Leibniz University of Hannover – L3S Research Center
Alexandra Garatzogianni
Coordinator of MediaFutures (Leibniz University of Hannover) & Head of Knowledge & Technology Transfer at the Leibniz Information Center for Science and Technology (TIB)
Currently Alexandra coordinates the H2020 MediaFutures Data-driven innovation hub for the media value chain and the H2020 Trusted Secure Data Sharing Space (TRUSTS) project, while leading the communication and community building of the Digital PLAtform and analytics TOOls for eNergy (PLATOON) H2020 project. With a background in management, project management, management consulting, linguistics, media and communication, Alexandra’s business interests focus on innovation and project management, international business development, software product management, startup consulting in physical and digital incubators and data-driven entrepreneurship. She successfully led consortia in EU Horizon 2020 ICT Research and Innovation projects, feasibility studies at European level and prototype development for a major telecommunications operator and world’s fourth-largest mobile service provider by subscriber base. She considers herself a citizen of the world and has successfully passed the official C2 level exams in German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese (European and Brazilian), while being fluent in Greek and Russian.
Alina Brockob
Project Manager & Business Developer
Alina Brockob works as Project Manager and Business Developer for the Leibniz University of Hannover (Germany). She has an academic background in (international) business management (Master of Science) with a strong focus on innovation management, enriched by international experience, inter alia at Sorbonne University in Paris. Before joining the Tech Transfer team in Hannover, Alina has worked for several consulting companies, most recently at KPMG, and gained some experience in the corporate strategy department for e-mobility and infrastructure at Volkswagen.
Gerrit Rosam
Project Manager & Business Developer
Gerrit Rosam joined the Leibniz University of Hannover (Germany) and works as Project Manager and Business Developer. With an academic background (M.Sc.) in Innovation Management, Gerrit has formerly worked for a Beijing based education-technology company. In the past he worked on acceleration and incubation services and events at UnternehmerTUM, one of Europe’s leading entrepreneurship centers in Munich, supporting startups from all over the world. Prior to joining the team in Hannover he worked two years as Project Manager for the Sino German Hi-Tech Park, initiating and managing Sino-German innovation and economic projects and helping companies from both countries to set food in each other’s markets.
King’s College London – Department of Informatics
Elena Simperl
Professor of Computer Science
Elena is Professor of Computer Science at King’s College London, and the Technical Lead of MediaFutures. She is currently leading ACTION, a Horizon 2020 programme that helps 15 citizen science communities around Europe fight pollution, and is also the principal investigator of Data Stories, an EPSRC-funded grant that develops concepts and tools to facilitate ease in everyday engagement with data. She previously led ODINE, an EU-funded incubator for open data businesses, and Data Pitch, which developed a purposive open innovation programme and corporate accelerator enabled by shared data. Elena’s interest in leading initiatives within the scientific community has also taken form through serving as chair and programme chair of the European and International Semantic Web Conference series, the European Data Forum, and the European Semantic Technologies conference.
Gefion Thuermer
Research Associate
Gefion Thuermer is a Research Associate at King’s College London, and leads WP4 in MediaFutures. Her research focuses include online participation, process design, HCI and socio-technical aspects of data: to enable inclusive engagement wherever people use technology to achieve goals together. She worked on projects including Data Pitch, where she was responsible for producing reports about the key lessons learned from the experience of data sharing, most notably a toolkit for data sharing, and ACTION, where she oversaw the development of a citizen science toolkit.
IRCAM-Centre Pompidou
Greg Beller
Product Manager of the Ircam Forum
Greg Beller works as an artist, a researcher, a teacher and a computer designer for contemporary arts. At the nexus of Arts and Sciences at IRCAM, he has been successively a PhD student on generative models for expressivity and their applications for speech and music, a computer music designer, the director of Research/Creation Interfaces Department and the product manager of the IRCAM Forum. Founder of the Synekine Project, he is currently doing a second PhD on “Natural Interfaces for Computer Music” at the HfMT Hamburg in the creation and the performance of artistic moments.
Louise Enjalbert
Art-tech coordination officer
Louise Enjalbert holds a master’s degree in Management of Cultural Organisation from University Paris Dauphine. With experience in innovative projects at the crossroads of culture and technology, she is now in charge of MediaFutures residency programme which implies designing the residency framework, following up the artists, easing the collaboration between artists, scientists and technologists as well as assessing the results and innovation aspects of the programme. She is also part of the communication team, sharing with the community the residency results, events and methodology.
