Konnektiv

Geraldine de Bastion is a bilingual (en/de) political scientist with an intercultural background and experience working with activists, governments, startups and NGOs across the word. Her work focuses on digital transformation and international cooperation, innovation, and human rights. Geraldine co-founded Konnektiv in 2013, advising various organisations on digital transformation.

Geraldine is also the founder of the Global Innovation Gathering (GIG), a network of grassroots innovators, social entrepreneurs, founders, and managers of makerspaces, hackerspaces, and innovation hubs. In 2018 she authored and moderated the Arte documentary “Digital Africa” which captures many of the innovators active in the GIG network.

Since 2012, she has been part of the curatorial team for the re:publica, Europe’s largest conference on the topic of the Internet and society, and regularly organizes and curates events in the field of politics and digitization. In 2018 she organised the first re:publica in Accra, Ghana with over 2000 participants and over 260 speakers from across Africa.

Work Awesome

Journalist, presenter and co-founder of Work Awesome

Lars Gaede is a freelance journalist, presenter and co-founder of Work Awesome, a series of conferences dealing with the future of work. He lives in New York and Berlin, and positions he has previously held include Chief Editor at the German edition of pop culture magazine Interview and Editor for technology magazine WIRED, for NEON and for DIE ZEIT.

State Chancellery Rhineland-Palatinate

State Secretary for Media and Digital Affairs

»Platforms and search engines are today’s gatekeepers. We have to agree new rules from scratch. Transparency and banning discrimination are decisive here.«

Since 2015 Heike Raab has been State Secretary for Media and Digital Affairs and Authorised Representative of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate to the Federal Government and for Europe. She coordinates the work of the Rundfunkkommission der Länder (Broadcasting Commission of the Federal States) for Rhineland-Palatinate, which is chairing the commission. From 2011 to 2015 she was State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, Sport and Infrastructure, a role that also saw her hold the position of CIO of the Rhineland-Palatinate state government. Prior to this, she was a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament for ten years and was Media Policy Spokesperson from 2001 to 2006 for the SPD parliamentary party.

Freelance Advisor

»Start-ups with AI-based language tools have shown that overcoming language barriers can bring people in Europe together in new ways. A public-service platform for Europe would moreover make it possible to supply Europe’s people with news from a European perspective. This would be one way to pierce Europe’s national media bubbles.«

Johannes Hillje is a self-employed political and communication consultant active in Berlin und Brussels. He advises institutions, parties, politicians, companies and NGOs. His previous work experience includes spells in the communications division of the UN in New York and the editorial department of heute.de at ZDF. Hillje is Policy Fellow at the think tank Das Progressive Zentrum in Berlin. He gained a master’s degree in Politics and Communication at the London School of Economics. His books, Propaganda 4.0. Wie rechte Populisten Politik Machen (Propaganda 4.0. How right-wing populists practice politics) (2017) and Plattform Europa (Platform Europe) (2019) have been published by Dietz-Verlag. Hillje tweets under @Jhillje and can also be contacted online at www.johanneshillje.de.

rbb

Journalist

»Public-service broadcasting is hugely beneficial for society. We must continue to serve conventional media and at the same time strengthen our online presence. Online communication is becoming more and more important. This is especially the case where those under 40 are concerned. We have to ask ourselves how we reach those who now only access social media. This is who we developed the “funk” formats for.«

Dr. Jan Schulte-Kellinghaus was born in 1969 in Duisburg. He studied law in Bonn and Erfurt where he also started to work as a reporter for radio and television. 1994 he began to work for the ZDF - one of Germany’s two national public broadcasters – at the Studio Thuringa, whose deputy director he became in 1996. In 1998 he became deputy editorial director for the ZDF television tabloid magazine "Hello Germany".

From 2000 Jan Schulte-Kellinghaus was the leader of the NDR talk desk in Hamburg, also leading the entertainment department from 2005. From 2007 he was responsible for Television and Coordination at NDR and in 2010 he became the Managing Director coordinating the ARD evening program. Since March 2017 Jan Schulte-Kellinghaus is the director of multimedia programming at rbb, where he is responsible for all six radio programs, the television program, as well as the digital portfolio.

taz

Foreign Editor at the taz

»Being able to use media competently is decisive in the age of digitalisation. Young people who primarily inform themselves via social media need to know how to identify fake news. On the one hand, that requires quality media; on the other hand, however, it means the competent use of media needs to be taught early on.«

Barbara Oertel was born in 1964 and studied political science and Russian studies as well as media and intercultural communication in Hamburg, Paris, St Petersburg and Sofia. Since 1995 she has been Foreign Editor at the taz with the main focus of her work being on Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Since 2011 she has been Co-Head of the Foreign Editorial Department.