7th OVAB Digital Signage Conference Munich – Speakers

	Abdul Bakhrani, CEO, SmartScreen
	Abdul M. Bakhrani is an entrepreneur, innovator, and visionary who has over 15 years of experience in the Satellite and Communications industry, and also has extensive knowledge on the content delivery and advertising industries. Abdul is passionate about bringing affordable, and reliable Information and Communication technologies to rural areas. He is the key driver behind the Rural Internet Kiosk (RIK) project, and the Solar Powered Advanced Rural Communication (SPARC) initiative), both of which will bring solar powered Internet connectivity to remote areas across Africa. In 2010, Abdul was honored as Africa’s Satellite Personality of the Year at the SatCom Star Awards for his commitment to advance and expand Satellite Internet access across Africa. He has recently diverted his attention to utilise GSM networks as the next cost-effective medium of delivering rich media in the form of digital signage. He has initiated projects in several countries in the Middle East and Africa which include Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, and Oman.
	Alan Kaufman, President, DynaScan Technology
	Alan Kaufman is the President of DynaScan Technology, Inc., based in Irvine, California. He is also an Executive Vice President of DynaScan Technology Corp. (Taiwan). Alan joined the company in 2003 when he set up the US headquarters. Besides the day-to-day management, Alan focuses on expanding worldwide market share through strategic partnerships, channel distribution and above all, maintaining customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Alan’s experience in digital signage started well before joining the DynaScan team. Prior to DynaScan, Alan was the Managing Director of LG Vision from 1998 to 2003, one of the first actors in Digital LED Billboards (the first on the famous Sunset Boulevard). Earlier in his career, Alan was the Managing Director of VIAM USA, a company specializing in advanced materials and composites. Alan is an International Law graduate from the Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) University.
	Alexander Miskiw, Strategic Accounts Manager, Global Display Solutions
	Alexander stays since 1991 in the monitor and display industries. Currently in the position of the Strategic Accounts Manager he is responsible for the roll-out of outdoor-display projects across Europe from the commercial and project management of view. In his role as Project Manager he is the interface between the different involved teams with their project specific expertise who needs to be joined together on multi-cultural projects.
	Bernd Brencher, CEO, (Bernd Brencher Systemgastronomie)
	Bernd Brencher has a degree as a master tradesman and several years of food retail experience. From 1995 till 2007 he worked in the wholesale field. Most recently as sales director for the SPAR Handels AG. Since 2007 he owns two restaurants, one subway (QSR) as well as a company for designer lamps. While his career at SPAR he set up the first Digital Signage system for the group and since that time he ran and managed a few systems like the advertising structure for a Shopping Mall in Poing.
	Brian Dusho, CEO, BroadSign International
	Brian Dusho is the co-founder and CEO of BroadSign International. A visionary and groundbreaker, Brian boasts an impressive 17-year track record in the software, audiovisual and broadcast integration markets. He was notably the founder of AV Nation, a large-scale digital signage network deployment company, and has also held several executive management positions at Intellisys and MCSi. Globally regarded as one of the most respected and insightful thought-leaders in digital signage, Brian is a member of the Board of Directors of the industry’s most influential associations including the Digital Place-Based Advertising Association (DPAA) and Digital Signage Federation (DSF).
	Christian Vaglio-Giors, CEO, Neo Media Group
	Christian Vaglio-Giors (39) is co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Neo Media Group, a Swiss leading Investment Company with focus in media and digital media in particular. Prior to his present role, Christian has officered as Investment Banker advising tier-one global companies in merger & acquisition, financing and corporate development operations. From 2003 on Christian started a career as an entrepreneur with a strong focus in DOOH / Digital Signage market with the establishment of Neo Advertising, the Swiss leading DOOH operator with 1,000 ad panels in airports, shopping malls and convenience stores.
	Dieter Sawatzki, Managing Director, SawatzkiMühlenbruch
	Studies of Communication Design at the Folkwang University in Essen. Illustration, Painting, Photographie, Animation Film. 1984 Founding of the advertising agency Heidelbach, Sawatzki & Partner, later Nordis Heidelbach Sawatzki with more than 200 employees. Clients were e.g. Generali, ThyssenKrupp, RAG, Bertelsmann and Société Générale. Files in Berlin, Munich, Oslo and Hamburg. In 2001 he resigned from the agency to concentrate on activities as a designer, author and consultant. Since 2003 investment in different agencies. Creative supervision of Zollverein, LEG, German Ministry of Ecology, City of Essen and Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2009 Founding of inforbizmedianet together with Kay Mühlenbruch, now SawatzkiMühlenbruch.
