Ranga Yongeshwar is a well-known journalist and author. He is one of Germany's leading science journalists and has developed and hosted numerous TV programmes, including "Kopfball"(ARD), "Quarks&Co"(WDR) and "Die große Show der Naturwunder" (ARD). His books quickly became bestsellers and were translated into numerous languages. Yogeshwar has received over 60 professional awards and has been honoured many times.

Nina Wöss is Co-Founder and COO of Female Founders, an organisation that connects and supports entrepreneurial women. Previously, she was Head of Marketing & Community at Speedinvest. Since 2012, she has been working in the startup ecosystem as an investor and mentor with European founders. Nina Wöss studied Business Administration and Management as well as Art History in Vienna.

Frank Thelen is a European founder, technology investor and TV personality. He has been founding and managing technology and design-driven companies since 1994. In his role as founder and CEO of Freigeist Capital, he focuses on early-stage investments. His products have reached over 100 million customers in over 60 countries. In 2018, he published his autobiography "Startup DNA", followed by his second book "10xDNA" in 2020. Both books became Spiegel bestsellers.

Christian Kroll is the founder and CEO of Ecosia, an ecological search engine that plants trees with its ad revenue. Both Ecosia's search results and search ads are delivered by Microsoft's own search engine Bing. Close to 15 million users have helped plant over 100 million trees all over the world. Those trees help restore landscapes, nourish communities, protect wildlife and neutralize CO2. Ecosia is the largest search engine headquartered in Europe and has received several awards.

Lara Obst is co-founder and managing director of THE CLIMATE CHOICE, the software-driven B2B platform for climate ratings and decarbonization of companies and their supply chains. In recent years, Lara has gained extensive experience in the climate tech industry as Co-Founder of MOWEA (modular wind turbines), Venture Developer of Weeve.network (IoT Data Platform) and Corporate Accelerator Manager DACH at Climate KIC, among others.

Dr. Martin Schilling is the Managing Director of the Techstars Berlin Accelerator. As an angel investor, startup builder and scale-up executive, Martin co-founded and scaled up five companies over the past 15 years. These companies include Orphoz (a subsidiary for McKinsey & Company), a public company in Saudi Arabia, the MARA foundation in Argentina, and the fintech N26. Martin is a co-author of the book, “The Builder’s Guide to the Tech Galaxy – 99 Practices to Scale Startups into Unicorn Companies” and is passionate about seeking out and enabling the next generation of European Entrepreneurs building high-growth businesses.

Martin will be offering a highly interesting workshop at ATEC:

Finding Your North Star: Clarity On Direction Drives Fundraising Success

Being clear on direction and goals increases valuation and turns startups into magnets for talent and customers. In this workshop we sharpen elements of your “North Star” as an early stage startup. There are six mutually reinforcing dimensions for defining a meaningful “North Star” for early-stage startups. We will sharpen three of them in this session:

• Purpose beyond profit • Business ambition • Customer value proposition

Ann-Kristin Mackensen is CFO of NFT-Maker, an NFT ecosystem for artists, developers and brands. NFT-MAKER is the world‘s leading brand to enable NFT minting on Cardano for a mainstream audience. The easily accessible interface and simple process provide a comprehensive digital art platform to mint, view, and trade NFTs. NFT-MAKER has currently minted more than 900,000 NFTs. Previously, she worked at Porsche Digital and was part of the company building unit Forward31.

Friedrich Joussen is CEO of TUI. Previously, he was Chairman of the Management Board of Vodafone D2 GmbH and, until its full integration, Chairman of the Executive Board of Vodafone AG & Co. KG At international level, Joussen was a member of the board of the group's own venture capital company Vodafone Ventures and was a member of the CEO Council and the Strategy Board of the Vodafone Group.

Michael Riegel is the founder of Comtravo. Their goal is to develop the best possible solution for business travel. Since 2015, the company has successfully combined personal service with innovative technology. Before founding Comtravo, Michael Riegel was Head of Markets at Homejoy in San Francisco, the online intermediary for home service providers that was acquired by Google. From 2011 to 2014, Michael was co-founder and Head of Business Development at Wimdu, where he drove the international roll-out of the business. He opened offices in London, San Francisco and Hong Kong, led country management and focused on supply operations.

Katharina Riederer is a business consultant, engineer, member of Femtec.Alumnae e.V. and co-founder and CEO of eco.mio. eco.mio enables companies to make business travel more sustainable. Katharina Riederer studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich and at the University of Michigan. She also received the Forbes 30 under 30 award.

Julian Kögel is a German entrepreneur and business angel. In 2022 he founded Y GO.

Dr.-Ing. Max Christian is a professor at the Advanced Microelectronic Center Aachen and CEO of AMO, a German high-tech company active as a research and manufacturing service provider in the field of nanotechnology. As a service provider, AMO offers its advanced nanostructuring capabilities for industrial research and development in the fields of MEMS, NEMS, photonics, sensor technology as well as biofuels and biotechnology.
He studied Electrical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University. He then worked as a professor at KTH in Stockholm and at the University of Siegen.

