Akar Şümşet \ Invertiv
Founder \ Invertiv
Akar Sumset is the founder of INVERTIV, a “Product Driven” training and consultancy company. He’s been working on digital products for almost a decade now. Akar holds a master’s degree on Persuasion and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Engineering. The companies he has worked with includes Coca Cola, Vodafone, Comodo, Turkcell (Turkish Telco Giant), Akbank (Leading Turkish Bank) etc. and some startups including Zeplin.io (During his time at Startupbootcamp). He’s also a top writer at Medium writing for publications like UX Collective, UX Planet as well as Smashing Magazine. He organizes ProductTank Istanbul and enjoys speaking and hosting workshops at international events.
» Gamifying Products Using Behavioral Design Techniques – A Holistic Application « on Wednesday 10:15
Aldrich Huang \ UXTesting.io
CEO and Co-founder of UXTesting \ UXTesting.io
Aldrich Huang is an entrepreneur, a co-founder of UXTesting, his first company, founder of SavvyUXer, as well as organizer of the Savvy UX Summit. He has worked in the field of legal, business development, and customer experience for several years, and he firmly believes that better user experience will bring joy to your users.
» Cross-continent business through UX data-driven design « on Thursday 09:30
Ana Garcia Puyol \ IrisVR
Director of UX \ IrisVR
Ana is the Director of User Experience and Integration at IrisVR, where she plans, designs and prototypes user experience features within the company’s virtual and augmented reality software ecosystem. Prior to joining IrisVR, Ana was part of Thornton Tomasetti’s CORE studio, where her work revolved around R&D projects for Building Information Models. Before moving to NYC, Ana worked for architecture firms in Malaga, Chicago, Munich, and Tokyo.
Ana holds a Professional Degree in Architecture from the University of Malaga in Spain and a Master in Design Studies with a concentration in Technology from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
» Remodeling Reality: Revolutionizing Design with VR « on Thursday 09:30
Andrea Picchi \ Design Director at ThinkDesign
Design Lead \ Design Director at ThinkDesign
Andrea Picchi is an experience designer with a background in cognitive psychology and computer science that refined his background in human-computer interaction at Stanford and design thinking and business at MIT.
With 20+ years of experience in UX-UI, product and service design field, in the past 10+ years, he has been leading teams and personally contributing to the creation of integrated omnichannel, holistic, experiences.
He had worked with, and for, companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, Nokia, and Sony, but also Virgin Media, Ryanair. He’s currently Design Lead at British Airways.
While remaining focused on the human-centered craft of experience design, in the past years Andrea dedicates himself to the challenge of adopting, nurturing, and scaling the human-centered mindset inside an organization.
Andy Dae-Yol Na \ Daewoo Electronics
HEAD OF USER EXPERIENCE \ Daewoo Electronics
I’m a head of UX Design team, worked based on both Customer centric and Business-friendly Insight, harmonized with Global Talents. Proven UX design skill and management ability making something innovative enough to be the best practice in the target business area by the design experimentation & insight. Challenged to make world 1st & best design concept leading the design trend. Main projects are mini IoT, 3rd Generation wall-mounted washing machine with SmartHome(SKT SmartHome, Alibaba’s Ali-Smart, JD.com’s SmartHome), I launched MelOn Music Store(50% of Korean Music Market). I also launched LG SmartWorld(App Store of TV, Smart Phone, Washing Machine, Refrigerator, etc). I was an the UX pioneer of LG, head of 1st Service UX Design and 1st establisher of LG UX Identity.
» AI inspired vehicle experience « on Wednesday 15:45
Anja Wilbert \ SAP Customer Experience Labs
Lead Customer Experience Design \ SAP Customer Experience Labs
For SAP Customer Experience Labs Anja is responsible for Innovation & Strategy. Here she is working on defining the vision of Customer Experience (touch points – inputs – outputs) and e-Commerce in SOON (near future) and VISION (further future) by integrating new emerging technologies.
