
Karlheinz Brandenburg has been a driving force behind some of today’s most innovative digital audio technology, notably the mp3 and MPEG audio standards. He is acclaimed for pioneering work in digital audio coding and psychoacoustics. His honors include the AES Silver Medal, the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronic Award, the German Future Award, which he shared with his colleagues and the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Furthermore he is member in the Hall of Fame of the Consumer Electronics Association. In April 2014, Brandenburg was inducted as an innovator into the Internet Hall of Fame. He holds three honorary Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Brandenburg holds about 100 patents. He is CEO of the Brandenburg Labs GmbH, a senior professor at the Institute for Media Technology at Technische Universität Ilmenau and former director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau, Germany.

Fabian Frese began his advertising career as a copywriter at BBDO in Düsseldorf in 2001. Three years later he joined Jung von Matt where he became ECD in 2010, working for clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Nintendo, eBay and Vodafone. During his time at Jung von Matt, it was recognized as Germany’s “Agency of the year” and “Independent agency of the year” at the Cannes Festival. In 2013, Fabian took a “Digital Sabbatical”, where he founded start-ups and toured as an intern through various digital companies, which made him much poorer but a lot smarter. In 2014, he joined Kolle Rebbe in Hamburg as Managing Director and Partner, being responsible for clients like Netflix and the global Lufthansa account. Fabian has won an impressive number of national and international awards. Although, this may be due to the fact that he usually sat in the jury himself, for example several times at the Cannes Lions.

Klaus Genuit received his PhD in 1984. He developed a new, improved binaural measurement system for the advanced diagnosis and analysis of sound. He founded the company HEAD acoustics GmbH in 1986 which is today a leading contributor in areas of binaural signal processing, sound design and analysis, virtual reality, and telecommunication measurements. Klaus Genuit has published more than 300 scientific papers. He is a member of various associations, such as AES, JAES, JSAE, SAE, DEGA and ASA where he was elected as a fellow in 2004. He participates in several working groups dealing with the standardization of measurement regulations and psychoacoustic parameters. He has participated in different EU-supported research all of them focusing on improving sound quality of vehicle exterior noise. More than 15 years ago he started his investigations with respect to soundscape. Klaus Genuit is honorary professor at the RWTH Aachen University. He has established the HEAD-Genuit-Foundation at 2008.

Peter Hayo is a berlin based composer and music producer. As CEO and Head of Creative of Perkypark Music as well as one of the founders and CEO of the one of the worlds most reknown dance labels in the world called GET PHYSICAL MUSIC he’s working in music for more than 25 years by now. Since the late 90ties, PERKYPARK has been composing & producing music for many TV spots, brands, films & campaigns such as of BMW, MINI, UNIQLO, LEVIS, AUDI, VW, SATURN, COKE and many more for agencies including BBH, JVM, Heimat, KT, DDB, Scholz & Friends. With 25 years in the musicbiz, golden & platinum records, numerous chart entries and No. 1s, productions, remixes & songs for artists all over the world Peter Hayo was proud to add a Bronze Lion for MOSHPITAL at last year’s Cannes festival for Perkypark Music.

Michael Haverkamp is an expert on perceived quality, sound design and multisensory harmonization within product development. From 1994 until his retirement in November 2018, he worked at Ford Werke GmbH Köln. Born 1958 in Gütersloh, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, he focussed on psychological and technical acoustics during his studies of electrical engineering at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He has long-term experience in product development, acoustics engineering and multisensory design, and studies of cross-modal perception, the arts and music. He has had previous teaching assignments and been invited to lectures at various universities (e.g. the Köln International School of Design KISD). He has numerous publications and presentations on multisensory implications of sound: movement represented by sound, multisensory references of music, sound as element of multisensory design and branding, visualization of music and sound, contribution of touch sound on perception of surfaces, synaesthesia stimulated by sound.

Rainer is a serial entrepreneur working in the Music & Tech space since 1996. Raised in Wolfsburg, he studied Administration Science in Constance, Hamburg and London. Rainer is the founder and CEO of laut.ag, publisher of laut.de – the most popular german music magazine – and laut.fm – the largest online radio platform in Germany. Rainer is a vice-chairman of the Focus-Group Audio in the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW). He is a dedicated programmer of his own online music radio station on laut.fm/rnr.