Dr.-Ing. Daniel Schall is the founder of Black Semiconducter, a tech startup company based in Aachen. Their goal is to manufacture and market extremely powerful microchips with photonic circuits directly fabricated on any electronics. In the previous years he completed his PhD in electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen University.

Alexander worked in asset management for 5 years before he moved to be an entrepreneur. At LIDROTEC, they build laser dicing machines for the semiconductor industry that enable thinner cuts with a 0% damage rate for every wafer. Their unique innovation is the use of liquids to cool and rinse the wafers while they are cut with the laser. Users of their cutting-edge technology will save costs and increases output.

Melanie Raidl is a journalist at Handelsblatt. She is particularly interested in climate tech, the circular economy, start-ups and women in business. Melanie Raidl studied journalism and globalisation in Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Afterwards she attended the Georg von Holtzbrinck School for Business Journalists with stations at Handelsblatt, WirtschaftsWoche and Die Zeit.

Patrick Tobler is CEO and Founder of NFT-MAKER, an NFT ecosystem for artists, developers and brands. NFT-MAKER is the world‘s leading brand to enable NFT minting on Cardano for a mainstream audience. The easily accessible interface and simple process provide a comprehensive digital art platform to mint, view, and trade NFTs. NFT-MAKER has currently minted more than 900,000 NFTs. Patrick Tobler studied Computer Science and Media in Stuttgart.

Dr. Jan Ossenbrink is a partner at Global Founders Capital, a globally oriented, stage agnostic venture fund that empowers gifted entrepreneurs. He gained industry experience at McKinsey, General Electric, Lufthansa, PwC and Miele and as self-employed. Dr. Ossenbrink studied at RWTH and Stanford and earned his PhD at ETH Zurich.

Vincent Gerretz is Co-Founder and Managing Director at gemineers. They develop software for the data-driven quality evaluation to accelerate the digitalization of manufacturing industry. The gemineers GmbH was founded in 2021 as a deep tech start-up of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT at RWTH Aachen University. Vincent Gerretz completed his mechanical engineering studies at RWTH Aachen University.

Dr. med. Arne Peine is CEO and Co-Founder of Clinomic, a start-up from Aachen. Clinomic is a dynamic, fast-growing start-up focussed on developing innovative technological solutions for critically ill patients. They create groundbreaking solutions for the critically ill by combining translational medical research, data science and computational intelligence. With a patient-centric view, we combine state-of-the-art research with modern technologies to enable an optimal treatment for every patient. Arne Peine studied medicine at RWTH Aachen University and also completed his Master's degree in Health and Business Administration at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Dr. Robert Brüll is CEO of FibreCoat. an Aachen-based start-up. FibreCoat develops and produces revolutionary fibre-based material combinations for the mass market of tomorrow. In 2019, FibreCoat received a start-up grant from the German Federal Ministry of Science and Energy, which led to its foundation in 2020. After the foundation, the company won numerous competitions, like the Rice Business Plan Competition and the Plug & Play Japan Competition. Robert Brüll studied mechanical engineering and economics at RWTH Aachen University and afterwards he completed his PhD in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Georg Angenendt is CTO and Co-Founder of ACCURE Battery Intelligence. ACCURE supports automotive and energy companies around the world in making their batteries more safe, efficient and sustainable. They currently manage over 1,000 MWh of battery systems around the world.
He studied business administration and engineering at RWTH Aachen University.

Dr. Oliver Grün is founder, majority shareholder and chairman of the management board of GRÜN Software Group GmbH and is responsible for the overall management as well as the buy-and-build strategy of the group of companies, which now employs around 270 people at six locations in various companies. He is also President of the Bundesverband IT-Mittelstand e.V. (German Association of IT SMEs) and President of the European Association of IT SMEs European Digital SME Alliance. He also advises the Federal Government and the State Government of NRW in various digital advisory boards.

Azure Business Lead Senior Director at Microsoft.

Magdalena Gorecki is a startup coach at digiHUB Aachen e.V. and an experienced moderator in the Aachen entrepreneurship ecosystem. At digiHUB Magdalena takes care of project management, marketing, moderation, consulting. She studied social sciences at RWTH Aachen University.

Investment Analyst at Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures.

Principal at TechVision Fonds.

Programm Manager at Plug & Play Tech Center.

Prof. Dr. Malte Brettel is Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship. His research interests include entrepreneurial management and business development, entrepreneurial marketing, entrepreneurship, and financial and innovation management. He has published several books as well as in many academic journals. In addition to his academic career, Professor Brettel founded several companies of his own. He was managing director in these companies and is currently still active as a business angel. In addition, Professor Brettel is also Prorector for Business and Industry at RWTH Aachen University.

Dan Ram ignites the stage as an Event MC & Speaker at over 100 events a year. Hosting changemakers like President Barack Obama, billionaire founders like Sir Richard Branson, record breaking athletes like F1 champion Nico Rosberg, Grammy-winning artists and celebrities, he works on 4 continents from college campuses to parliaments to in-house corporate innovation days for Fortune 500 Companies to the biggest tech conferences in the world. His passion is to inspire people with his motto 'Start Now Start Simple' in building a future we all want to live in.