Before she built up the Usability & Interaction Design Department and worked as Principal User Experience Designer defining and developing concepts and interaction flows for applications cross the board / cross devices / cross focus groups for SAP Customer Experience applications, apps and enterprise solutions.
Beside of this she was leading the Innovation Team within the Customer Experience Design Department which is developing and designing innovative scenarios and stories for Customer Engagement and Commerce.
Prior to joining SAP Customer Experience:
She was working as an Interaction Designer for kontrastmoment, an interdisciplinary design agency. Main focus here was developing and designing haptic and ergonomics for BMW/MINI/Rolls Royce interior as well as interaction patterns and concepts for BMW/MINI/Rolls Royce man-machine-interfaces (HMI). Anja studied Industrial Design at hfg – Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd and was offered a 2year teaching assignment and assistance position for interdisciplinary customer focused projects.
Anja loves photography and sports, especially mountain biking, sailing and horseback riding.
» Signal in the Noise – Interacting with Big Data in Real Time « on Thursday 11:20
Bill Albert \ Bentley University
UXC \ Bentley University
Dr. Bill Albert is Executive Director of the User Experience Center (UXC) at Bentley University. Prior to joining Bentley, Albert was Director of User Experience at Fidelity Investments, Senior User Interface Researcher at Lycos, and Post-doctoral Research Scientist at Nissan Cambridge Basic Research. Albert currently teaches in the graduate program in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University. Albert has published and presented his research at more than 30 national and international conferences. He co-wrote (with Tom Tullis) the first book on usability metrics, “Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics.” He also co-wrote (with Tom Tullis and Donna Tedesco), “Beyond the Usability Lab: Conducting Large-Scale Online User Experience Studies.” Albert is Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Usability Studies.
» Exploring the Emotional User Experience « on Wednesday 14:50
Bruce Horn \ AI Stealth Startup
Bruce’s lifelong interest is developing computer technology to augment human capabilities. He is launching a company in early 2019 to make AI faster, easier, cheaper and more available—to fulfill its promise as a powerful tool for improving our ability to solve the world’s complex problems.
Previously Bruce was an Intel Fellow and Chief Technical Officer for the Saffron Technology Group at Intel. He was responsible for driving new applications and uses for memory-based reasoning, a fundamentally new approach in the development of intelligent personal devices and systems.
Horn is most widely known for his work at Apple, where he created and developed the Macintosh Finder. He began his career as a member of the Learning Research Group at Xerox PARC, where he contributed to several implementations of the Smalltalk virtual machine.
Horn earned a B.S. In Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University in 1981, and an M.S. and Ph.D. In Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1994.
Christophe Mallet \ Somewhere Else
Entrepreneur \ Somewhere Else
Christophe co-founded Somewhere Else, the London-based creative agency and immersive tech consultancy. A marketing veteran with 8 years of experience in digital & social media strategy, Christophe saw the potential of Virtual and Augmented Reality for brand communication early. At Exzeb, a Paris-based VR studio, he grew his passion for immersive storytelling, interactive design and emerging tech through projects for the likes of Canal+, Resident Advisor and Sony.
Christophe strives to make immersive tech work harder for clients, and started Somewhere Else to position AR, VR and MR as solutions that empower client strategy. He has so far helped adidas, Exxon Mobil and Samsung among others achieve their full potential in the Age of Experience. Christophe is a member of the Uni-XR (previously Uni-VR) and a guest lecturer on immersive technologies at ESCP London and CREA Geneve.
» How (Not) to Tell Stories in VR « on Thursday 13:15
Christopher Grant \ KING
Senior Director: Experimental UX \ KING
Christopher has led product design teams in the US and Europe for over a decade, specializing in strategic projects. Today he is “Senior Director: Experimental User Experience” at King, the makers of Candy Crush.
