Theme: Daring Heights

Join us on a journey that will encourage us to follow our own course. We want you to be part of an event that will show us what happens if we truly dare the highest heights.

Together with you we would like to explore what is hidden inside of us and reach into new spheres in order to discover what we really want to achieve in our lives. Let us all together be risk takers and find out together what we are capable of if we allow ourselves to be ourselves.

Schleppe Brewery - Event Hall
Schleppeplatz 1
Klagenfurt, Kärnten, 9020
Austria

Thomas Fundneider & Markus Peschl

Markus is Professor of Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Science at the University of Vienna. His research is driven by the question as to how the new comes into the world, and focuses on the interdisciplinary areas of innovation, knowledge, cognition and the design of so-called “Enabling Spaces,” i.e. spaces for the generation of new knowledge. Trained as a landscape architect, Thomas is founder and Managing Director of theLivingCore. Together with Markus he co-developed the leading-edge innovation technology leap and the Enabling Spaces methodology. He is a board member of PDMA Austria as well as Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, and lectures at several European universities.

Adam Montandon

Inventor, Author, Innovator & Educator

Inventor, author, innovator, and educator, Adam Montandon loves to share his knowledge and energy. He uses playfulness and interactivity to help you unlock your full creative potential. You never have to be stuck with anything boring ever again. As an educator, Adam’s results are unique. One of his students became the first Cyborg ever recognized by a government. He flew his class from Copenhagen to California to have a lesson on Venice beach. He teaches experience design while riding rollercoasters. His homework includes bungee jumping from the tallest skyscraper in Las Vegas. As an Associate Professor at EAL in Denmark, he has given inspiring keynotes at many universities and events around the world. Highlights include the prestigious Royal Institute of Science in London, Berkeley University in California, Transmedial in Berlin, MipTV in Cannes, TEDxLinz in Austria, and many more.

Ben Hofer

Piano player

Ben is an highly visual impaired piano player based in Vienna. It is his goal to imitate and reflect the emotions from the persons around him to give their inner feelings visual presence by giving them a sound. Ben supports the idea that everyone of us is blessed with a huge amount of potential that only awaits to be recognized. It is only up to us whether we want to show -or keep it hidden inside us. By playing his music, Ben demonstrates his spirit and showcases the possibilities we have.

Claire Lee

CERN Physicist

It always was and still is humanity´s goal to understand how our cosmos works. We do not only need to understand other galaxies, stars and planets far away, but also the smallest particles comprising us. Claire Lee is a particle physicist working at the high energy frontier at CERN, researching the smallest particles making up our universe, and the ways in which they interact. She believes that particle physics - and science in general - is fun and exciting, and is something that everyone should feel a part of.

Ferdinand R. Waldenberger

Maybe some of you might know the expression “To hold someone´s heart in your hand”. It is hard to imagine what it must feel like to be responsible for such an important organ. Ferdinand Waldenberger is Cardiac Surgeon, Associate Professor and Medical Director. Today he is Hospital Director at the Clinical Center in Klagenfurt. It is part of his job to handle dangerous and risky operations. He was part of the team for the first heart transplantation in 1984 and the first to successfully fulfill a heart transplantation on a newborn child. On top of that Ferdinand teaches at the University Steyr and the Medical School in Vienna.

Henrik Schärfe

Professor at Aalborg University

Henrik is a real “robot-person”. While people usually spend their leisure time with cats, dogs, or other human beings, Henrik thought it would be more interesting to hang out with an exact, robotic copy of himself. This is why he created the Geminoid-DK, a robot-version of Henrik. Besides that, he is Professor of Information Science at Aalborg University and an internationally acclaimed speaker. Among the many keynotes, you will find places like National University UNA (Costa Rica), ExpoTic (Lima, Peru), UESTC Chengdu (China), TED2012, and the India Today 2014 Conclave in Delhi. With his android, Henrik is also listed in the 2013 version of the “Guinness Book of Records”.

Jordan Casey

“Youngpreneur”, Quickstarter

Jordan Casey is a 15 year old entrepreneur and programmer from Waterford, Ireland. Since the age of 9 he has been programming websites, apps and games, and he currently runs the startup Warehouse, which encompasses all of his projects. Jordan is the best answer for those who do believe that trivialities like age or size matter talking about success in life and business. He is a great example of what is possible if you simply follow your passion and do what you feel you´re supposed to do.

Manuel Marinelli

Greenpeace Activist, Social Entrepreneur, Marine biologist

Manuel was for many years on the famous ship „Rainbow-Warrior“ from Greenpeace, where he tried to secure sensitive environments in the oceans. He combined his activism and his skills as marine biologist in order to find a way how to stabilize the unstable and fragile environmental structures within the oceans. Apart from that he educated groups of persons in workshops for more awareness concerning our oceans. Right now he works for his dream which is to develop a research center on a boat which he would like to provide for low prices for students, biologists, organizations and interested persons.

Markus Peschl

Founder of theLivingCore

Markus is Professor of Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Science at the University of Vienna. His research is driven by the question as to how the new comes into the world, and focuses on the interdisciplinary areas of innovation, knowledge, cognition and the design of so-called “Enabling Spaces,” i.e. spaces for the generation of new knowledge. He is a founder of theLivingCore, where he serves as chief scientific officer; in this capacity, he brings leading-edge research directly to clients and has many years of international experience in consulting projects.