Hugues Vinet
Director of Innovation and Research Means
Hugues Vinet has been in charge of supervising the innovation, research and technological development activities at IRCAM since 1995. He founded and directed the STMS Lab ( Science and Technology of Music and Sound) at IRCAM with the support of CNRS and Sorbonne University, which gathers 100+ researchers and engineers. He coordinated many collaborative R&D projects at national and EU levels, including the first EU projects dedicated to automatic audio indexing (CUIDADO, SemanticHIFI) and more recently the VERTIGO project managing STARTS Residencies, a program of 45 residencies of artists contributing to technological innovation throughout Europe.
He curates the Vertigo Forum, a yearly symposium at Centre Pompidou associated to thematic exhibitions gathering artists and researchers on contemporary trends of artistic creation in relation to science and technology. In MediaFutures, he is in charge of supervising the artistic residencies program.
DEN – Design Entrepreneurship Institute
Simona De Rosa
Senior Researcher
Dr Simona De Rosa, graduated in Political Science, got Phd in Economic Geography. In DEN, Simona works as researcher leading research activities linked to impact assessment and policy analysis. Since 2016, she is an active member of the Media community. Currently, Simona is Vice-chair for Liaison of the European Technology Platform funded by the European Commission, New European Media Initiativ. Also, Simona is member of the Content Innovation Council powered by the Borsenverein group and founding member of the Centre of Excellence on Disinformation hosted by the Luiss Data Lab, Aletheia, in Rome.
Katja Firus
Project manager, communication expert and partner
Ms. Katja Firus is an economist and specialised in the management of European research projects. She also has a high expertise in communication & dissemination, facilitation of meetings at all sizes (local, regional, international teams) and coordination and implementation of dissemination activities for research projects.
In MediaFutures she is coordinating the communication and dissemination of the project.
Andrea Nicolai
President
Andrea is an expert on a variety of research domains (media, local development, SMEs, tourism) and technologies (distributed architectures, multimedia content delivery, web-based education). He was project manager of international projects in FP6 (DBE, OPAALS) and coordinated some FP5 projects (FETISH and DAFNE), dealing with research and innovation in ICT in the areas of tourism, cultural and media industries sectors, and SME innovation paths. He was a member from 2003 to 2005 of the ISTAG advisory group and contributed to the writing of the following reports: (2004) Information Society Advisory Group Reports EU Commission, Consolidated report on Strategic Orientation; (2004) Grids, Distributed Systems and Service Architectures; (2003) Human resources, research infrastructures, funding mechanisms and partnership; (2003) Research results exploitation.
Antonella Passani
Head of research and partner
Dr Antonella Passani (PhD), is a sociologist with a minor in cultural anthropology, is a partner of DEN and coordinates the research activities. Expert in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, she has much experience in interdisciplinary research projects in which she contributes to or leads all stages of the research process (from research design definition to the elaboration of policy recommendations and the dissemination of results). Among her research interests are ICT for social change and empowerment, (digital) social innovation, participative processes, citizens science, inclusion and non-discrimination practices. She is an expert in the impact assessment of research and innovative processes and have developed several methodology for different communities.
zabala
Susana Garayoa
European Communication Projects Leader
Graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Navarre (2000).
Currently She works as European Communication Manager for ZABALA (Brussels office) and is associated professor of Science Journalism at the University of Navarre.
Susana is an expert journalist in Science and Environment, with more than 18 years of experience coordinating European projects in Energy and Environment at the Regional Government of Navarre (implementing environmental directives, Energy plans, and designing public participation processes) and ZABALA.
She is author of articles about communication and climate change and the role played by the institutional press offices on this field. She has managed the dissemination and communication WPs in more than 20 European projects (Communication Advisor for the ETIP-SNET Platform and BRIDGE, FINODEX accelerator initiatives among other) and has extensive experience in institutional relations with policymakers and public affairs.
Igor Idareta
European projects manager
Igor Idareta has earned 2 degrees in Industrial Engineering (specialty in Mechanics) and a BEng (Hons) in Design Engineering, from the Public University of Navarra (Spain) and Staffordshire University (UK). Mr. Idareta has worked for about 20 years as consultant of Innovation Management specialising in funding R&D and Innovation projects under Programmes such as V, VI and VII RTD Framework Programme (DG RTD – DG GROW – DG CNNECT), CIP-EcoInnovation (DG GROW), LIFE Programme (DG ENV – DG CLIMA), Intelligent Energy for Europe Programme (DG MOVE) and Interreg III Programme (DG REGIO).
He is specialised in technology transfer and commercialisation of R&D results in the framework of EU funded programmes, as well as industrial sustainability programmes related to all the areas relevant for the European Green Deal (Climate, Energy, Transport, Circular Economy, Zero pollution).