Previously, Christopher worked with Tuenti, Credit Suisse and Grupo Inter com, as well as innovative startups. He was SVP for User Experience at the education site Sclipo when it was named one of Red Herring’s “World’s 100 Most Innovative Companies”.
When not working, he mentors startups in Google’s Launchpad programs in Barcelona and Johannesburg and teaches User Experience Strategy and Management at KSchool, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and ESADE.
Harald Mayer \ Trivas GmbH
Partner \ Trivas GmbH
• Medical Director, Barmherzigen Brüder Graz (Brothers of Charity Hospital) Graz, since February 2015
• Specialist in internal medicine, senior physician at the Internal Division of the Hospital of the Barmherzigen Brüder Graz , 2011 – 2014
• Head of the Office of OE / QM Brothers of Barmherzigen Brüder Graz, since 2008
• Project management “eHospital–implementation of an electronic management Visite“, 2007 – 2008
• Medical Assistant in training at the Department of Internal Medicine I, Barmherzigen Brüder Graz, 2004 – 2011
• Frequency of the Department of Internal Medicine and Surgery, Barmherzigen Brüder Graz, 2003 – 2004
• MBA in Health Care at Hospital Management, Medical University of Graz, since 2014
• training for Risk Manager, Certification Quality Austria, 2013
• Training for Quality Manager, Certification TÜV Süd, 2012
• Master’s program “Information Technologies in Health Care”, Danube University Krems, 2005 – 2007
• Doctorate Med. Univ., 27.11.2001
• Studied medicine at the Karl Franzens University of Graz, 1995 – 2001
» Focus on patient safety in hospital management « on Thursday 10:25
Ioana Koglbauer \ Graz University of Technology
Researcher and Lecturer \ Graz University of Technology
Ioana Koglbauer is a researcher and lecturer affiliated with Graz University of Technology, Austria. She is passionate about applying human factors and systems thinking for designing safer aviation and automotive systems. Ioana Koglbauer has conducted numerous research co-operations with the industry (e.g. Airbus, AVL List, Aviation Academy Austria) and has authored over 40 scientific publications. She received her PhD and habilitation in psychology from the University of Graz, Austria. She was a member of the Board of the Directors of the European Association of Aviation Psychology and the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors for 4 years.
» Managing the Efficiency, Safety and Security of Automotive and Aviation Systems « on Wednesday 11:10
James Powderly \ Magic Leap
Director of User Interaction and Experience \ Magic Leap
James Powderly is an award-winning designer and engineer with a 15 year career creating empowering tools and experiences on two planets and across an improbable set of domains, including: space robots, graffiti, higher education, medical equipment, architecture, Do-it-Yourself, viral media and wearable computing.
His work has been featured on Mars, at the Sundance film festival, on the front page of YouTube, and in the permanent collection of the MoMA in NYC. James has won awards like Ars Electronica’s Golden Nica, and the Interactive Design of the Year from Design Museum, London. His work was featured in the Golden Lion-winning Korean Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.
James worked at Samsung Electronics in Seoul making fashion tech and AR devices and he is currently the Director of User Interaction & Experience at Magic Leap.
» Biased Reality « on Thursday 16:00
Julie Blitzer \ Design Group Italia
Digital User Experience Manager \ Design Group Italia
Julie Blitzer is the Digital User Experience Manager for Design Group Italia, a studio with nearly 50 years of leadership in design, branding and innovation for clients around the world. She earned a Master in Interaction Design at Domus Academy in Milan and a B.A. in Government from Claremont McKenna College. Julie has worked on projects with B2B, enterprise and consumer, including for startups, e-commerce, consumer electronics, fashion, banking, education, non-profit, and governments.
Julie loves the challenge of working on any kind of interface: apps, websites, interactive installations, and even home appliances. Her recent projects have been focused on Industrial IoT, wearable devices and Fintech. She teaches and mentors for Thinkful, General Assembly, Startup Weekend, Girls Who Code, and more.
