Jordi Ràfols is the founder and CEO of Innoget.com, one of the largest online open innovation networks. He has more than 20 years of experience working on open innovation and technology transfer, and internet business. He has been directly involved in hundreds of open innovation projects in a wide range of different industries and has worked with several international companies in the evaluation, development, and deployment of their open innovation programs. 

As part of the Catalan national program “Startup Catalonia,” he acted as a business coach for technology-based startups, helping them to develop and implement their strategy and accelerate business growth. He has been a managing partner at Science2Society.eu, one of the largest EU-funded projects in the field of technology transfer and open innovation aimed at developing new processes to enhance industry-academia collaboration. 

Jordi holds an MBA at ESADE Business School and a corporate finance degree at IE (Instituto de Empresa in Madrid) and has been involved in corporate venture and valuation projects. As an innovation conference speaker, he has shared his view on open innovation and collaborative R&D and innovation ecosystems in many international and cross-industries events in Berlin, London, Edinburgh, Boston, Paris, Singapore, and Barcelona. He has also given lectures to MBA program alumni at ESADE Business School on online open innovation business models.

Arjan Rensma till recently was an innovation excellence manager at DSM. His responsibility is to support the DSM Innovation Council, develop and execute the DSM Innovation Excellence program, and accelerate and improve the success rate of innovation in DSM. He is the Innovation Excellence lead for the Materials Sciences cluster, coordinates the DSM Innovation Learning Program, as well as the DSM Corporate Entrepreneurship program. Previously, Arjan held management & NBD roles in banking, publishing, consultancy, and research. He started his career at the Philips NatLab. Arjan is a Dutch national and holds an MSc in business science from RSM and the University of California at Berkeley. He is a member of the advisory board and guest lecturer of the Master of Innovation & Change at HS Zuyd and board member of the Interregional Platform of the Creative Industry / Creative Entrepreneurship. He has a wife and three kids and lives in Bemelen, a small village close to Maastricht.

Sabrina Jones joined Robert Bosch Venture Capital in 2018 and is responsible for “Open Bosch” – the Bosch Venture Client unit for partnerships with startups. Her previous roles with Bosch cover business models & innovation, corporate strategy, and AI research. Before, she led an e-commerce startup for Bosch Rexroth as an intrapreneur. She holds a doctorate in physics (Dr., Vienna University of Technology). Prior to joining Bosch in 2015, she was a researcher in semiconductor physics at the Austrian Institute of Technology and Uppsala University. She co-led the winning team of the 2013 US Solar Decathlon competition.

Alan Walker studied Natural Sciences with a specialty in Organic Synthesis at King’s College, Cambridge, UK. Doctoral Ph.D. thesis in the Biosynthetic Studies of Coronatine, Coronofacic acid, and Polyoximic acid at Rice University, Houston, Tx USA under Dr. R. J. Parry.

Joined Kaneka Corporation in 1999 to run their North American Fine Chemicals business where he was responsible for the Commercial & Development business with Pharmaceutical & Biopharmaceutical companies in the US. In 2015 conceived and started Kaneka’s Center for Business Development & Open Innovation, a team responsible for searching for and securing new technologies and business opportunities to expand and grow or business fields and initiatives.

Experienced in researching how open innovation works for a manufacturing B2B firm. As the leader of the strategy and deployment of open innovation practices, Javier has benchmark, developed, standardized, and trained colleagues company-wide to engage them in practices that accelerate innovation. By acting as an enabler of open innovation, he’s worked with design thinking, business model innovation, and product design challenges with external communities to provide unbiased insights to the company. He also leads the development of the business unit innovation ecosystem by scouting new technologies and fostering external partnerships. As part of his role leading innovation ecosystems & guaranteeing value-driven I.P., he’s experienced creating protection strategies for technology developments, negotiating collaboration terms with technology partners, and ensuring that the company captures value from each relationship. 

Dr. Frank-Jürgen Richter is the Chairman of Horasis - a global visions community dedicated to inspiring our future. Horasis is using its unrivaled history of partnership with corporations from emerging markets to create a powerful platform for cooperation between emerging and developed markets. The flagship events are the Horasis Global Meeting as well as regional summits focusing on China, India, and Southeast Asia.

He has developed extensive experience and knowledge of the world's economic, business, and political scene and of its key players. As one of the leading international business analysts, he influences major business and governmental decisions with his public commentary. Prior to founding Horasis, Dr. Richter was a Director of the World Economic Forum. He also lived, studied, and worked in Asia for almost a decade, principally in Tokyo and in Beijing, where he developed and managed European Multinationals' China operations.