	Dirk Hülsermann, Manager DOOH Solutions, NEC Display Solutions Europe / President OVAB Europe

	Dirk Kiefer, Managing Director, DIDAS Business Services
	Dirk Kiefer has extensive experience in the IT Sector for more than 23 years, thereof 20 years successful management practice and designated leadership ability. He graduated joint degrees leading to BA in Industrial Engineering and Management and started his IT career at Computacenter where he successfully completed a numerous network and system projects. In 1993 he was one of the founders of the Systematics AG, one of the most successful growing IT service company in the 90th century and therefore overtaken by EDS in 2000. After the merger with EDS he was engaged as managing director for different businesses in Germany. He also was assigned to the EMEA Leadership Team and responsible for all activities in the area of Business Development and Marketing. In the last years he successfully managed and developed the business across Germany to a leading IT service provider, DIDAS Business Services GmbH, where the Digital Media Business became a significant part of the service offering.
	Fabian Dittmann, Managing Director, Capture Media

	Dr. Ferdinand Hager, CTO, feratel media technologies
	Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Ferdinand Hager, MBA is Austrian, lives in St. Johann i.T. and was born in 1963. He made his PhD in Technical Physics at the Technical University, Vienna. In addition, he accomplished a MBA study at the California State University, Hayward, USA. Mr. Hager was Shareholder and head of development of a start-up company for ultrasonic sparation in biotechnological processes in Vienna and Vancouver. Lateron he worked as the General Manager of a business consulting company that focused on international strategic alliances and international funding schemes in Salzburg. At present he is the CTO of the feratel/sitour Group. feratel is one of the leading developers and providers of e-tourism and e-content information systems in Central Europe. Sitour runs the largest advertising network in ski areas worldwide. The feratel/sitour Group has established subsidiaries in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, USA, Japan, Bulgaria and the Benelux countries, and a workforce of currently 180 employees.
	Florian Rotberg, Managing Director, invidis consulting
	Florian Rotberg (39) Managing Director of invidis consulting founded digital signage boutique consultancy 2006 in Munich /Germany. Florian held several senior positions in the communication and travel industry before focusing on trends and strategies in digital signage and digital out of home. invidis consulting GmbH is a renowned European consulting firm for digital signage with business units in consulting, research, communications and events. As a founding member of OVAB Europe he holds the position as General Secretary.
	Florian Zimmermann, Assistant Service Companies, mfi Shopping Center Management
	After the vocational baccalaureate diploma and a practical work placement in the Centermanagement of Regensburg Araden begin of studying constructional engineering at University of Deggendorf in 2006. Decision to drop out of the study in 2008 and start of a 3-years apprenticeship to a real estate agent at mfi in Essen. In 2012 switch to the department Operative Marketing of mfi, responsible for administrative processes and the project support for the mfi service-companies, especially for the roll-out of Multi-Media-Displays.
	Dr. Frank Goldberg, Managing Director, Smart TV-Networks
	Frank Goldberg is Managing Director of Smart TV-Networks, a digital signage consultancy based in Munich. Smart-TV support their clients through all phases of a digital signage project: strategic positioning and business case, definition of technical and program concepts, generation of tendering documents, selection of bidders and project management during roll-out. Major clients of Smart-TV include Media Saturn Holding, Autobahn Tank & Rast, Fitness First Germany and Volkswagen. Before founding Smart-TV, Frank was COO of UnitedScreens, the first provider of DOOH advertising in Germany with more than 600 large format displays in Shell gas stations. Earlier in his career, Frank worked with A.T.Kearney management consultants and co-founded dock11, a start-up company selling music over the internet.
	Gülcan Ucbek, Business Development Manager, metaio
	Gülcan Ucbek is Business Development Manager at metaio GmbH in Munich which is the pioneer in the field of augmented reality interactive technology solutions for linking real and virtual worlds. In this role, she is involved from conception to realization of AR projects for national and international companies in all phases. Gülcan studied at the University of Applied Sciences Ludwigshafen International Business Management and Chinese. Previously she was working at the media company Bertelsmann in the Rewards & Loyalty Solutions Business as a Purchasing and Key Account Manager.
	Joachim Wieczorek, Sales Manager Display Department, Samsung
	Joachim has a degree in Business Informatics and several years of IT sales knowledge. Prior to his actual position as a Sales Manager for Samsung Electronics he worked for companies such as Fujitsu and MISCO Germany. Since 2006 he works for Samsungs Large Format Display division.
