Kaspars Abelnica
Web Project Administrator at Erasmus Student Network
Kaspars is the ESN board member responsible for overseeing all projects related to the digitalisation of the Erasmus+ programme.
Ida Andersson
DigiEduHack Project Manager at Aalto University
Ida worked as an Education Policy Manager at Nokia headquarters until 2012. At Apple, she started working directly with schools to enhance the use of technology in learning. She joined Aalto University in 2019.
Antoaneta Angelova-Krasteva
Director for Innovation, DG Education and Culture, European Commission
Antoaneta oversees the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and the European Institute for Innovation and Technology and is responsible for developing and monitoring the implementation of the EU Digital Education Action Plan.
Begoña Arano
Head of Unit for ‘Innovation and EIT’, DG Education and Culture, European Commission
Begoña currently serves as Head of Unit for “Innovation and EIT” at the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission.
Arjana Blazic
eTwinning Ambassador, Teacher Trainer and EdTech Advisor
Arjana holds an M.Ed.from the University of Zagreb and a Course Designer Diploma from the CARNet e-Learning Academy. She is a recipient of the 2014-15 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Award.
Sasha Bezuhanova
Senior Executive, Angel Investor and Philanthropist
Sasha is the founder of MOVE.BG, a non-partisan platform for collaboration in finding sustainable solutions for the state, economy and society via innovation, participation and co-creation.
Mark Brown
Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University
Mark was active in the field of Distance Learning in New Zealand, Australia and Europe. 2017 he was recognised by the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) as a world leader in supporting new digitally enhanced models of higher education.
Themis Christophidou
Director-General of DG EAC, European Commission
Themis has served as Director-General since 2018. She holds a Master in Civil Engineering and participated in the Leadership Development Program of the Harvard Business School.
Georgi Dimitrov
Deputy Head of Unit Innovation and EIT at DG EAC, European Commission
Georgi joined the EC in 2008. Since 2020, Dimitrov has been project team leader for the new edition of the EU Digital Education Action Plan.
Kirsten Dunlop
CEO at EIT Climate-KIC
Kirsten’s career spans academia, consulting, banking, insurance, strategy, design, innovation and leadership. She has been the Chief Executive Officer at EIT Climate-KIC since February 2017.
Mariya Gabriel
European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
Mariya is the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, Youth and Sport. Under her leadership the new Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, and the cultural strand of Creative Europe programmes will be defined and implemented.
Thomas Gegenhuber
Junior Professor of Digital Transformation at Leuphana University Lüneburg
Thomas explores in his research various digital transformation phenomena such as digital platforms or crowdfunding. He currently studies the #WirVsVirus hackathon to understand how government, civil society and the private sector can collaborate to resolve societal challenges.
Stephan Geifes
Director National Agency for EU Higher Education Cooperation at the DAAD
Stephan is the Director of the National Agency for EU Higher Education Cooperation at the DAAD. Among other things, he has been Director of the DAAD Regional Office in Paris, Secretary General of the Franco-German University and Head of Section for Transnational Education at the DAAD.
Jakub Grodecki
Executive Committee Member of the European Students’ Union
Jakub’s work serves to ensure quality in higher education, with a particular emphasis on quality assurance. He also works as a quality assurance student-expert of the Polish Accreditation Committee.
Sarah Guth
UNICollaboration President and Consortium Member Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange
Sarah teaches English as a foreign language at the University of Padova, Italy. She was the Program Coordinator at the SUNY COIL Center from 2013 to 2014. She is passionate about Virtual Exchange and internationalization-at-home strategies.
Ulrike Grandi-Haferstroh
Board member GemeinsamEinzigartig
Ulrike is dedicated to promoting diversity in schools and oversees organizational development and communications at GemeinsamEinzigartig.
Luise Heidenreich
Co-Head of Education and Learning at EIT Climate-KIC
Luise is an experienced and passionate innovator with a long history in the international education and learning sector, designing and managing multi stakeholder programmes and cutting-edge education initiatives.
Hans-Ulrich Heiß
Vice President of TU Berlin for Teaching, Digitalisation and Sustainability
Hans-Ulrich is professor of computer science and responsible for matters of education, digitalisation, and sustainability.
Gohar Hovhannisyan
President of the European Students’ Union
At ESU - an umbrella organisation for national student unions from 40 European countries - Gohar mainly works on the area of quality of higher education, with an emphasis given to quality assurance, learning and teaching, digitalisation and meaningful students’ participation in governance.
Angela Ittel
Vice President of TU Berlin for Strategic Development, Young Talent and Teacher Training
Angela focuses on areas of strategic development – including collaborative research, international relations, diversity and equality – junior scholars, and teacher education.
Oliver Janoschka
Managing Director of Hochschulforum Digitalisierung
Oliver has served as Managing Director since the inception of HFD in 2014. Until then he worked in the field of higher education in various European Member States for more than seven years.