Melvyn Ho, Initiative Leader Open Innovation from Group Innovation & Sustainability at Clariant, facilitates and drives the company’s global open innovation activities. In his role, he focuses on defining the appropriate open innovation approach for the internal business units and supporting them to identify the right technology partners for their business needs. These activities include raising internal awareness of emerging technologies and market opportunities, technology scouting as well as developing programs for internal innovation community and external open innovation platforms. Before Clariant, he was a technology consultant at IPI-Singapore supporting enterprises in the healthcare and wellness industry and a research associate at the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) in the area of drug discovery. Melvyn holds a Master’s Degree in Synthetic Chemistry and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore.

Laszlo is an Open Innovation expert, high-tech entrepreneur, and innovation strategy designer with over 25 years of experience in a large variety of industries and organizations. Founding partner of Innovation Accelerator firm Bax & Company. He has worked on environmental impact reduction involving lightweight polymer materials with leading industries in Automotive and Wind Energy for decades.

Passionate about digital transformation, Thibaut got a multidisciplinary background in engineering and design. To diversify his skills he worked in multinational and startup environments in international contexts. For Thibaut, diversity and collaboration enrich the designs and the experiences we provide to users. Technic, design, business and humans work together to design better transition. Thibaut lives his passion about design mentoring students as well.

Gavin Suss was born in South Africa and immigrated to Israel with his family at the age of 9. He has a Ph.D. in Education and Management from Tel Aviv University, and he graduated from the executive managers program at Harvard Business School. His research includes creative thinking and innovation.

For years he served as the Academic Director at the acclaimed Design and Engineering College "Shenkar." He was elected as executive director of the High Committee of Public Colleges in 2006 and served as a Director of the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People. Served as VP Corporate for a decade at Keter Plastic (The largest plastic manufacturer in the world).

Today he is Dean of the School of Design and Innovation at the College of Management and lectures worldwide. He conducts workshops on creativity and innovation for the leading firms. Suss is the author of the book "It's all About Creativity" (the English version will be published in 2021).

Ignacio (Nacho) Villoch is a recognized generator of content on Innovation, Talent, and Sustainability driven Digital Transformation, to which he has been working professionally for more than a decade. In his more than 25 years of professional experience, he has lived and worked in 4 continents, from Singapore to Paraguay, through Miami and New York, in management positions of business development in the financial industry. 

Author of business novels such as "Diana's Adventure. Entrepreneurship against all odds in the Blue Ocean" or "Yago's Talent: The quest for the wells of talent ", actively participates as a mentor, inspirer, advisor, or promoter in diverse communities and entrepreneurship projects such as MET Community, Heroes Club, Team labs or the SEK lab.

Guest lecturer and professor in programs of innovation, creativity, and digital transformation of the main business schools and inspirational lecturer and facilitator in institutional and corporate events, he actively engages in promoting Agenda 2030 and SDGs. Linkedin awarded Villoch the Top Social Executive Award of Spain and Portugal in 2016.

Currently, Nacho Villoch manages the creation of Fintech ecosystems, from where he promotes the digital transformation of the financial industry through open innovation, design thinking, and AGILE dynamics.

Niclas is on a mission to change medical research into an effective collaborative movement where sharing and openness successfully meet science and business. As Head of Open Innovation at LEO Pharma, he has designed and implemented transformative open research and collaboration platform, creating a unique and award-winning interface to external innovation.

Building on a strong scientific background (MSc and Ph.D. in medical sciences), Niclas is continuously challenging transdisciplinary boundaries to create synergy between pharma R&D and, e.g., customer co-creation, open-source, social media, machine learning, blockchain, business, digitalization, and democratized crowd participation.

Jason LaRoche is Clinical Innovation Leader at Janssen Pharmaceuticals. He has more than 15 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, where he has held various positions in supply chain management, clinical development, clinical innovation, and strategic business development. In his current role, Jason is responsible for helping define the clinical trial of the future, advancing clinical research as a patient-centric care option, and minimizing the impact of clinical research on the environment. Jason holds a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MS in Operations Research from the University of Florida. He is also APICS CSCP certified.

Ph.D. in Production Engineering, Electrical Engineer from the University of São Paulo (USP) and Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. He is Head of Sustainability and Continuous Improvement at Grupo Petropolis, the 3rd largest brewing company in Brazil, and is a professor in the Production Engineering Department at Mackenzie Presbyterian University. His career has more than 20 years of experience in companies such as Grupo Petropolis, Valeo Electrical Systems (Brazil and France), and Honda 4 wheel.