Inside ZABALA he leads the consultants team in charge of energy, mobility, industry and environment related European subprogrammes (Energy, Transport, NMBP, SPIRE, LIFE, CEF Transport, EU Innovation Fund).
Blanca Rodríguez
European projects manager
Telecommunications Engineer from Public University of Navarra (Spain). She is actually Manager of a team of 17 RTD European Programme Managers at Zabala and responsible for the coordination of the presentation of 50 European proposals per year in different European programmes like: H2020, ECSEL, COSME, Interreg, ERASMUS+ related to: EIC, ICT, Security, Health and Agro-food, Bioeconomy areas. She is also in charge of the Coordination and management of European Projects supported by the European Commission. Her last participation in EU projects has been: FINODEX, LT_Observastory and COWIN. She has been evaluator for the European Commission in the 7th FP and H2020 for ICT and SME instrument calls.
NMA – next media accelerator
Tanja Deuerling
EU Project Manager / Innovation Manager
Tanja Deuerling (phd) is an innovation expert and works as a consultant and trainer for innovation and change management in the European media industry. Tanja was editor-in-chief at and head of organizational development at one of the most important media houses in Germany, ProSiebenSat.1. Furthermore she worked as an executive producer and format developer for several TV production houses like ITV and Endemol.
Tanja Deuerling received her doctorate at the Film University Babelsberg and published her thesis “Innovation Management for New TV” in 2016.
Christoph Hüning
Managing Partner
Christoph Hüning has a degree in business mathematics and shows a track record as consultant and entrepreneur in digital media and communication industries since 1999. He joined the next media accelerator (NMA) in Hamburg in 2017. Before joining the NMA, Christoph was a partner in consulting companies with a focus on the media industry and founded his own consulting brand for Digital Change Services. Together with the NMA team his goal is to bring digital innovation to media houses by offering an acceleration program for media startups from Europe, US and Israel in Hamburg.
Nico Lumma
Managing Partner
Nico has studied Political Science and History in Göttingen, Germany, and in Berkeley, California. He hasn’t been offline since 1995 and has a strong interest in digital innovation. Nico co-founded the next media accelerator in 2015 to build the premier hub for media innovation in Europe. Nico co-founded D64 – Center for Digital Process, a non-profit organization that serves as a think-tank on important political issues dealing with the digital sphere. He serves on many advisory boards, including the State Council for Digital Development and Culture in Rhineland-Palatinate and the Roundtable on Digital Business of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
Fernanda Rojas
Jr Project Manager
With a background in international business and inspired by entrepreneurship and the empowerment of new ideas Fernanda gives a business-oriented perspective to the NMA team. As an MSc Business Development candidate, she will provide guidance to the Media Futures participants at identifying value propositions, mapping business strengths, and developing strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
KU Leuven – Centre for IT & IP Law
Marie Beudels
Researcher
Marie Beudels is a legal researcher at the Center for IT & IP Law of the KU Leuven. She is specialised in media law and data protection law. She has studied law at the University of Liège, Belgium and holds a Master of Laws (LL.M) degree from Harvard Law School.
Noémie Krack
Researcher
Noémie Krack is a legal researcher at the Center for IT & IP Law of the KU Leuven. She holds an LL.M. in IP & ICT Law from the KU Leuven and a Master in law with a specialization in European Law from the Université Catholique de Louvain. Before joining CiTiP, she undertook several traineeships which gave her the opportunity to work for the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the EU, the European Commission’s Legal Service and an EU Public Affairs consultancy.
As a legal researcher at KU Leuven she focuses on media law (freedom of expression, content moderation: disinformation, terrorist content, etc) but also on artificial intelligence, data protection and the challenges that technology raises for fundamental rights.
Aleksandra Kuczerawy
Postdoctoral Researcher
Aleksandra Kuczerawy is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven. She also teaches Media Law at the KU Leuven programme Master of Intellectual Property and ICT Law (LL.M.). Her PhD thesis on Private enforcement of public policies: Freedom of expression in the era of online gatekeeping was published as a book Intermediary Liability and Freedom of Expression in the EU: from concepts to safeguards.
As a postdoctoral researcher, Aleksandra works on the topics of AI, big data, and smart cities, but she also continues her work on intermediary liability, content moderation, freedom of expression and platform governance. In her research, she focuses on substantive and procedural safeguards in regulation of different types of content (terrorist content, copyright, disinformation, and hate speech).
