Jury 2023

Mike John Otto

Partner & Executive Creative Director
Artificial Rome

Mike, a graduate designer, has been working as a creative at the interface of design, art, communication and technology for over 20 years. After studying at the FH Design Münster (Münster School of Design), his career first began in London at Razorfish. This was followed by positions in Hamburg at Elephant Seven (S&J), BBDO Interone, the London studio Hi-ReS! at Philipp & Keuntje and at ACNE / Deloitte Digital. Mike is also the founder of the creative collective BlackBeltMonkey. Since this year, Mike John Otto has been working at the renowned studio for immersive and narrative experiences, Artificial Rome in Berlin as Partner and Executive Creative Director. Mike John Otto is a member of the Art Directors Club and D&AD. His work has won over 200 international awards, including Cannes, Lia, NY Festivals, Eurobest, D&AD as well as ADC Germany. In addition to his agency work, he is a freelance artist and exhibits throughout Europe.

Aya Jaff

Author and entrepreneur

Aya Jaff is a founder and author. At a young age, Aya gained experience as a coder and was privileged to work internationally for companies like Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. She was the long-time CTO for what was at times the largest social stock market simulation in Germany, Tradity. She worked at the startup center ZOLLHOF as Head of Communications and supported many startups on their way. She talks about her experiences and learnings in the financial and tech world in her SPIEGEL bestseller book “Moneymakers” published by FinanzBuch Verlag. Meanwhile, she advises many companies in different areas and plans strategies in new technology fields. She was dubbed “Mrs. Code” by ZEIT and made it to the cover of VOGUE Business, t3n and Business Punk magazines, as well as the Forbes 30 under 30 list 2019.

Dr. Andreas Hebbel-Seeger

Professor for Media Management
Hamburg Campus of the Macromedia University of Applied Sciences

His focus in research and teaching is on the use of digital media for teaching, learning and marketing purposes; especially with a focus on XReality, 360-degree video and AV drones. He is committed to immersive media in the Hamburg location initiative “NextReality.Hamburg” and was most recently involved in a BMBF-funded research network project on the use of video technologies in the context of research-based learning under crowd conditions in the thematic field of sustainability.

Sandra Kiel

Co-Founder and Managing Director
Event Punks GmbH

Ines Hilz

AR / VR Designer
Freelancer

Ines is an XR designer who has been working with new technologies such as AR and VR since 2018, creating artistic, visual and playful applications. After her studies in Multimedia | VR Design 2020, with a focus on Game Design and VR, she developed XR applications for the medical faculty Halle-Wittenberg. These support students in their education and convey learning content immersively and interactively. Since then, she focuses mainly on social AR, artistic VR installations and video tutorials to share her passion for XR.

Robert Taylor

Technology Strategist + Member of the Office of the CTO
Microsoft

Rob Taylor is a consultant, coach, mentor and speaker who helps people and organizations create change. He is a technology strategist and member of the Office of the CTO at Microsoft, where he develops the strategy and architecture to drive digitization and innovation for enterprise customers. He has more than 10 years of experience in technology sales and consulting and has worked with leading companies such as Dell EMC and IBM. He holds a degree in Business Administration and English Philology from the Free University of Berlin. Robert is passionate about artificial intelligence, metaverse, digitization and the cultural implications they bring.

Christiane Wittenbecher

Corporate Communications Officer
Cornelsen Verlag GmbH

Journalist, videographer and immersive storyteller Christiane Wittenbecher has built up and managed a video production company in Berlin. There, she and her team pioneered 360° video storytelling, producing for media houses such as ARD, Welt, Blick and Funke Zentralredaktion, for NGOs and the social media accounts of the German President. Previously, she worked for various publishing houses (Zeit Online, Spiegel Online, funk) as a video journalist and was head of the web video unit at Welt. Before that, she worked for several years in the television, radio and social media editorial departments of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. She received the German Reporter Award for a 360° experience and the German Television Award with a team led by Stefan Aust at Welt/N24. She is currently responsible for video and digital channels in the corporate communications department of the educational media publisher Cornelsen. At the same time, she gives workshops on media training, mobile reporting and social video for companies, universities and journalism schools.

DAJANA EDER

WEB3 FOUNDER, CONSULTANT & SPEAKER

Dajana started her career as a freelancer for community and brand building focused on Web2. The past 12 years she worked as a consultant for international brands and companies creating inclusive communication strategies. As a journalist she wrote articles for her blog and a variety of magazines about automotive and lifestyle topics. In 2019 she focused on personal branding for women and discriminated groups, founded feminis[t]hinking as systemic coach and wrote the book “broken mirror – a selfportrait”. When jumping in the Web3 rabbit hole in 2021, she realized a lack of diversity. “This space could be utopia – a wallet does not know gender – but it’s still a reflection of our IRL unsolved problems.” As founder of wom3n.DAO – a female web3 network and her work in diversity and inclusion she was awarded with the DIGITAL FEMALE LEADERS AWARD in IT-Tech in 2022 by Tijen Onaran and Global Digital Women and the 25 Zukunftsmacherinnen by Business Insider Germany.

Christoph Spinger

Developer Immersive Products
AR/VR Software Engineer
Axel Springer 

Christoph has been active in the XR scene in various roles since 2012 and was co-founder of VR Nerds in Hamburg. Since 2022, Christoph works at Axel Springer in Berlin as a developer for XR systems and explores the future of immersive media.

Oliver Heidorn

Director Creative Technology
Grabartz & Partner

20 years ago Oliver, studied journalist and cultural scientist, started telling stories for brands. First as a copywriter, later as a CD and ECD with stations at Springer & Jacoby, Kolle Rebbe, GGH MullenLowe, JMP Space and Grabarz & Partner. Over the years, he expanded his playing field to include more and more new digital media. Oliver is the recipient of over 40 national and international creative awards. He has been a Creative Technologist for five years, combining storytelling, creative coding and hardware prototyping in apps, gaming, AI, data, computer vision, XR and creative products. For the past year, Oliver has been leading the XR Innovation Track at G&P as a collaborative partner of NextReality. He is also the founder (and coder) of the data awareness project prettypara.site