Julie has spoken at numerous conferences and events including SXSW Interactive, IxDA’s interaction conference, DroidCon & Netroots Nation. Julie also is a Lecturer at both Domus Academy and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti locally in Milan.
» Cross-Cultural, Multilingual, Localised, Global Design « on Wednesday 14:50
Julie Kennedy \ Capital One
Director Digital Design \ Capital One
A creative and innovative Head of User Experience with a proven track record of managing large-scale multi-channel global projects delivering great products and user experiences to budget and deadlines. Over 20 years digital experience working across a wide range of industries covering ecommerce, telecommunications, gaming, media and currently fintech. Successfully building and managing multidiscipline teams across multi-channels for top UK and Global brands at Amazon, Vodafone, Betfair DMG Media for Daily Mail newspapers and currently Capital One. A regular conference speaker and events organiser in the UX industry.
» Design Teams Are a Design Exercise: How to Build, Inspire and Keep Design Teams (Happy) « on Wednesday 15:45
Jürgen Blematl \ aurena.at
Head of Product Development and Innovation \ aurena.at
Jürgen is project leader for the development of a new online auction platform based in Styria. At aurena.at, he has been building an in-house startup company from scratch and has successfully managed the implementation of a user-centered development process.
As an expert in modeling complex software solutions, Jürgen focuses on agile development and user-centered design. He sees UX as a team sport and puts great effort into creating a shared understanding within a project.
Jürgen is a certified Scrum Master and holds a UX certificate from the Nielsen Norman Group. He has a master’s degree in Logistics Engineering from Montanuniversität Leoben.
Equipped with strong entrepreneurial skills, Jürgen founded his first company at the age of 18. He has been working as a business development consultant for numerous institutions and companies and gained international experience in Malaysia and Germany. His analytical, yet creative approach is also expressed in his passion for photography.
——–
Quotation
“Talking to the users will change your perspective – every time. Go from guessing to testing and build better solutions.“
» There and never back again – a UX learning journey for building an auction platform « on Thursday 10:25
Kate Fischer \ Fast Design Group
Lead HMI Designer \ Fast Design Group
Dedicated and devoted to cars, I tend to constantly reimagine and reconsider User Experience. Or better to say Driver Experience. My role today is not about generic solutions following well-known patterns, I don’t like to think you can fit DX into a box of display in a car.
Why? Because I am the person, who has been lucky to have very different experiences in my lifelong professional portfolio not related to the automotive world. Biochemistry gave me a sense of the beautiful logic of nature, plus a structured approach to deriving results and drawing conclusions.
Several years working as an User interface artists for mobile and triple A games taught me how to track the user and engage her attention. Until the moment, when I found a perfect field to apply those skills – automotive. Good things come in three, right?
What I like to do has both rational and emotional aspects – I consider myself as a conceptual designer first but I absolutely sure that not only scientific approach but combination of both can lead to beautiful and smart solutions. And these, I believe, are essential aspects of the Driver Experience
» From syntax to content: natural interfaces in automotive industry « on Wednesday 14:50
Katharina Seke & Rene Pachernegg \ APUS Software
CTO & Agile Coach \ APUS Software
Katharina is Agile Coach at APUS Software, Tobelbad. Former software engineer with several years of experience creating software from idea to product. She believes in the power of agile development. Is maybe the only person who thinks the GDPR is actually a good idea. Likes to discuss the number 42, rides a Vespa and loves the city of Graz. Studied Telematics in Graz / Stockholm / Irvine / Dublin.
Rene is CTO at APUS Software, an agile software development and consulting company located in Tobelbad near Graz. In his nearly 20 years of professional experience he worked as a product owner and UX designer in numerous software development projects in air traffic control, public transport and public safety. Furthermore, Rene is father of 2 boys, systemic coach, innovation manager, founder of the Scrum User Group Graz, passionate golfer, and passionless Linux user, as well as certified Scrum Product Owner.