Since 2019 Aleksandra is a non-resident fellow of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and in 2020 Aleksandra was appointed a member of a CoE Committee of Experts on Freedom of Expression and Digital Technologies (MSI-DIG). In June 2020 Aleksandra was awarded a FWO grant to conduct 3 years research on Online Content Moderation and the Rule of Law. She supervises CiTiP’s Media group including the Horizon2020 project MediaFutures.
Peggy Valcke
Professor
Peggy Valcke is professor of law and technology at the KU Leuven and vice dean research at the Leuven Faculty of Law & Criminology. She teaches courses on ICT law, media and telecommunications law, technology and law, AI ethics and regulation, and interdisciplinary study of law, in various masters and LL.M programmes at the KU Leuven.
Peggy has a broad experience with international and interdisciplinary research dealing with legal aspects of IT and Media innovation.
Besides her academic activities, Peggy is assessort (member of the deciding body) of the Belgian Competition Authority and member of the General Chamber of the Flemish Media Regulator. She also serves as vice-chair of CAHAI, the Council of Europe’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI.
LUISS University – Data Lab and School of Journalism
Gianni Riotta
Luiss Data Lab and Luiss School of Journalism Director
Gianni Riotta is the Pirelli Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the Department of French and Italian, focusing on digital humanities, the social and visual history of Italy, and machine writing. He is the Dean of the Master of Communication and Datalab at Luiss University, Rome where he leads the European Union Soma Project against disinformation and the Aletheia Center of Excellence. He serves in the Advisory Board NewsGuard and of Edmo, European Digital Media Observatory. Columnist for La Stampa and Huffington Post.
Federica Urzo
Head of Communication Luiss Data Lab, Luiss Journalism School
Federica has studied Political Science and International Relations at University of Naples Federico II. In 2014 she joined the European Commission – Directorate Financial Markets – where she dealt with corporate bonds, analysis of financial markets, capital movements, securities markets, investment funds and post trade services. In 2016 she became a Journalist. For the past two years she worked as Public Relations manager for an American corporation, where she tasked with marketing communication as well as fielding media questions and pitching stories to the media. She was also tasked with developing advertising and marketing communications material and social media engagement.
Eurecat
David Laniado
Senior Researcher
David Laniado is Senior researcher in Computational Social Science, in the Data Science and Big Data Analytics unit at Eurecat. His main research interest is the study of patterns of online conversation and discussion, controversies, collective dynamics in peer production communities, participatory democracy and deliberation processes, gender differences and socio-technical aspects of online interactions.
Julià Vicens
Research Scientist
Julià Vicens is a research scientist within the Data Science and Big Data unit at Fundació Eurecat. His research focuses on the study of collective behavior, urban systems, computational social science, and participatory science in the field of complex systems.
He has worked in centers and research groups such as OpenSystems or UBICS (Universitat de Barcelona), participating in national and international projects and publishing his research in top-tier journals. Transversally, he has been working on initiatives devoted to promoting the interaction between science, technology, education, and the arts.
odi – open data institute
Orsola De Marco
Head of Innovation
Orsola joined the ODI in 2015 and is part of the Senior Leadership Team.
As Head of Innovation, she works with public and private sector businesses and organisations to help them gain value through data using different innovation methods and approaches.
Having gained extensive experience working with startups, Orsola also advises and mentors early stage businesses on their value proposition, product development and business models.
She holds a BS in Economics and Management and an MA in Design Studies from Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London.
Ellen Goodman
Community Manager
Ellen joined the ODI in 2019 to work on startup and innovation programmes including Data Pitch, an EU-funded open innovation programme centred on shared data, and OpenActive, a Sport England-backed initiative to use open data to get more people active.
Previously, Ellen has experience working at a startup impact investment company, and on other startup support programmes, including the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub.
Tara Lee
Senior Consultant
Tara joined the ODI in 2018 to lead the engagement team for OpenActive, a Sport England funded initiative to help more people become physically active through open data. She led the Microsoft and ODI Education Open Data Challenge from 2020-2021 and is the MediaFutures project lead for the ODI.
Prior to joining the ODI, Tara was a senior consultant at Upshot, a project management, monitoring and evaluation system that works with community organisations.
Tara holds a BSc in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE).
Emma Cohen
Senior Marketing Manager
Emma joined the ODI in October 2020 and is responsible for planning and delivering cross-channel digital marketing campaigns to promote key ODI products, services and events (such as the ODI’s Inside Business series and the ODI Summit).
Prior to the ODI, she’s worked for a variety of organisations within different sectors, including Salix Finance, a not-for-profit green finance company; NCS Trust, a UK-wide youth development organisation; BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity; and leading global professional membership organisation, ICAEW.
Emma has a BA in French and European Studies from the University of Sussex.
