The Green Summer School Constance 2017 was a major success, and featured many prominent speakers and coaches. To give you a better idea which top-class connections you could create at this year’s event, please find a list of speakers and their area of expertise below. It should be a fair indicator of what high-caliber coaches will be present at the 2018 startup seminar.
In case you are thinking about joining the Green Summer School Constance in 2018, make sure to read the past Green Summer School review.
Simona welcoming us to the 4th Green Summer School in Constance.
Investment Readiness And Coaching: Simona Pede
Simona Pede is Senior Innovation Programme Manager at bwcon gmbh. In this role, she conceives and designs bootcamp, workshop and summer schools for young entrepreneurs and start-ups. Simona is particularly focusing on the Lean Start-up approach and in supporting early stage startups in the validation of their business model.
Since 2011 she has been promoting Hackathon for young developers in the south west Germany. Today she supports corporate and public institutions in setting up open innovation processes involving young talents.
Simona has over 8 years of experience as manager of European projects in the field of digital innovation and entrepreneurship support and has lead two projects under the Startup Europe Initiative of the European Commission.
Valentina explaining the Business Model Canvas (BMC).
Business Model And Coaching: Valentina Grillea
As Senior Innovation Program Manager in bwcon, Valentina is in charge for supporting first-time entrepreneurs via business recognition workshops and creative ready to use methods. She is an expert on Open Innovation, co-creation methods and innovation Labs, she owns a PMP certification and the Business Model Innovation Certificate of the RWTH University. Furthermore, she supports young and early entrepreneurs in generating innovative ideas and recognizing business opportunities.
Valentina is in charge for several European projects in the field of raise entrepreneurship amongst young talents, transfer technology, access to market and finance and SMES supports. She is the initiator of the Green Innovation and Investment Forum and main program organizer. She is also external evaluator and experts for the EU commission.
Roberto highlighting the differences of various types of Business Canvas Models.
Green Business Model And CSR: Roberto Carella
Roberto Carella is a Certified Business Coach of the European Commission Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) in the context of the European program Horizon 2020. He is also a Coach of Climate Kic Malta “Accelerator Stage 2”, Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on climate change. There he supports start-ups, with a well-formulated business model, to translate business plans into concrete value proposition. He also serves as Evaluator of Research Proposals for the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (RPF) for the program Research in Enterprises.
Roberto has a Degree in Economics and a Ph.D. In e-business. He currently teaches at the University of Basilicata and has been Visiting Lecturer at the ITTC in Malta.
Martin (first row, right) listening to the final sales pitch presentations.
High Tech Venture Consultant: Martin Cremer
Martin Cremer is consultant for high-tech ventures at bwcon GmbH. Bwcon is located in Stuttgart (Germany) and supports Start-ups and SMEs to realize innovations in the field of ICT and technology. Prior to his current position, he worked at MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media of the State of Baden-Württemberg, where he was responsible for fostering innovation.
Christiane educating us on Marketing Strategy.
Marketing: Christiane Hagmann-Steinbach
Christiane Hagmann-Steinbach works as consultant and project manager. Her focus lies on strategic marketing, corporate social responsibility (CSR), innovation and product management, as well as strategy and corporate culture. She is furthermore lecturer in strategic marketing, innovation and project management.
Christiane has over 20 years of experience in different companies and organizations. She has been working as project manager for CSR in SMEs for the Stuttgart Economic Development, as manager for strategic marketing and business management for Motorola. She was furthermore manager product planning and marketing for Bosch Telecom, Professional Mobile Radio and product and innovation manager for Robert Bosch Power Tools.
Peter sharing his extensive knowledge about Intellectual Property Rights with all us eager students.
Protecting Your Ideas: Intellectual Property Rights: Peter Kaldos
Peter Kaldos has a background in economics and the economic aspects of intellectual property. His experience includes providing analytical and valuation support to a diverse range of stakeholders including start-ups, SMEs, technology transfer offices and asset management organizations.
Peter’s area of expertise is in the valuation of patents and trademarks for transfer, management, financing and legal disputes purposes. He has been involved in several initiatives related to intellectual property including the European Commission Expert Group on IP valuation.
Andrea showcasing the urgent need for environmentally friendly innovations.
Eco-Innovation: Andrea Pitzschke
PD Dr. Dipl.-Biochem. Andrea Pitzschke is senior researcher at Economica Institute of Economic Research and Austria´s project leader in ecoinn. After her studies in Germany (Halle University) she has worked over 15 years in plant science and microbiology at British and Austrian Universities. Her daily energy derives from curiosity, the inner urge to develop discoveries to prototypes, and from science communication.
Alexandra preparing us for three rounds of Lego Serious Play.
Management 3.0: Alexandra Rudl
Alexandra Rudl is Head of bwcon Innovation Academy in Stuttgart. Together with her team, she supports transformation and digitalization processes of various clients from the private and public sector. As certified Effectuation coach her focus lies on bringing entrepreneurial thinking to established organizations.
