Germany Speakers 2017

Claudia Helming, a young Internet entrepreneur, Born in Bavaria, Claudia Helming says she never expected to become an entrepreneur. After studying Romance languages and tourism, she worked for a number of start-ups. She first came up with the idea for her business DaWanda while on a business trip to Moscow, when she was looking for souvenirs to take home and all she could find was mass-produced plastic products. Her idea was to launch a platform for people to sell things they’d made themselves, paying a 5 percent commission for each successful deal. Claudia Helming now oversees a team of over 100 and DaWanda enjoys turnover of roughly 4.5 million euros. The company is doing so well that Helming is now looking to expand into neighboring countries.

Iman Kamel is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, researcher and creative consultant mentoring young film and art talents. She pursued interdisciplinary studies in art, dance and film at the Berlin University of Arts. She is Founder and CEO of Nomad’s Home Productions. She has produced and directed films that travelled the world. She is a cultural strategist involved in international multi-disciplinary art & society projects. She holds a Global Master of Arts degree from The Fletcher School /Tufts University in International Relations. She is passionately traveling the world lecturing about the artist as a Global Player.

Tabitha Bühne, born in 1982, is a writer and blogger as well as a certified nutrition and fitness coach. She has a graduate diploma in “Media Arts and Production” from the University of Siegen, specialising in screenwriting. While studying she worked for a newspaper, a radiostation and a film production company. She wrote two movies and also worked as an actress and model. After completing her degree she followed her passion for sports. She worked as a store manager for a big running company – and became their first female online running-expert. She hosted events, spoke at conferences, produced instructional films, published a blog and wrote articles for sports magazines. As a runner she finished more than a dozen marathons, as well as two “ultra marathons” (100 k and 174k) and an ironman. She currently lives in Delhi with her husband, who is a German TV correspondent. As a writer she is contributing to various German magazines and is working on a non-fictional book. She is also writing and producing audio plays for children.

Marilyn Heib is a graduated mechanical engineer with specialization in renewable energies and energy efficiency. End of 2012 she founded together with additional three colleagues the crowdfunding platform bettervest, which enables german citizens the financing of projects in the field of climate saving, sustainability and social development. So far the platform financed 36 projects worldwide in a total sum of ca. 3 Mio €. She is CEO of bettervest. Additionally Marilyn is founder and president of the non-profit association “Go For Climate e.V.”, which is active in the field of social justice and environmental protection (mainly creates climate saving jobs for the scavengers on the landfill in Olongapo/ Philippines).

Dr. Moritz Gekeler is a strategic consultant, coach and facilitator for co-innovation and design thinking. Over the last ten years he has gained professional experience in various institutions such as the foresight department of Daimler AG, the HPI School of Design Thinking and the SAP Design and Co-Innovation Center. In 2015 he founded dolaborate as a co-innovation consultancy. Moritz works with international companies of all sizes in the process of participatory strategy making especially in regard to design and innovation. He also enables them by teaching creative methods, facilitating innovation events and as a key-note speaker. Besides working in the business sector, Moritz has also taught at various universities in Germany. He is a member of the expert team of the German design research network design:transfer.