Pathways to Funding in the US and Germany

Fermin Fernandez is the Founding Project Manager and Managing Director of the Chicago Connectory. In addition to this, Fermin leads the Bosch IoT digital innovation team in the US. In his work, he consistently looks to use project management as an enabler of results that allow people, companies and communities to learn and push the boundaries of possibility forward.

Marc Filerman is Managing Partner at German Accelerator Life Sciences – an organization accelerating international growth of German startups. He has over 30 years experience in healthtech commercialization, marketing, and sales. Marc co-founded a molecular imaging startup, was Chief Commercial Officer at a hometech venture, and has held multiple corporate leadership positions including VP of Global Marketing at iCAD, and Group Director of Marketing at Smith & Nephew. He holds MS and BS degrees from MIT and started his career at HP as a design engineer.

Christian Jorg is a serial founder and startup mentor. He started his career at German Media company Bertelsmann in the 90s in New York City. He made the company’s first investments in Silicon Valley joining the Board of a company founded by Steve Blank (now of “Lean Startup” fame), beginning his long relationship with entrepreneurship. He is currently Managing Partner for the US program of the German Accelerator (Tech) which has brought over 200 startups to the US. Program alumni include decacorn Celonis, unicorns Signavio (sold to SAP), Forto, N26 and many others.

Oscar Romero is the Program Director at the NYC Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (MOCTO). His work focuses on building innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems to address urban inequality in the US’ largest urban economy by leveraging civic engagement, emerging technology, and international partnerships. He oversees the design, management, and evaluation of global multi-stakeholder partnerships to address diverse urban development challenges in NYC. Ranging from issues on displacement, safety, access to social services, workforce development, access to STEAM education, access to representation, housing rights, accessible mental health services, and access to critical infrastructure.

Dr. Pelin Yilmaz is a senior investment manager at b.value AG, a joint venture company in German biotechnology. Dr. Yilmaz has extensive experience in molecular biology, marine microbiology and bioinformatics. In 2007 she joined the graduate program of the Max Planck Research School at the MPI for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, and received her PhD in bioinformatics and marine microbiology in 2011. Since then, Dr. Yilmaz has worked as a partner and project leader in various nationally and internationally funded projects and consortia focusing on bioinformatics (e.g. de.NBI and Genomic Standards Consortium), working to expand the understanding of the microbiome in marine environments and human health.

Christian Magel is Managing Partner of Venture Lane Studios, the Founder of Venture Lane Startup Hub Boston, international startup veteran, coach and advisor, business angel and expert for go-to-market strategies, communication and international rollout. Christian founded Venture Lane in 2018 in Boston as a curated startup hub for early-stage tech companies. His mission is to create real, measurable impact for member companies through a vibrant creative space, a collaborative community of like-minded entrepreneurs, and impactful events and connections into the local ecosystem. In January 2022 he co-founded Venture Lane Studio, a bespoke traction and GoToMarket program for early-stage B2B software ventures.

Friederike Schneider has been working at the Horst-Görtz-Institute for IT-Security (HGI)  at the Ruhr-University Bochum since 2015. Since March 2021 she is the deputy managing director for transfer and in charge of the startup incubator Cube 5. As a former project manager of the "nrw.uniTS" network, she is particularly familiar with the IT security ecosystem in NRW. Before working at the HGI, Friederike gained experience abroad in Australia, China, Namibia and Belgium and worked, among others, for the German Red Cross General Secretariat in Berlin in the field of security research.

Wolfram von Heynitz is currently the Deputy Consul General of Germany in New York. Prior to this he was Head of the Cyber Policy Coordination Staff of the German Federal Foreign Office, a member of the Group of Governmental Experts on Advancing responsible State behavior in cyberspace convened in 2019 by UN Secretary-General Guterres and a member of the Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence of the Council of Europe. In this position, he was also responsible for the recently published “Recommendations for the Future of Digital cooperation” which Germany and the UAE undertook at the request of the UN.