Further to that, she has specialized on Management3.0, a methodology involving everyone in improving the system and fostering employee engagement. Besides working for bwcon, Alexandra is external innovation expert to the European Commission evaluating business plans and research projects from all over Europe.
Christoph (center) offering me highly valuable feedback after my final sales pitch.
Innovation Management And Coaching: Christoph Selig
Christoph Selig research deals with corporate entrepreneurship as a tool for radical innovation and strategic renewal. Focusing in the interface between embedded entrepreneurial teams and the corporate, the corporate entrepreneur seems to be one key success factor of corporate entrepreneurship initiatives.
In that stream of research, he is currently building a representative sample of intrapreneurship cases that aggregates in-depth data from more than 20 corporate startups teams. Based on that, he is identifying critical elements of the successful corporate entrepreneur as well as examining leadership practices at the interface of corporate organizations and embedded entrepreneurial teams.
Andreas demonstrating the difference a simple handshake can make.
Sales: Andreas Ter Woort
Andreas ter Woort is a charismatic senior business developer-entrepreneur. He was born in The Netherlands, raised in Belgium and lived, worked in many countries around the world.
Andreas enables team members and startups to a maximum engagement and performance and he excels when leading teams and taking responsibility for results when appropriate. He successfully managed international multi-stakeholder projects. He has worked on projects in Europe, USA, Africa and Japan.
Andreas started as country manager the first foreign country branch of the world largest logistics company, Deutsche Post World Net in Belgium. As promotion, he was appointed project coordinator responsible for the Merger & Acquisition from Deutsche Post and DHL Worldmail in EMEA.
Andreas extended his business acumen with Leadership- and organizational development knowledge and experience when contributing to the success of Center for Creative Leadership in Brussels and Rotterdam School of Management/Erasmus University.
Today Andreas brings his expertise and experience as Entrepreneur, Trainer and Coach in a varied field of business, consultancy and education into the School of Entrepreneur at the University of Applied Science Albstadt Sigmaringen in the South of Germany.
Strategic Marketing And Coaching: Christina Ungerer
Christina Ungerer is research associate and startup consultant at the Konstanz University of Applied Science and Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Münster. Her research focuses on indicators for survival and success of technology-based startups and she is currently leading a study testing the influence of business coaching on the survival capability of startups.
Christina furthermore coordinates an initiative developing a system for the IT-based analysis of business plans that supports investors’ and intermediaries’ decision making. Christina holds a master degree in International Management at ESB Business School Reutlingen and Northeastern University Boston (M.Sc.) And has previously worked as a consultant in the automotive industry and for a technology-based German Startup (Free-Linked GmbH).
Susanne sharing the idea of the ecocircle concept with us green entrepreneurs.
Strategic Eco-Design: Susanne Volz
Susanne Volz is an economic law specialist as well as environmental scientist. For many years, she worked in the field of environmental policy consultation. With her consultancy ecocircle concept, she now dedicates herself to the development process of sustainable products. She educates product developers, and advises decision-makers in companies in sustainable product development strategies.
Klaus offering valuable insights into the heads of venture capitalists. (Hint: It’s all about the money.)
Access To Finance: Klaus Würtenberger
After completing a banking apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank AG, Klaus Würtenberger worked for almost 20 years in the finance sector for three major German commercial banks as well as investment banking in Frankfurt, London and Berlin.
At the beginning of 2001, he left the banking industry and joined the board of directors (CFO / COO) of the recently founded Berlin Heart AG, Berlin (today: Berlin Heart GmbH).
Within a few years the company grow to 150 employees and achieve double-digit sales volume. At the end of 2006, a very well-known German family office acquired 100% of the Berlin Heart company shares. After a successful transition phase, Klaus left the company at the end of 2008.
At the beginning of 2009, he founded the K & S W Consult (formerly Klaus Würtenberger Entrepreneur Consulting). Since then, he has supported a large number of business start-ups and entrepreneurs in the further development of your ventures and / or projects.
In 2011 he founded the K & S W Invest GmbH.
Marcel to the very left with the proud winners of this year’s Green Summer School pitch: Shilpi and Abhi with their startup Hexpressions.
Green Innovation And Investment Forum: Marcel Muth
Born in 1980 in Böblingen, Marcel Muth studied sport economy and management at the German Sport University Cologne. He worked in different communication agencies, advising customers from the FMCG-sector, insurance companies and NGOs.
In August 2015 he joined Umwelttechnik BW, the State Agency for Environmental Technology and Resource Efficiency Baden-Württemberg (UTBW) as project manager for events and fairs. The annual Green Innovation and Investment Forum, an event of bwcon and UTBW is his main project to support green technologies, start-ups and innovations.
What Next?
In case you’d like to get in touch with any of these speakers and coaches from Green Summer School 2017, feel free to either Google them or drop me a line. All of them are incredibly helpful and offer fantastic insights into their areas of expertise and beyond.
And don’t forget to sign up for Green Summer School 2018. Surely the organizors will select another top class lineup.