Theme: Future of Society - Digital, Diverse, Dynamic

TEDxWHU 2016 will take part on march 13th 2016 at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. We are happy to announce this years topic:

Future of Society - Digital, Diverse, Dynamic

We are looking forward to an outstanding event with talks revolving around how our society will change in the near future and what impact this will have on us. The three main topics we are focusing on are groundbreaking digital technologies, the increasing diversity of our society and the speed with which societal structures change and habits evolve.

H1 Building
Burgplatz 2
Vallendar, Rheinland-Pfalz, 56179
Germany

Harald Haas

Mobile Communication Scientist

Have you ever heard the term “Internet of things”? It is already visible that more and more objects that we use in our daily life are connected to the Internet. There are so many different technological solutions, which enable a lot of opportunities to make living a lot easier; but it also influences our society in different aspects. We are happy to have Prof. Harald Haas at TEDxWHU who is working on some great technologies and who is going to share his thoughts and latest results with us. One of his main researches is called Li-Fi – the transmission of data via light. Haas currently holds the Chair of Mobile Communication at the University of Edinburgh and is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLifi Ltd. Being an expert in the field of mobile communication, he already held multiple speeches at TEDGlobal on how data can be transmitted using only light by turning LED lightbulbs into data transmitting devices.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges

Commanding General US Army Europe

Before becoming Commander of the US Army Europe, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Hodges was commanding the NATO Allied Land Forces, was part of the Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and his most recent operational assignment was as Director of Operations in Afghanistan. Holding all these positions thus having a great knowledge about other cultures made him gain a far-sighted opinion about worldwide developments, which distinguishes him to be an interesting speaker for our TEDx event.

Mirco Grübel

CEO Perpetuo GmbH

Being one of the youngest CEOs within a German DAX 30 corporation in his twenties – Building his own business in incubation (before many others started) – Restructuring big companies – Consulting international corporations in Leadership and Execution. Mirco Grübel’s CV sounds like one of a retiring Top Manager, but he is still in his thirties. Within his career, he more and more realised the value of “True Leadership” and how rarely it is to be found. This generated his idea to open up a leadership academy for individuals. So are you a leader? Do you actually want to be a leader? Do you think Darth Vader is a worse leader than Yoda? Mirco will “lead” you into his philosophy of leadership and combine it with characters from block busters. He believes, society’s future depends on its leaders and so his mission is to deliver more of them.

Patric Lanhed

Biohacker, Creative Technologist

What’s so fantastic about the open source, DIY, and the biohacking scene? It’s the fact that financial considerations take a back seat to the driving forces of pure curiosity and knowledge sharing. Those are the motivating factors for Patric Lanhed and his team. And it’s also why they garnered a lot of media attention with their Bio Pay solution last autumn. Patric works with technology in the communications arena at DigitasLBi in Sweden, and is a true evangelist when it comes to biohacking and how technology play a major role in the human upgrade.

Sonja Stuchtey

Early Education Ambassador - Founder of science-lab.org

Sonja Stuchtey is a passionate learner and a deeply convinced advocate for good education. Having attended an all girls school herself in Cologne, she was able to broaden her education experience thanks to a scholarship for an American preparatory School. She studied Economics and Business Administration at the WHU, in Aix-en-Provence and Berkeley, met her husband in the University’s theatre group and started as a Strategic Business Consultant in Munich. By now she is a decorated Social Entrepreneur that revolutionized the German early education with the science-lab.org concept within a decade. She is an author of best-selling non-fiction books for children, project developer for old and new buildings and mother of six very charming, life embracing and joyful kids. Presently, Sonja Stuchtey is doing research as PhD at the TUM School of Education on the HR perspective in the Bavarian Educational System.

Tijen Onaran

Founder "Women in Digital"

You don’t know much about the success stories of female founders, women in businesses, or female journalists in the digital industry? All these stories are worth talking about – without being reduced to being a woman only. We do not need a feeling of consternation or making excuses in the discussion about the visibility of women in the digital industry but we need to focus more on the individual, not about being a woman or a man. Tijen Onaran has dedicated herself to networking and founded “Women in Digital” in order to create a confident network and provide an open platform for women. Tijen’s passion for bringing people together stems from her active work in politics over the past years. Whether it was in the European or German parliament, or in the office of the federal president, she has met inspiring and strong women who had great influence on her commitment to the visibility of women.

Zhengrong Liu

CHRO Beiersdorf

Zhengrong Liu, born on August 23rd, 1968 in Shanghai, China, is a member of Executive Board of Beiersdorf AG, Hamburg, Germany, responsible for Human Resources, Communication and Services. He joined Beiersdorf in September 2013. Zhengrong Liu studied in Shanghai in the late 80s and then between 1990 and 1997 at University of Cologne in Germany. He holds a Master Degree in Education, Political Science and Anglo-American Study. After his graduation he worked in Asia for Bayer Group for six years. From 1998 to 2001 he was Head of Human Resources for Bayer in China. He moved afterwards from Beijing to Shanghai and became Deputy General Manager of Bayer (China) Ltd., the management holding company of Bayer in Greater China. Between 2002 and early 2004 he was in addition Regional Vice President Human Resources for Bayer Polymers Asia Pacific. In 2004 he returned to Germany and served as Group Senior Vice President Human Resources at LANXESS AG until 2013.