
Audrey Arbeeny is CEO/ Executive Producer of Audiobrain, founded in 2003. Audiobrain’s sonic branding includes Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Google, Holland America Line, IBM, KIA Motors Corp, Microsoft, Merck, Logitech, Whirlpool, Toshiba, and more. She also has significant background in psychology, biomusicology, and psychoacoustics, and conducts research in these areas. Projects range from Heart/Health wearables to surgical robotics. She has been Music Supervisor for the past 11 Olympic Broadcasts with NBC, for which she received 2 Emmy Awards. With over 25 years specializing in sonic branding, Audiobrain is at the forefront of emerging technologies, and their sonic imprints are heard millions of times a day worldwide, and has appeared in many publications, podcasts on the use of intentional music sound and voice.

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.

Chris has been creating audio for interactive media for over 25 years. After studying Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music, he began his career in live sound for Blue Man Group. He then moved into web audio which led to over a decade of designing sound for video games, including franchises such as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Burnout Paradise, God of War III and Kinect Adventures. In 2012, he made the transition into product sound with Microsoft HoloLens. At HoloLens, he designed UX sound, sonic branding, and 3D audio. After Microsoft, Chris formed Symmetry Audio where he designed VR audio for Unity, HBO, and Technicolor, as well as UX sound for Google. In 2017, he joined Amazon as Senior UX Sound Designer, where he worked on the audio identity of Alexa, Fire TV, and the standalone gaming system Amazon Glow. Returning to the game audio in 2022, Chris was Audio Manager at Insomniac Games and is now Audio Director at an unannounced developer.

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.

Cherie Hu is an award-winning writer who specializes in analyzing, tracking and critiquing innovation in the global music business. You can find her work in Billboard, Forbes, NPR Music, Music Business Worldwide, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and many other publications. Her music-tech newsletter Water & Music reaches over 6,000 subscribers weekly, from budding artists and managers to C-Suite executives at major music corporations. She has spoken as an expert commentator on CNBC, CGTN America and SiriusXM; as a guest lecturer at institutions like New York University, Northeastern University and the University of Oregon; and as a moderator, panelist or keynoter at over 25 conferences around the world. Other awards initiatives for which she has served as a jury member include the Reeperbahn Festival ANCHOR Award and the Webby Awards. She is currently working on a book for Bloomsbury about the parallels between independent music careers and tech entrepreneurship.

Katariina Kari (née Nyberg) is a research engineer at the Zalando Tech Hub in Helsinki. Katariina holds a Master in Science and Master in Music and is specialised in semantic web and guiding the art business to the digital age. At Zalando she is modelling the Fashion Knowledge Graph, a common vocabulary for fashion with which Zalando improves its customer experience. Katariina also consults art institutions to embrace the digital age in their business and see its opportunities.

Anna Kind is the owner of Radja, founded in 2007. With a network of established composers and offbeat artists the agency collaborates with architects, designers, technology and marketing experts to develop sound concepts. Anna’s broad knowledge combined with a passion for spotting creative solutions has resulted in a steady flow of award-winning projects. In parallel with assignments in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, Anna also has a contract as a producer at one of Scandinavia’s premier opera houses. Her goal to create a broad knowledge of some of the music world’s finest talent has led her to not only work with leading brands such as Ikea, Sony, Absolut Vodka, H&M and Einride – but also with distinguished people in performing arts, all with the same assignment – to create musical experiences that are extraordinary.

Steve Mayall is the co-founder and managing director of Music Ally, a music business knowledge and skills company. Music Ally launched in 2002 with a vision to help the global music business understand and work in partnership with new digital technologies and culture; and now focuses on providing the essential information and skills for the modern music industry.

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.

Strategic Tech Advisor & Project Manager for the Creative Industries with a focus on Music Tech, Film Tech, Future of Synch & Licensing, Blockchain & Smart Contract Applications, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Leaming, Ethics in Technology, New Realities & lmmersive Content, Digital Media & Education Technology, including Conference and Festival Curation and Management. Co-founder and Vice President of MusicTech Germany, co-founder of WickedWork, an Innovation Catalyst for Creative Technologies, and Music Unchained, a series of events focussed on New Technologies for the Music Industry, all based in Berlin. Selected as an exceptional innovator for the EU-funded Keychange program and founder of the international Magna Initiative (Diversity in Music & Technology), Claudia is dedicated to the promotion of diversity within the Creative Industries, particularly of Women at the intersections of music, art, and technology.

Julian Treasure is author of the books Sound Business and How To Be Heard. He is a highly-rated international public speaker on business sound and personal communication skills – particularly conscious listening and powerful speaking. His five TED talks have been viewed over 80 million times, and his latest is in the top 10 TED talks of all time. Julian’s company, The Sound Agency, works with major brands worldwide proving that good sound is good business and pioneering the use of generative soundscapes instead of mindless music in spaces like airports, shopping malls and offices.

Hugo Verweij leads sound design efforts on Apple’s Design Team. His work can be heard across a number of Apple platforms. Hugo has a deep appreciation for functional sound design that helps, guides, and delights the user – whether it’s through a notification sound or a subtle button click. Prior to joining Apple, Hugo taught sound design and music production at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in the Netherlands. Underwhelmed by ringtones available at the time, Hugo launched Cleartones – a marketplace for unobtrusive, minimalist ringtones. Apple caught wind of Hugo’s project and hired him to work on sounds for iOS 7. Hugo’s talk Designing Sound at the World Wide Developers Conference gives a peek behind the curtain of the design process of Apple’s iconic sounds that can be heard all around the world.

Dr. Stefan Weinzierl is head of the Audio Communication Group at the Technische Universität Berlin. With a diploma in physics and as a Tonmeister from Technische Universität (TU) and University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin, he received his Ph.D. in musical acoustics. His research is dedicated to acoustics and audio technology, with a special focus on virtual acoustic reality. In recent years he has coordinated several large national and international research units, including a DFG research unit on “Simulation and Evaluation of Acoustical Environments (SEACEN)” a European consortium on Audio Branding (ABC_DJ) and a national consortium for Computational Design (SHAPING SPACE). He is coordinating a master program in Audio Communication and Technology at TU Berlin and teaches acoustics and audio technology for the Tonmeister program at UdK Berlin.