes diversity in the fields of tech, games and digital economy. Womenize! has been granted the Women in Games European Advocacy Award in 2019. From 2006 – 2013 Ruth worked for the German Trade Association for computer and video games. There she was responsible for the project management division, including the strategic development of gamescom, the world’s largest trade fair for interactive entertainment.
Dr. phil. rer. cult. Rudolf Inderst
Professor for Game Design IU International University of Applied Sciences
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Rudolf Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies. He is a professor for Game Design at IU. Your are welcome to follow him on Twitter: @benflavor
Dr. Amelie Eilken
CEO & Founder Neozoa Entertainment
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Dr. Amelie Eilken is founder, CEO and app / game developer of Neozoa Entertainment. This small app and game development studio focuses on innovative (mobile) games based on smart algorithms and interesting real-world problems as well as niche apps.
In her current work she combines her passion for gaming with her vast experience in mathematics, algorithms as well as IT, business and data science gained during her years in strategy and IT consultancy, the corporate world and academia. Another passion of hers is HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) – fencing with historical European weapons from dagger over swords to halberds and pikes based on contemporary treatises from the medieval and renaissance times. In this area she is an internationally renowned trainer, member of the German national squad for longsword and also vice president of the DDHF, the German federation for historical fencing.
Johanna Daher
Youtuber, Journalist at MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Johanna started falling in love with games, when her Dad introduced her as a kid to the DOS “Jump ‘n’ Run” games. She grew up, always gaming, studied Journalistic (B.A.) at the TU Dortmund and “Media and Game Conception” (M.A.) at Hochschule Harz. Finally combining both topics in her master thesis about News Games. She started her own YouTube channel as a platform for indie game developers – giving them and their games a voice. In her videos, she also shows how games can be used for learning in schools. She can’t wait to support the Indies at the #G4L at a New Blood Ambassador and as a part of the Indie Award judges.
Orchid Stachelig
Partnerships Manager Indie Cup
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Orchid has 4 cats and is an indie-focused community manager who escaped classic TV news in favour of the games industry. She’s been in charge of community and social media for games like HEADLINER, Hyper Light Drifter – Special Edition, Fatal Velocity and lots more, and has taken care of content creator relations at Game Jolt. Orchid is now connecting people with Indie Cup, the digital festival of indie games.
Alex Ziska
Managing Partner MEGA GEEKS and creator of #G4L
Conference Director
Alex initially started working on games during the emergence and heyday of user-generated contend in the early 2000s. He would create maps and mods for games like Unreal Tournament ’99 while picking up game design skills without even noticing through developing miniature tabletop rules. He went into the world of sales which led him into the automobile and leasing sectors before he switched paths to enter the games industry. During his studies of marketing communication and business administration, he started his own indie micro-studio. While his work never culminated in any major releases, he built a solid network within the industry and found it fulfilling to gain insights and learn from several fields in the industry, including the games and B2B event business. His subsequent stations include working for Lenovo group’s MEDION, as the departmental head for Cologne-based School of Games’ games business program and for the Mediennetzwerk.NRW project of Mediencluster NRW. During all this time, he envisioned a mega event that in the end would become #G4L. With his company MEGA GEEKS, founded in late 2020, he is now set on turning his vision into reality.
Bernd Berheide
Communications Consultant for Games, Tech and Digital Entertainment
Communications Director
After studying history, political science, and linguistics (M.A.), nothing was more obvious than to turn his lifelong hobby of gaming into a career. His first stations in the games industry were journalism in print, online and TV. But having a knack communications he switched to the „dark side of the force” and has been advising companies in the games and tech for over 20 years.
Hon. Prof. Frank Sliwka
CEO ibMedia Group, COO Epulze, Honorary Professor Link Campus University Rome
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
As an acclaimed and seasoned professional in his field, Frank Sliwka has almost three decades of corporate leadership and entrepreneurship under his belt in the highly competitive games, esports and media industries within both mature and emerging markets across Asia Pacific, the US, and Europe. Throughout his career, he has established a series of successful companies and large-scale events such as the GDC Europe, gamescom, Games Convention Asia, Meliora 42 Entertainment, Global Games Media, German Esports Association and ibMedia.
His unrelenting resolution engenders success, boasting the German Game Developer Award, the European Games Award and Asia’s Sports Industry Award (SPIA Awards) in 2017 and 2018. Currently, Frank Sliwka offers his expertise as COO of Esports Pulze (Epulze) – as the CEO & Founder of ibMedia Group – Asia’s leading B2B Management Consulting company for the digital media industry – and as an Advisory Board member of several companies on business strategies within the industry (e. g. Global Top Round, Epic Meta). Additionally, Frank Sliwka is a Honorary Professor for Esports Management at the Link Campus University Rome (Italy) since 2018.
Christiane Stein
Board Member Seedbox Ventures
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Christiane Stein is a female Tech-Journalist and was a TV- Host on the news Channel (n-tv) for several years. She is an expert for technology, digitization and the metaverse on conferences and events. She deeply dived in Web3 since the end of 2020 and is an NFT collector with projects like CloneX and World of Woman.
Asema Hassan
Software Engineer | Games | VR | AI | WTM & WIGJ Ambassador | #IamRemarkable Facilitator
FINAL BOSS New Blood Ambassador
Asema is a Software Engineer and an AI enthusiast who started her career back in 2012 working on Educational Games. In 2015, she moved to Germany for her Masters and started working as VR Programmer in DZNE-Magdeburg. After graduation, she became Lead Software Engineer (VR) and has been responsible for managing a small development team. She also co-founded an IGDA Chapter for the gaming community in Pakistan. She believes in women empowerment and wants to help grow the tech/gaming community by advocating the importance of diversity. She has led community chapters in Magdeburg and the Berlin Area focusing mainly on diversity and inclusion. In 2020, Asema became an ambassador for Women techmakers (WTM) as well as Women in Games (WiGJ) and is also a #IamRemarkable Facilitator, the Google initiative to empower women and underrepresented groups in tech industry.
Friedrich Lüder
Chairman of the Board Games & XR Mitteldeutschland e.V. | Business Development Manager Z-Software GmbH
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Just do it – true to this motto, Friedrich is committed to the Games & XR scene in Central Germany with heart and soul. Starting as a child, he was fascinated by the potential of games and has analyzed thousands of games ever since. As a founder, mentor, advisory board member, industry expert and good soul for the region, he uses games & XR technologies as an opportunity for change and to create cross-industry synergies.
Ruth Lemmen
Systemic Coach Specialist for Project and Event Management, Consultancy | Co-Founder and Ambassador Womenize!
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Ruth Lemmen works as a systemic coach and consultant for teams, companies and individuals, as a project manager and as an expert for the European Commission for various European funding programmes.
She is co-founder and ambassador of Womenize! – a platform that promotes diversity in the fields of tech, games and digital economy. Womenize! has been granted the Women in Games European Advocacy Award in 2019. From 2006 – 2013 Ruth worked for the German Trade Association for computer and video games. There she was responsible for the project management division, including the strategic development of gamescom, the world’s largest trade fair for interactive entertainment.
Dr. phil. rer. cult. Rudolf Inderst
Professor for Game Design IU International University of Applied Sciences
FINAL BOSS Advisory Board Member
Rudolf Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies. He is a professor for Game Design at IU. Your are welcome to follow him on Twitter: @benflavor
Image: Rough Justice ’84 by Gamma Minus
Image: VR at SMS group