	Josef Wilhelm Knoke, Chairman Business Advisory Board, SEEN MEDIA
	Josef-Wilhelm Knoke, born in 1950, is an independent, senior retail business consultant and shareholder & advisory board member of the German digital signage integrator company SEEN MEDIA GmbH. He holds degrees in marketing management, history and political science. In his career he has formerly been working on top management level for large European retail companies in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. His employment history includes under more positions as Regional Marketing Director for C&A, Head of Human Resources for Ebsco in Brussels and Head of Marketing for C&A Germany.
	Dr. Kai-Marcus Thäsler, CEO, Infoscreen
	Dr. Kai-Marcus Thäsler worked from 1992 to 2005 at various positions for n-tv, a CNN-owned TV-news-channel. During his career he was news director, editor in chief of New Media and Director of Sales & Marketing. Afterwards he became managing director and editor in chief of TV.Berlin, Germany’s biggest regional TV-Channel aced in the country’s capial. In 2008 Dr. Thäsler switched to outdoor advertising and became managing director of Ströer DERG Media, the outdoor-advertiser for all train-stations in Germany, for Ströer’s passenger-television and in addition Chairman of Ströer Digital Media in 2011. His core-competence is the development of DOOH-marketing of content for digital signage.
	Mariusz Orzechowski, Director Sales Marketing Central South East Europe, NEC Display Solutions Europe / President PDSA
	Mariusz Orzechowski is the sales and marketing director of the Central South East Europe of NEC Display Solutions Europe GmbH, president of the Management Board of the Polish Digital Signage Association, founding member of POPAI Poland association and a graduate of the Information Technology Department at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland. He co-created and has successfully managed the Polish branch of the Japanese corporation NEC Display Solutions for the past 18 years. For more than 26 years, his professional career has been closely related to the IT/AV sector. Apart from managing the branch of the corporation, he has been involved in the introduction of new advanced products and solutions into the market. He is particularly interested in new market sectors. For several years, he has had a passion for information systems and digital advertising — Digital Signage.
	Markus J. Deserno, Managing Shareholder, SEEN MEDIA

	Oliver Schwede, Senior Analyst, invidis consulting
	Oliver Schwede holds a degree in electrical engineering with a specialization in media technology. Pior to his work at invidis consulting Oliver Schwede worked as an editor and laboratory director for the IT magazine „PC Professionell“ focusing on multimedia and display technologies. Since 2006 he works as a Senior Consultant at invidis consulting GmbH. Primarily he is responsible for the design and implementation of market studies and surveys. Oliver Schwede also works as a Senior Consultant in Digital Signage projects.
	Patrick Schröder, Division Manager Digital Signage, dimedis
	Patrick Schröder is the new Division Manager Digital Signage at the software company dimedis. Schröder is in charge of the complete kompas project team and responsible for the progression of the kompas project group. The former Telekom manager has gained experience for years in the areas Digital Signage and out-of-home media as well as at a media agency. The business graduate Schröder has a wide experience in the area of media and digital signage/Out-of-Home media. Last he was employed as head of the department media sales national/regional digital signage out-of-home media at Deutsche Telekom. In this function he was responsible for the build-up of the department mediaplanning and –advising. Before his time at Deutsche Telekom Schröder had worked in different positions at MediaCom for more than ten years, among others as senior group head of the unit geo- und mikromarketing and as a project manager for software tools aiming to otimalize the media purchase. The vocational roots of the business graduate lie in the realm of media planning and -purchase.
	Prof. Dr.-Ing. Philipp Slusallek, Scientific Director, German Research Center for Artifical Intelligence (DFKI)
	Philipp Slusallek is Scientific Director at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), where he heads the research area “Agents and Simulated Reality” since 2008. He is also Director for Research at the „Intel Visual Computing Institute”, a central research institute at Saarland University founded in 2009 in collaboration with Intel, DFKI, and the two local Max-Planck-Institutes. At Saarland University he has been a professor for Computer Graphics since 1999 and a Principle Investigator at the German Excellence-Cluster on “Multimodal Computing and Interaction” since 2007. Before coming to Saarland University, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University, USA. He studied physics in Frankfurt and Tübingen (Diploma/M.Sc.) and got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Erlangen University. His research interests are focused on 3D Internet technology and applications, integrating graphics and artificial intelligence, immersive collaborative environments, distributed simulation and visualization, as well as high-performance graphics and computing.