Anja Karliczek
German Minister of Education and Research
Anja has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013, she has a degree in business management from FernUniversität in Hagen and has been Germany‘s Federal Minister of Education and Research since March 2018.
Ilona Kish
Director of Public Libraries 2030
Ilona is a Library Avenger. She aims to create a stronger European library sector through EU advocacy and network building. As a former Secretary General of Culture Action, she is using her knowledge of the operational and political functions of EU institutions.
Alexander Knoth
Head of Section Digitalisation, DAAD
Alexander is a historian and sociologist - and enthusiastic about international virtual collaboration. He is responsible for the strategic planning and management of digitalisation activities at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Line Gry Knudsen
Founder of LEARN Consulting
Line is a dedicated learning and education specialist with a deep insight into the interplay between learning and innovation. She believes that people empowered with the right skills, capabilities, and mindsets are vital for the transformation towards a sustainable society.
Bartek Lessaer
Policy Officer, Education and Training Monitor Coordinator at DG EAC, European Commission
Bartek is a policy analyst and coordinates the Education and Training Monitor, European Commission's flagship publication on education.
David Middelbeck
Co-Founder & Chairman of TechLabs
David is the Co-Founder & Chairman of the global non-profit TechLabs, which helps more than 1,000 students every year learn coding skills for free.
Tina Marie Monelyon
Research Associate at University of Applied Sciences Mainz and Leuphana University Lüneburg
Tina’s passion for (digital) education and academia brought her back to Germany in 2020 after a long stint in India. She currently conducts research on open educational resources to foster online research competence as part of an ongoing research project that developed out of a digital hackathon.
Margaux Pelen
Founder of Learning Studio
Margaux has been an entrepreneur and advisor in edtech since 2011. She's the founder of Learning Studio, a European collective of freelancers focusing on the future of education and work, and currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of CodeControl.io.
Florian Rampelt
Deputy Managing Director of HFD, Managing Director of AI Campus
Florian is Managing Director of the AI Campus, a learning platform for artificial intelligence. In 2018, he launched the Bologna Digital initiative to achieve more European collaboration on digitalisation in the European Higher Education Area.
Cristina Riesen
Founder and CEO of Educreators Foundation
Cristina is the Founder and CEO of Educreators Foundation, a non-profit supporting deep change in education.
Dorothea Rüland
DAAD Secretary General
She has been serving as Secretary General of the DAAD since October 2010 and is passionate about supporting international exchange with the vast possibilities offered by digitalisation.
Jose Saldana
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director at Impact Hub Hamburg
Born in Barcelona, Jose had the chance to work around the world (e. g., from Denmark, to Chile, and the US). He co-funded the Impact Hub Hamburg after working in large corporates for many years.
Søren Salomo
Chair of Technology and Innovation Management at TU Berlin
Søren is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of Innovation Management and author of the leading German textbook on the subject.
Mirko Schoedel
Organiser of #WirfuerSchule
Mirko is the CEO of wirfürschule. In June 2020, wirfürschule organized the largest educational hackathon in Germany with more than 6000 participants and over 200 solutions.
Waldo Soto
Director of 2811
Waldo – originally from Chile and now based in Berlin – is the co-founder of the international social change platform "2811". He holds a BA in Economics from PUC Chile, and an MSc in Urban Management from TU Berlin.
Petri Suomala
Vice President for Education at Aalto University
Petri is Chair of Aalto’s Learning Steering Group which prepares, coordinates, monitors and follows up joint strategic and operative issues in education and learning. Before he held the same position at Tampere University of Technology.
Jana Tokaryk
eTwinning Ambassador & Secondary School Teacher
Jana is an enthusiastic learner, author and consultant. She works as English and French teacher at a Berlin secondary school. As an eTwinning ambassador, she is passionate about global exchanges - virtual and in real life.
Altheo Valentini
ALL Digital board member, Sociologist and communicator
Altheo believes deeply in the power of transformative social change. In 2016, he became entranced by the magic of hackathons and launched the first Social Hackathon Umbria, a 48-hour digital marathon for the co-creation of innovative solutions.
Bart Verswijvel
Senior Pedagogical Adviser for European Schoolnet
Bart is a Belgian educator and expert trainer and the pedagogical lead of the Future Classroom Lab, the concept of a flexible learning space. He also coordinates the EUN network of Future Classroom ambassadors and the emerging network of Future Classrooms.
Petri Vuorimaa
Vice-head of Education at Department of Computer Science at Aalto University
Petri is programme director of both master’s programme in Computer, Communication, and Information Sciences and double-degree programme in ICT Innovations (EIT Digital Master School) and the academic leader of the FITech ICT project.
Rona van der Zander
Startup Founder GrowbeYOUnd & si:cross
Rona is a start-up founder, university lecturer and TEDx speaker. She cooperates worldwide with companies, NGOs and international organisations in the field of innovative education.