» Ignorance is no excuse. UX and the General Data Protection Regulation. « on Wednesday 11:10
Keith Andrews \ Graz University of Technology
Professor of Computer Science \ Graz University of Technology
Keith Andrews is a tenured associate professor at the Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science (ISDS) at Graz University of Technology, in Austria. Having done work in the fields of computer graphics, 3d worlds, hypermedia, and the web, he is currently pursuing research in the fields of information visualisation and usability. Keith helped organise the very first IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization in 1995, was program co-chair in 2001 and 2002, and general chair in 2005. He also co-chairs the UX Graz meetups and UX Day Graz conference series.
» Introduction to Information Visualisation « on Wednesday 14:50
Kevin Lee \ Visa, Inc
Executive Director, Vice President and Head of Design \ Visa, Inc
Kevin Lee is Executive Director, Vice President and Head of Design at Visa, Inc, responsible for setting the vision and the strategy of design and user experience for Innovation Centers in Europe and CEMEA. Previously he was responsible for building and leading Visa’s global digital design team and brought in human-centered design and design thinking expertise to help designing the innovative digital product experiences as well as innovative design systems platform which has been recently recognized by Fast Company for 2017 Innovation by Design Awards.
Prior to Visa, Kevin led the design studio at Samsung responsible for the overall product strategy and design of wearable and IoT and launched Gear Fit, Level and Circle. Kevin also led the global design team at eBay and Paypal, where he led the design efforts on several key products such as checkout, shopping cart, and shopping showcase to name a few. Prior to eBay, Inc., Kevin led the design team at Whirlpool Corporation designing and launching the company’s first digital touch screen consumer products and connected device strategy with several CES awards and industry recognitions. Before Whirlpool, Kevin led a global cross-functional team of designers and engineers at GE Healthcare driving and launching award-winning software and hardware products, one of which is called Vscan where it was named by TIME magazine as The 50 Best Inventions of 2009.
He has a M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, and graduated from Mercer University with a B.S. in Technical Communication / Ergonomics. Kevin is contributing author for several books and speaks at some of the influential design conferences in the world.
» Opening Keynote: Change is the only constant: how to scale the impact of design « on Wednesday 09:20
Klaus Hofer \ CATi
CEO \ CATi
Founder of Communications And Training international – CAT-i
Professional associations
- APA – American Psychological Association
- STC – Society for Technical Communication
- WUC – World Usability Congress
- IABC – International Association for Business Communications
How it started 1970 – 1976
My early work in aviation and hospitals lead to my interest in cognitive and organizational psychology. I needed to understand: Why can well-trained highly motivated people make deadly errors? I wanted researched answers, not judgmental opinions. My ongoing studies and research in behavioral and cognitive psychology provide the basis for my professional life.
Transition 1977 – 1995
After too many years in too many universities (Australia, Canada, USA and Germany), I developed a full semester course and corporate workshop: “Applied Psychology for Technical Communicators”. Initially presented at the University of Massachusetts in 1986, I taught multiple variations of this course at several colleges, universities and corporations in North America, Asia, and Europe.
Current Work 1995 – 2016
I research, consult and teach. Together with specialists in Houston Texas, our team currently conducts the first series of usability tests of operating procedures in a live operating petrochemical plant. Our emphasis continues to be on applied human behaviour research into designing user centered documentation. Together with my team I continue our active involvement with the World Usability Congress and our partners in Austria and Switzerland.
My Vision
My team and I envision the day when no operators anywhere in the world have to perform a procedure that does not follow the principles of human cognition and behavior.
» Live on stage USABILITY Test « on Thursday 09:00
Maricel Cabahug \ SAP
Chief Design Officer \ SAP
As Chief Design Officer, Maricel is responsible for SAP’s overall design strategy and product design. Maricel’s overarching goal is to deliver the best user experience to the world’s business users. She and her organization are passionate about co-innovation with customers to realize greater business value through technology that works for people. At the heart of everything she is does is her goal to improve people’s lives by making work delightful.
