How might we boost innovation with cooperation?

Buyer of Purchasing Department, AUDI AG Kirsten Wolf works in the Procurement Department at Audi and is a member of their innovation team. With a master degree in industrial engineering, she brings a comprehension for the business and the technical world. Whilst participating in the Audi International Graduate Program, Kirsten focused on automotive innovation topics such as eMobilty and autonomous driving. It was through this experience she was able to gain valuable insights into various Audi departments including a freshly established subsidiary with a start-up character. This developed a deep understanding of the important aspects for Audi’s internal processes and external collaborations and cooperation.

Innovatitions management procurement department, AUDI AG Within Audi procurement, Matthias is responsible for the coordination of the next generation electronics architecture, allowing him to work with innovative and cutting edge hard- and software solutions for tomorrows cars. He recently took over the lead of the innovation management team and looks forward to realizing groundbreaking projects at Audi. With a degree in international engineering and a professional qualification in international business management as well as work experience abroad and in very small businesses he brings in all the different points of view to successfully implementing innovative ideas and projects.

Buyer of procurement department, AUDI AG As an industrial engineer with a specialisation on electrical engineering and information technology, Ralf Rabe has the ability for solving problems in technical as well as in economic topics. For 4 years he has been working in the Procurement Department and gained valuable practical knowledge in cooperation with suppliers. That means taking responsibility from awarding contracts, all the way through a well-planned project phase and finally having a successful partnership during series-production. The question for him is, how can the automotive industry with long decision making processes and focused business area work together with Startups which have an innovative business concept and over proportional potential for growth. And how we can create such a collaboration that is profitable and attractive for both sides.

Entrepreneur, Lecturer, Presenter & Public Speaker, aka "The Pitch-Professor" Daniel is a passionate entrepreneur, lecturer, presenter and keynote speaker. He wrote his thesis on Mobile Marketing, became a founding member of the full-service app-agency allaboutapps (a joint venture of i5invest and runtastic) and advises several startups. Daniel is Co-Founder and Member of the Board of AustrianStartups (a non-profit to strengthen the entrepreneurial eco-system), Co-Founder of crowdinvesting-platform primeCROWD and lectures at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, the Vienna University of Technology, the Vienna University of Economics and Business as well as the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt. In October 2015 he joined the Board of the WWG – Österreichische Werbewissenschaftliche Gesellschaft / the Austrian Association of Advertising Sciences, in January 2016 he became founding member of startup300 – an early-stage accelerator and in August 2016 founding partner of the Vienna Mentoring Group (viemeg.com), a mentoring program for early stage startups. He has hosted more than 180 events on startups including Pioneers Festival (one of the leading startup-events in Europe) and was the presenter of the Austrian version of Shark Tank, "2Minuten, 2Millionen – die PULS4 Startup-Show” on national TV. In October 2016 he co-hosted “The Spark – Der Deutsche Digitalpreis” (The German Digital Awards), in June 2017 the “Tag der Deutschen Industrie” (Day of German Industry/TDI`17) followed by the Startup-Academy at Bits & Pretzels 2017 and in February 2018 he gave his US-debut hosting “Moving Forward” (a conference with an innovation focus) in New York. He is nicknamed “The Pitch Professor” and is considered as one of the leading experts and trainers on pitching with more than 200 trainings held both for startups and large corporations.