Dr. Karin Drda-Kühn

Dr. Karin Drda-Kühn, managing director of media k GmbH, a German company specialized in European research and application projects in the creative industries, ICT and energy sector. Her current interest focuses on cultural tourism in rural regions, also predominant in her recent publications.

She experienced that innovation mainly happens at the interfaces of disciplines, may it be culture and regional development or monument heritage and energy efficiency. In 2010, she was appointed "European Ambassador for Women Entrepreneurship” by the European Commission, since 2012 she chairs the European Mobile & Mobility Industries Alliance (EMMIA) - Policy Learning Platform (PLP) of EC DG Enterprise and Industries.

Mr. Philippe Moretto

Philippe currently works for the ENCADRE association as Director and as Head of the Task Force for the ETSI Innovation unit. He has worked for more than 20 years in the IT sector and has acquired a well balanced experience within large corporations (+10  years) and public authorities (10 years).

He likes to be exposed to multi-disciplinary environments combining good understanding of technical, business and policy requirements. He has been involved in many EC projects and is recognized as a visionary expert in future mobile services. He is also a supporter of Galileo from the early times.  

Rene Tõnnisson

He is a Founding Director of Smart City Lab. He has 20 years of experience in innovation management and business development. He has been or is currently serving as member of executive boards of Tartu Science Park, Tartu Biotechnology Park, Baltic Innovation Agency, Institute of Baltic Studies, Connect Estonia, BuildIT Accelerator. He has been responsible for wide range of innovation, technology and business related activities in Estonia and he has also worked in advisory positions for the European Commission including European Cluster Policy Group, European Mobile and Mobility Industries Association Expert Group, External Advisory Group for Regional Aspect of FP7.

His main areas of expertise include innovation management, international technology transfer, regional innovation systems and strategies, foresight, cluster development and internationalisation. Rene Tõnnisson holds a Master degree in Public Administration and Policy from University of Tartu, Estonia and Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg (Sciences Po), Université de Robert Schuman. He has also been studying at University of Cambridge and European University Institute.

Furio Gerace

Furio Gerace has a degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Materials Science, obtained from the Department of Chemistry, University "La Sapienza" of Rome. From 1994 to 2000 he worked in the laboratory of Electrochemistry of Professor Bruno Scrosati at the University "La Sapienza", with a contract from US Navy and a grant from NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development organization) Japan, for research in the field of advanced lithium batteries. During those years, he became interested in particular to the computer analysis of the experimental data and to the digital simulation of the behaviour of batteries.

 From 2000 to 2014, he worked in the field of Information Technology as a developer, group manager, consultant and teacher. From 2010 to 2012, he collaborated with the Province of Rome to the development of GIS (Geographic Information System) applications and to the European Project "Plan4all", Interoperability for Spatial Planning. 

From 2012 to 2014, under the supervision of Professor Francesco Filippi of Department of Engineering of University "La Sapienza" of Rome, he collaborated with the Province of Rome, to the project European Project "M3 – Nemesis" of the EMMIA Political Learning Platform, at the same time he worked at the development of Mobile applications for Android operative system.

Mr. Paul Bhatia

Mr. Paul Bhatia is a director in Grace. Paul has provided business support and consultancy to many companies, individuals and organisations and the EU. He has over 20 years of industrial experience starting as a graduate with GKN Automotive. He holds an MSc in Engineering Business Management (University of Warwick) and is a qualified Prince 2 Project Manager. Paul is a highly experienced Business Development Manager, Project Manager and geospatial technology applications market practitioner. He co-ordinates satellite applications cluster related activity in the Midlands region of the UK. He has worked as an International Investment Manager and Transport Technologies Sector Development Manager for the British Midlands region of the UK.

Eoin P. O’Neill, BSc, Ph.D. , M.I.C.I.

Director of Innovation Services at TCD, 1986-2006.

Director of Entrepreneurship, TCD 2006-2008.

Part-time Consultant to Trinity Research and Innovation, 2008-2014.

Chief Technical Advisor, Department of Energy (and Industry), 1979-86

IIRS 1978-79

Westinghouse Electric R&D Centre, Pa., USA 1971-79

University of Leeds, 1969-71

Graduate student Demonstrator, 1964-69

Approx 30 Research reports and papers.

Major Reports: Electricity Prices inquiry, 1974

A Study on 

Director, Bord na Móna 1986-1990

Director, Authentik language Learning Services Ltd, 1987-2005

Director of Nutriscan and IEFS, 1988-2000.

Board of Proton, 2000

Member of a number of Committees analyzing industries.

Managed liaison with Hitachi Dublin Laboratory, 1989-2006

Worked with GMIT 1995-2006 on courses and projects.

University Rep on San Jose Sister Committee Delegations, four times.

Worked on five EU projects in Innovation, High performance Computing.. 

Judge in YS Exhibition for about 30 years.

Here is the list of most recent projects, 2014:

Work with the EMMIA Consortium on VC and regional development, run from Bavaria.

Delivering a course on Intellectual Property for the QUB/UCD/TCD Innovation Academy.

Co-delivering the module on Scaling of SMEs in the TCD MBA Programme.

Guest lecturer on a finance module for a Master’s Programme, UCC

He also has live contacts with experts in UCC, QUB, and overseas, in fields of entrepreneurship education and innovation. He worked with hundreds of postgraduates interested in start-up phase of entrepreneurship, and with providers of expertise and capital.

Mr. Boyan Milushev

Boyan Milushev is former Parliamentary secretary of the Bulgarian Ministry of culture. He is a member of the National association of small and medium business, twice a member of the City council in Kyustendil and a member of the regional tourism council, a member of the jury in the “Inovative capital” – Technology transfer office in Sofia.

M-r Milushev was a coordinator of the Bulgarian partners in the Grow mobile project under the EMMIA initiative.

Mr. Aleardo Furlani

Aleardo FURLANI (1958), graduated in Law, holds an MBA from IESE- Barcelona (1987). Senior associate for MAC Group /GEMINI Consulting Group from 1987 to 1992, he carried out technology marketing projects in the Space TLC sector.

He founded INNOVA in 1993 with the mission to support Industry and Universities in the market exploitation of R&D results and patents.

He is presently CEO of INNOVA, which is now a  Group  with branches in Italy, USA, Luxembourg, Poland, UK, Spain and Belgium. INNOVA consulting activities now include  own Applied Research  laboratories (LABOR) and INVENT,  a seed capital company holding 17 participations in technology-based start-ups.

Aleardo Furlani has recently been involved in numerous assignments related to the market take-up of mobile and social media applications applications( “Traffic Shaper” and “Urban Sensing” Projects), IoS ( COMPOSE project) and is co-author of 2 books on Social Media: "Social  innovation "(2012) and "The Liquid Corporation" (2013), published by Franco Angeli Publisher .