Martina Ressmann

Development Aid, Chance Taker

Martina was what you would call a high potential. At age 27 she was head of department “Business development” at the “Austria Press Agency”. A hard working and ambitous personality totally focused on her job. But when she was 32 and in a very responsible position at the DAPD (german news agency) a phone call changed everything. Her boss told her that the company was insolvent. Instead of giving up on herself Martina turned the crisis into a positive happening that gave her the possibility to do what she always wanted to do. She started working in the field of Development Aid for “Horizont 3000” in Africa for 2 years and turned her back on business meetings, restaurants and first world problems. Now she gives an insight in her experiences and shows the advantages of a “simple” life. Back to the Basics and to what really matters!

Niki Ernst

TEDx ambassador, curator of TEDxSanFrancisco

Niki's work involves running a design firm in Austria with offices in Vienna and Salzburg, and raising a global network of innovation agencies (IACy). He is currently launching an accelerator to support Austrian startups growing their professional network to Silicon Valley, and additionally serves as a TEDx Ambassador for Europe.

Ocean Ramsey

Scuba Instructor, Shark Diver, marine biologist & model

Ocean Ramsey´s passion sounds rather scary to many of us. She dives with white sharks and is passionate about showing the beauty of them. White sharks are nowaday close to extinction, as they are misunderstood beings suffering under their wrong interpretated nature. Even though sharks are very intelligent and highly helpful in keeping the oceans in a healthy balance by eating ill organisms, they are seen as a danger. It is her goal to generate a better understanding between humans and sharks in order to save them.

Patrick Catuz

Filmmaker & Cultural-Media-Scientist

Patrick Catuz is cultural scientist and filmmaker and lives in Vienna. He studied media and communication and applied cultural science and is currently working on his PhD at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was production assistant for the feminist pornographer Erika Lust in Barcelona and works for culture, theatre and arthouse porn projects in Vienna and is conducting a seminar on porn at the University of Arts and Industrial Design in Linz.

Peter Sage

Extreme Entrepreneur

Peter Sage is a well-known international serial entrepreneur with twenty-five years of experience in growing fast-paced enterprises. During that time he launched, operated and brought to success over a dozen companies, several of which were large enough to qualify for the global Entrepreneurs Organisation membership. He served as the Chairman of the London YES Group (the largest personal development organization in Europe) and currently serves on the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board for INSEAD – a global top-five business school and one of the world leaders in the field of entrepreneurship education. Peter is also an advisor to the Hungarian Government on their creative think tank policies. Virtually all of the businesses Peter created have been in different industries. His current passion is to focus more on sharing his insights, wisdom, lessons and mistakes with others, and showing them the way of “Enlightened Entrepreneurship.”

Raj Sethia

International Corporate Consultant, Educator, Author, Social Entrepreneur

Raj is a world wide known corporate consultant. During his years in his profession he was able to collect massive experience in cross-cultural learning, transformational leadership, organizational effectiveness and change management. His clients are spread all over the world (America, Europe, Asia). He was also active for organizations like the World Bank and International Finance Corporation. He is successfully teaching his innovative methods at the Alpe-Adria University Klagenfurt.

Raquel Caballero

Socialpreneur, Emotionalist

Raquel is focused on a key issue getting increasingly more attention in our society: Emotional intelligence. In her past she learnt a lot about Psychology, PNL, Therapeutic Theater, Appreciative Inquiry and many other fields both in theory and practice with young children and women. This lead to the foundation of her own brand Emotuner which helps teachers to improve their qualities, companies to transform negative interpersonal tensions and pupils to reach for their full potential. She sees Emotional Intelligence as a central tool which can prevent and resolve personal problems and as a valuable instrument in order to make the world a better place. And the best about it is: Everyone can learn it…if you dare!

Shane Ó Fearghail

Singer Songwriter

Shane Ó Fearghail is an Irish Singer Songwriter and multi instrumentalist from Dublin. An Animator/Storyboard Artist by trade, Shane took to music full time when he established his band Caruso in 2008 to launch his critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Watcher & The Comet’. His second album ‘Everything You Need Is Here’, recently released under his own name “Shane Ó Fearghail”, is following on from where ‘The Watcher’ left off. Shane’s music and strong songwriting is wrapped around his unique and original voice - An Irish lilt and a style that is indie folk fused with Celtic Soul.

Thomas Fundneider

Founder of theLivingCore

Trained as a landscape architect, Thomas focuses on the crucial details that often make the difference for the whole. He can draw on a wealth of experience as manager of a number of major projects. His introduction of innovative, entrepreneurial working and thinking to organizations has made a lasting impact on his clients. Thomas is a board member of PDMA Austria (product development and management association) as well as of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS). Thomas lectures at several European Universities on the topics of innovation, enabling spaces, creativity and strategy. He invented the innovation technology “leap”, as well as the methodology of the “Enabling Spaces Design Process”, together with Markus Peschl.