	Roland Grassberger, CEO, Grassfish Marketing Technologies
	Roland Grassberger founded Grassfish in 2005. In 1988, Roland founded SoftWork, providing software for dentists and medical patient record systems for hospitals. In 1998, he sold this company to GWI AG (now Agfa Healthcare), the German market leader for hospital software. He stayed with GWI as head of development and product management until 2001. In 2001, Roland founded Telion, a provider of speech-based news and notification systems. Roland studied Computer Sciences at the Technical University of Vienna.
	Stephan Zimprich, Attorney-at-Law / Media and Privacy Law expert, Field Fisher Waterhouse
	Stephan Zimprich is a associate in the Hamburg office.of Field Fisher Waterhouse. He is a member of the IP & Media team and specialises in intellectual property, copyright, media and press law. His also drafts and negotiates commercial agreements, such as licence agreements, and represents his clients in disputes. Stephan works for a broad range of clients, especially in technology-driven markets such as internet & e-commerce businesses, consumer electronics and telecommunications. Furthermore, Stephan advises publishers and media companies as well as persons concerned by unlawful media coverage. In this respect, Stephan can build on a long experience as an editor for the German issue of international business daily “Financial Times”. Stephan is featured author in the German professional´s monthly “Medium Magazin”. He also publishes in international intellectual property journals.
	Thorsten Wilm, Manager Software Solutions and Future Technologies, NEC Display Solutions Europe
	Thorsten Wilm is Manager of Software Solutions and Future Technologies in Europe and oversees the technical development, marketing promotion and business planning of software solutions. In this role, he focuses on providing software that creates best-in-class visual experiences across multiple vertical sectors. NEC offers next-generation software for a range of display and projector applications including videowall content and source management (Hiperwall), context aware signage (NEC leafengine) and collaboration with multiple devices for interactive learning and presenting (DisplayNote). Thorsten has cutting-edge business experience in e-procurement as well as the automotive TIER purchasing business. In his roles he has been a pioneer for sales in digital signage and on-premises IPTV systems, which combines with his passion for overall software design and development. Thorsten joined NEC Display Solutions in 2010 as a Manager of Product Management Solutions, where he was responsible for building up NEC Display Solutions’ portfolio, before taking over the management of software solutions and future technologies in 2013.
	Tobias Nagel, Head of BU Digital Signage, ALSO Deutschland
	Tobias Nagel is the responsible manager for the digital signage business at ALSO Deutschland GmbH. In previous positions he was responsible for the Visuals Business and the Software Business at ALSO. The ALSO-Group is Europe‘s third-largest ICT distribution company. ALSO distributes products, solutions, and services in the information technology, consumer electronics, and telecommunication products (ICT) sectors. In April 2013 ALSO founded an own business unit for digital signage.
	Tom Nix, CEO, Scala
	Formerly VP Americas & Oceania, Mr. Nix was responsible for all of Scala’s Sales, Services and Support operations in the US, Latin America and Oceania. Mr. Nix joined Scala in July 2010 and spent three years in the digital signage market working as the Vice President and General Manager for Dynamax Technologies. Prior to joining Dynamax, Mr. Nix was Director of business development at Main Street Direct, an media agency specializing in direct, online, mobile marketing campaigns for blue chip clients. Previously, he was Vice President of business development for Marins, where he was responsible for driving revenue generation and client acquisition initiatives. Mr. Nix has also served as Vice President of business development for match21, a b2b marketplace service provider. When he was 24 years old, he founded Sunshine Mountain Productions, a record label and distribution company which he sold in 1999. He attended the Executive Program for Growing Companies (EPGC) at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in Palo Alto, California.
	Vladimir Kozlov, CEO, DigiSky
	Vladimir Kozlov (CEO DigiSky) graduated from Moscow Bauman State Technical University from automatic systems managing department. DigiSky was founded in 2004 together with Vitaly Belyakov. The company’s founders have more than 20 years of experience in record business, distribution business, show business , FM broadcasting business. DigiSky is one of the leading companies in Russia provided different media solutions for vertical markets.”
	Winfried Karst, CEO Central Eastern Europe, Amscreen Group
	Winfried Karst (45), CEO Central Eastern Europe at Amscreen is responsible for the setup and expansion of Amscreen in the continental European region. He is a big believer in the future of DOOH as a separate and serious digital media channel in overall mediamix. Following his POV, DOOH will have a great future on the basis of the new technologies in the area. Previously, as co-founder of kinetic DACH and shareholder of kinetic group, he has a good understanding of the European media business and developments.