Studies in communication design at the University of Applied Sciences, Konstanz (Master of Arts). Co-Founder of audity, a company specialised in functional sounds for brands and products. Author and co-producer of the compendium »Audio Branding«. Rainer is supervising various research projects with several universities and has been, since 2008, juror of the international Red Dot Design Award. Lecturer for Audible Design at the HTWG Konstanz.

Dr. Daniel Hug, sound and interaction designer, explores the world of sound through art, design, theoretical investigation and applied research. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Sound Design master’s program at Zurich University of the Arts, and an international lecturer in Sound Studies and Sound Design. With his practice-based and interdisciplinary research, Hug has had a significant impact on the field of sonic interaction design. As member of the steering committee of the Audio Mostly conference and founder of the sound design and consultancy company “Hear Me Interact!”, he connects the worlds of academia and business. His current interests include sound design for health technology and exercise, sound design methodology, and participatory sound design processes.

Daniel Müllensiefen studied Systematic Musicology, Historic Musicology and Journalism at the universities of Hamburg (Germany) and Salamanca (Spain). He did his doctoral dissertation in Systematic Musicology on memory for melodies at the University of Hamburg. Since 2006 he has been working at Goldsmiths, University of London, now a Professor in Psychology and co-director of the Master’s course in Music Mind and Brain. In 2010 he was appointed as Scientist in Residence with the London-based advertising agency adam&eveDDB where he acted as a consultant and researcher, mainly on questions regarding the role of music in advertising and other commercial settings. In 2016 he received the prestigious Anneliese-Maier research prize from the Humboldt foundation and since then he is also affiliated with the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover.

Emma Rodero is a Full Professor of Media Psychology and Neurocommunication at Pompeu Fabra University (Spain), Ph.D. in Communication, Ph.D. in Psychology, Master in Pathology of Voice, and Master in Psychology of Cognition. She is the Director of the Media Psychology Lab (UPF), where she analyzes people’s physiological responses to understand how they perceive, process, and respond to different media messages, especially audio (radio, voice, audio branding, podcast…). She is the author of twelve books and eighty scientific papers about how people process voice and audio.

Ruth Simmons is the CEO of Songseekers International Ltd (SSI). Established by Ruth in 1980, SSI was the first company in Europe to address the ways that the advertising industry and brands used music in their advertising. In 1992 SSI set up soundlounge, the first dedicated creative research facility for Ad Agencies. Over the ensuing years and a rebrand (SSI now trading as soundlounge (www.soundlounge.co.uk)), Ruth has continued to pioneer new areas of sound and music application in relation to synchronisation which included writing a new insurance with Hiscox Insurers for users. At the ‘end of the last century’, she began to ask the question – ‘If you know what your brand looks like – do you know what it sounds like?’ In 2015, Music Week honoured her with ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sync’, in acknowledgement of her pioneering thinking and her contribution to establishing a synchronisation industry. This award has never previously or since been given to any individual or company.

Matthias Strobel is a serial entrepreneur and innovation enabler who bridges the worlds of music and technology. In 2011, he co-founded the meanwhile international recognized and multiple awarded music-tech startup Nagual Sounds, which developed a worldwide unique technology for generative audio that can translate any kind of data streams into tonal musical structures in real-time. Opening a whole new world for adaptive, interactive music experiences. Together with other smart minds, he started the project Creative Coding School to teach socially disadvantaged people skills in emerging technologies, such as robotics and IoT. His passion for music and the great possibilities of new technologies led him to join Music Tech Fest in spring 2016 for which he worked until December 2017. Matthias Strobel has founded the world’s first Federal Association of Music Technology, MusicTech Germany last year and just recently founded the creative-tech innovation catalyst WickedWork.

Viktor Worms is a 58-year-old German journalist. From 1979-1985 he was moderator and editor at Radio Luxemburg and at German television ZDF, program director at Antenne Bayern from 1988-1999. From 1999 until 2003 he held the position as head of entertainment at ZDF and produced TV Shows like “Wetten, dass…?”, “Carmen Nebel Show”, “Jose Carreras Gala” among others. In 2003 he founded Worms Mediapartner GmbH. Viktor is juror of Deutscher Radiopreis, member of the advisory board of Tabaluga Kinderstiftung and CEO of Hugo-Tempelman-Stiftung.