Jury 2021

Astrid Kahmke

Head of
the European Creators’ Lab

Astrid Kahmke is Head of the European Creators’ Lab. The Lab is address to creators who develop ideas and initial prototypes every year in collaboration with international experts. The focus is on storytelling, content development and the creative challenges of immersive worlds. In addition, Astrid is active as an author, organizer of the (currently paused) Virtual World Festival, curator and jury member for numerous exhibition formats and projects.

Prof. Dr. Roland Greule

Professor for lighting engineering
HAW Hamburg

Roland Greule is Professor of Lighting Technology and Digital Reality at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) in the Faculty of Design Media Information (DMI). His research interests include lighting simulation, collaboration and new work. Together with his colleagues, Roland founded both the well-known master’s degree program in games and the new degree program in digital reality, which focuses particularly on VR, AR and MR in conjunction with game technology and engineering. To ensure that this new course of study has sufficient space, the Digital Reality Research and Transfer Center (FTZ DR) was created two years ago in the Speicherstadt in the immediate vicinity of the Virtual Reality Headquarters (VRHQ), which Roland Greule has headed ever since.

Sara Lisa Vogl

Co-Founder
Women in Immersive Technologies

Sara’s current area of focus is User Experience (UX) Design for Virtual Reality.
New possibilities to engage the User arise and are still being explored in this young medium. Interaction structures and design concepts can apply that we rather know from Theater or Architecture.
Interdisciplinary work is gold while we share and evaluate methods of representation and interaction in virtual space. New questions are being asked when we think about directing freedom for the user.
From multiplayer to first-person open-world exploration we are looking at diverse scenarios needing innovative approaches that are still to be pioneered.

Matthias Bastian

Digital Publisher
MIXED.de

Online journalist Matthias Bastian is the founder and editor of MIXED.de. He is convinced that VR, AR and AI will fundamentally change the relationship between humans and computers. Matthias’ focus is digital communication in various forms: Online PR and journalism, digital marketing in all channels, and new media technologies such as virtual and augmented reality.

Linda Rendel

Associate Producerin
Ubisoft Düsseldorf

Linda Rendel is a video game producer with over seven years of experience. She works as a Production Director at Massive Miniteam. Before she was a producer at Ubisoft Düsseldorf focusing on virtual reality. Linda produced experiences like Beyond Medusa’s Gate, Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time & Assassin’s Creed VR. Now she works on wholesome indie games. She also founded the #FemDevsMeetup in 2017 to empower diversity in the game industry and is an advocate for women’s rights and equality.

Paul Raphaël

Co-Founder
Felix & Paul Studios

Paul Raphaël is the co-founder and creative director of Felix & Paul Studios. In 2013, he founded the renowned VR film studio Felix & Paul Studios with Felix Lajeunesse. Together they developed the first cinematic VR film “Strangers with Patrick Wilson” and realized numerous other outstanding VR productions using new camera technologies. Among others, Paul lead directed and produced the film “The People’s House – Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama,” which won an EMMY Award in 2017, and the acclaimed documentary “Traveling While Black” (2019). His current project, in collaboration with NASA and TIME Magazine, is the sequel to the documentary “Space Explorers – The ISS Experience.”

Ioulia Isserlis

CEO
AnotherWorld GmbH

Ioulia Isserlis studied film and literature at NYU and Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2015, she entered VR production full time and is, among other things, producer and co-screenwriter of KOBOLD VR, one of the 5 best horror VR games according to Forbes, and director, screenwriter and producer of PAGAN PEAK VR (nominated for Best Interactive VR at the 2019 Venice Film Festival) and PAGAN PEAK VR MultiPlayer (nominated for Best VR at SXSW 2020). Ioulia is also a co-producer of BYSTANDING (Tribeca Film Festival 2021). She took over the project management of B2B projects at Anotherworld GmbH for clients such as Balenciaga, Telekom and Deutsche Bahn and has been on the board of the Virtual Reality Berlin Brandenburg e.V. association since 2017.

Mike John Otto

Chief Creative Officer
ACNE / Deloitte Digital

Mike has been working as a creative in the interface of design, communication and technology for over 20 years. After studying visual communication at the FH Design Münster, Mike initially worked freelance in London until he started his career at Razorfish. This was followed by stints at Interone, Hi-ReS! London and Philipp and Keuntje. Mike is also the founder of the creative collective BlackBeltMonkey. Since 2019, Mike John Otto has also been working at Deloitte, leading creative at Deloitte Digital and the agency brand ACNE as Chief Creative Officer and Executive Creative Director. His work has won several international awards, including Cannes, Lia, D&AD as well as ADC Germany. Mike John Otto is also a lecturer for digital communication at the Münster School of Design and a member of the Art Directors Club and D&AD. In addition to his agency work, he is a freelance artist and exhibits throughout Europe.

Alexander El-Meligi

Co-Founder + CEO
Demodern Creative Technologies

Alexander El-Meligi is Managing Partner & CEO at Demodern – Creative Technologies. He first studied Creative Media at SAE and worked as a motion designer and developer at various agencies. He then founded the digital agency Demodern together with Kristian Kerkhoff and today heads the Hamburg office. With a focus on creative technologies, Demodern has been developing innovative web, VR and AR experiences as well as games and installations for well-known clients such as Nike, IKEA, Daimler, Beiersdorf, Mazda and Snipes since 2008. Demodern has already been awarded numerous national and international creative prizes and is today one of the leading digital agencies in Germany.

Jury 2021

Astrid Kahmke

Head of the European Creators’ Lab

Prof. Dr. Roland Greule

Professor for lighting engineering HAW Hamburg

Sara Lisa Vogl

Co-Founder Women in Immersive Technologies

Matthias Bastian

Digital Publisher MIXED.de