Maricel is a software engineer turned thought leader in design and user experience. Before joining SAP, Maricel worked for Yaskawa Electric, an SAP customer, where she grew from an application developer to the CIO of the company. Her SAP journey to the position of Chief Design Officer began in 2011, when she joined the company as VP of Solution Architecture. She then moved to the Office of the CDO as Global VP and Chief of Staff. In 2013, she became Senior Vice President and Head of Global Design and Fiori Product Management. In April of 2018, she was named Chief Design Officer.
Being a multi-passionate intrapreneur, she is defining a completely new market category of Enterprise Artificial Intelligence with her team’s latest products: SAP CoPilot, a digital assistant and bot-integration hub for the enterprise, and SAP Inscribe, a natural, freestyle pen and paper experience that leverages the power of system intelligence.
Martina Mitz \ UX Psychologist
Consultant \ UX Psychologist
Martina started as a self-taught Web Designer in 2001. From the very beginning her approach was user-centred despite not being familiar with the now-common phrase of ‘user experience’. In 2007 she finalised her study in Psychology and started working in the field of clinical Psychology. It was at this point that Martina’s academic background and her passion joined and she started a career as UX Designer, being called “Conceptioner” at first. Since then Martina has contributed to the digital ecosystems of many recognisable companies such as eBay, PayPal, Emirates Airlines, Volkswagen, Telekom and many more. Hosting UX Sofia for the past years was a crowning moment of Martina’s UX path, so she decided to give something back to and work closer with the amazing global UX community.
» UX Charlatans: How to Spot Them Quickly and Stop Wasting Time, Money and Nerves « on Wednesday 10:15
Matthias Ott \ Adobe Systems
» Adobe XD Deep Dive « on Thursday 10:00
Mike Hanna \ CATi
Management Systems Coordinator \ CATi
Safety and Usability in the Oil and Gas Industry
Usability in the Oil and Gas worker is a matter of life and death. Operational behaviors involving risk must be driven by procedures – that is the law. Traditionally documents are well written and technically accurate but are not engineered for usability. The results can be fatal. Usability engineering save lives. We can demonstrate, with real world examples, how usability engineering can reduce accidents.
Behavior driving procedures cannot be crafted with the traditional tools of technical writing. Users are not readers. The pressures of regulatory compliance, process complexity, and a wide spectrum of risk require documents to compensate for human behavioral needs. By applying research about human behavior, the Petrochemical industry is adopting behavioral methodologies to make the workers safer and more efficient. Safety and Usability cannot be separated.
» Safety and UX: Journey to Zero is a Dead End « on Thursday 11:20
Nandini Nayak \ Fjord
Strategy Lead \ Fjord
Experienced Digital Strategy Senior Executive with expertise working at the intersection of Customer, Technology/Analytics and Business Processes to drive Digital Transformation with a human lens and an eye toward business outcomes.
Deep experience leading large digital transformations for Fortune 100 companies across industry verticals.
Significant operational experience leading cross functional digital design and delivery teams, day-to-day operations of global digital services; strategic leader for global roll outs of digital capability; transformation of technology and operating models based on customer centric principles with accountability for meeting business outcomes in commerce, marketing and customer service domains.
Practice leader, adept at crafting new capabilities and practices in Digital Marketing, Digital Design and Innovation, Customer Experience Optimization, Experience measurement, Research.
