European Trend Day

Azeem Azhar Entrepreneur and investor. The former journalist is now CEO of Peer-Index, a company that analyses information from the social web and calculates an influence index that reveals a person’s social capital.

John Bielenberg Designer and co-founder of Common, a network of creatives aiming to transform capitalism. Common is a collaborative brand for accelerating positive social change. Bielenberg has won more than 250 design awards.

Norbert Bolz Professor of Media Studies at the Technical University of Berlin, zeitgeist-philosopher and trend analyst. Bolz is an important thinker on cultural development and author of numerous publications on media, marketing and communication.

David Bosshart CEO of Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, one of Europe’s leading think tanks for business and society. The focuses of David Bosshart’s work are trade, consumption, management and social change.

Stefana Broadbent Digital ethnographer and senior lecturer at University College in London. From 2004 to 2008, Broadbent headed Swisscom’s “Observatory of Digital Life”, which provides the telecom company with strategic advice in the media convergence field.

Laurens Bushoff CEO and founder of ShopWithYourFriends.com, where friends can counsel and shop together. For suppliers, the platform works as a virtual shop window. The former IT consultant wants to take his platform to the top of the fashion community.

Gregory Gerhardt Founder and CEO of Amazee Labs, the web agency that launched amazee.com, one of the first online platforms for social collaboration. The first mover received a Swiss ICT Award in 2009. Gerhardt will explain why, in spite of its success, he has shut down the platform.

Micki Krimmel Social media advisor and founder of NeighborGoods.net. The online platform enables neighbours to share things – not everybody needs a power drill of their own, right? Currently friends and neighbours are sharing goods worth four million dollars.

Sean Moffitt Managing Director and President of Agent Wildfire Strategy & Communications Inc., a customer engagement consultancy based out of Toronto, Canada. Author of the 2011 award-winning book «Wikibrands – Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace».

Maximilian Neuhaus CEO of myTaxi in Switzerland. This start-up is the provider of the innovative taxi-booking system myTaxi, which enables taxis to be called by app. Within a short time myTaxi has become Europe's largest taxi marketplace.

Björn Schäfers is CEO of smatch.com, the biggest german product search
machine for fashion, living and lifestyle. The independant product search uses social-shopping- and personlisation-components to put together individual and suitable product recommendations for their customers.

Peter Wippermann Founder of Trendbüro, Hamburg. Peter Wippermann is a Professor of Communication Design at Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, a specialist in trend-based brand management, and the author of numerous publications.

Mauro Guarise Online editor at GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. The graduate in literature studies has worked as a journalist and sings on-stage in his free time. He will guide you through the programme.