Specialties: Digital Strategy and Transformation; Digital Design and Innovation ; Research (Qual, Quant and Digital Analytics) Digital Operating Models; Multichannel/Multimodal Interactions; Data Driven Innovation; Digital Experience Frameworks and Standards; Behavioral Economics;
» Data + Design: UX in the Age of Living Services « on Wednesday 15:45
Oliver Pitsch \ Trusted Shops
Head of User Experience & Quality Assurance \ Trusted Shops
Oliver Pitsch is UX Lead at Trusted Shops in Cologne, Germany. He’s a UX professional with more than 10 years of experience in the field. Before joining Trusted Shops to build an entire UX process and implement it in the existing teams he founded Reputami.com, which was acquired by eKomi in 2015.
» UX in an agile World « on Wednesday 15:45
Pascal Heynol \ USEEDS° GmbH
Senior UX designer \ USEEDS° GmbH
I’m a Berlin based senior UX designer, strategic thinker, researcher, writer and by degree actually engineer. Also co-host of AX Summit and obsessed with the future human-machine relationship we’re building. On my journey, I moved all over Germany, but also Hong Kong and Ethiopia, where I learned to love the power of people and diversity of all kinds. I feel most at home in the uncertain, worked on AR and design systems, and am now exploring the prospects of AI and the management of design teams – feels about equally complicated.
» Design Is Communication « on Thursday 09:30
Peter Gregersen \ MobilePay
Lead UX Designer \ MobilePay
Peter Gregersen is a Danish UX Designer. He has conceptualized and designed mobile banking products since 2007, including award winning Danske Mobilbank (Denmark’s first native mobile bank) and MobilePay (the largest Nordic mobile payment solution).
Currently, he is working on strategic projects and concepts for MobilePay and it’s 4 million Nordic users.
» How users love mobile payments « on Thursday 13:15
Ramy Nassar \ Mattel inc.
Director Retail Innovation Lab \ Mattel inc.
I’m a results driven leader, working with organizations that design beautiful, meaningful and innovative digital experiences.
Leveraging best practices from the worlds of Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design, I advocate that users are central in solving complex business challenges. My expertise in digital strategy, consumer behaviour and user experience design allow me to interact with teams at both strategic and tactical levels.
I’ve had the good fortune to work with leading brands including Apple, BlackBerry, RBC, Sport Chek, Nike, Canadian Tire, and Air Canada.
I’ve been featured as a speaker at FITC Toronto, UX Alive, AI Summit, World Usability Congress, Intrapreneurship Conference Canada and Global Smart Week. I’m the director of TEDxWaterloo, an independently organized TED event and a regular TEDx speaker, having given talks at TEDxAthens and TEDxCarthage. I currently sit on the Regional Council for the Canadian Red Cross.
Ranjeet Tayi \ Informatica
UX strategist \ Informatica
Ranjeet Tayi is product designer & Ux strategist with 15 years experience crafting world-class Ux for enterprise – cloud software products with the human centric approach. Most products he designed ranked top in the category by industry analysts and currently leading Ux team for Informatica Data Security Products. He started his career as design entrepreneur, co-founded Mind Visions and later worked with SumTotal, Cognizant & Pure IT Usability Research.
He co-founded Ignite Hyderabad and core team members / co-curator for UX India & Usability Matters.Org. He mentors startups share design happiness by speaking at conferences and leading workshops. Graduated in Design Management from Grow, USA and also holds a research master’s degree in philosophy (M.Phil) in Mass Communication, master’s degree of arts in Advertising and an Advanced Diploma in Multimedia.
» Human With Machine: Harnessing power of UX for Securing Data « on Wednesday 11:10
Russ Wilson \ Google
Director & Head of Design for Google Cloud Platform \ Google
Russ Wilson joined Google as Director & Head of Design for Google Cloud Platform in March 2016. Russ Wilson joined Microsoft in December 2013 as a Partner Director and Head of Design for Business Intelligence, a collection of products and services that enable you to visualize data, share discoveries, and collaborate in intuitive new ways.
Prior to Microsoft, Russ was the founder and Director of IBM’s Mobile Innovation Lab. The mission of the lab is to identify disruptive mobile technologies and trends and transform them into new products and solutions that deliver significant value to individuals and companies.
Russ also served as the Head of Design for IBM’s Application and Integration Middleware business unit, providing design leadership for Websphere, MobileFirst, Pure, IoT, and SmarterProcess. As one of IBM’s new Design Executives, Russ helped to teach and evangelize design thinking throughout IBM, and influence a new era in software product development.
Prior to IBM, Russ was the worldwide Senior Vice President of User Experience at CA Technologies where he led the development of an enterprise-wide design language and a common application platform. Russ joined CA as part of the acquisition of NetQoS, where Russell was one of the original executives.
Russ is a serial entrepreneur, an experienced executive, and has proven success in both startups and large companies. His interests include approaches to innovation, user experience design, rapid prototyping, and team building.
» Achieving product excellence through measurement « on Wednesday 16:45
Sascha Wolter \ Cognigy
Senior Technology Evangelist \ Cognigy
Sascha Wolter is a professional developer and user experience enthusiast. His true passion is to improve the human-computer interaction: He loves to build conversational and multimodal experiences with text (chatbots) and voice (aka Alexa). Sascha used to work as a consultant, trainer, lecturer, speaker, and author who focusses on understanding, innovation, and value. As such he is committed to the interests of all kinds of developers, users, and prosumers. When Sascha is not developing new ideas, he likes hiking and skiing in the mountains, enjoys good Italian coffee and loves to explore the world together with his kids in an odd way.
After organizing internationally renowned events like beyond tellerrand from 2001 to 2011, he is now board member of the Usability & User Experience working group at the federal association BITKOM. Furthermore, he is Google Developer Expert for IoT/Assistant (GDE)and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Before he joined the Conversational AI Platform Company Cognigy as Senior UX Consultant and Principle Technology Evangelist, he worked as Senior Developer Evangelist at Deutsche Telekom (i.e. Smart Home) and Senior Technology Evangelist for Alexa at Amazon.
» Conversational AI Demystified: Build your bot live on stage with almost no code. « on Thursday 13:15
Savannah Niles \ Magic Leap
Senior Researcher \ Magic Leap
Savannah Niles is a designer+prototyper currently based in Miami, FL. She designs technologies that live quietly and meaningfully between the solid world and a softer one. She’s currently a senior researcher at Magic Leap leading the HCI team within User Experience.
Portfolio: http://www.savannahniles.com.
» Designing a Toolkit for Mixed Reality « on Thursday 10:25
Sean Chiu \ Alibaba Group.
Head of UX, Lazada \ Alibaba Group.
Haohsuan Chiu is currently the Head of UX design in Lazada bringing the Alibaba e-commerce design experience to South East Asia market and conducting various user researches on globalocalization design with cross-border projects to adapt the culture. Before he was appointed to this role, he has been contributing his expertise in user research, service design, creative design, product design and leading many product projects in different business units inside Alibaba Group. Previous Lazada, he was the Product Design Director of Alibaba Music and Live entertainment group. His team has own a Good Design Award this year for content design, and through adapting new design methods and technology innovations, his team was able to accelerating service experience upgrade in live entertainment industry in China. Before joining Alibaba, he was the usability design lead in Acer Inc. conducting design thinking to innovate the next generation product and running design engineering to help improve hardware and software quality and user experience for running product lines.
Sean’s role always serve as not only a designer but also a product owner in the company. His unique working philosophy and design practice approach has always brought his design teams stronger voices and had more influence in organizations.
Head of UX, Lazada (Alibaba Group) Singapore 2018/8~
Role & Responsibilities
- Globalocalization and campaign Design
- Implementing Design engineering to enhance the efficient of design process.
- Coordinated User Experience Design & Research Projects to support all business requirement.
» The mind of design that empowers « on Thursday 15:00
Stephanie McNee \ Facebook
Research Lead \ Facebook
A multidisciplinary research leader with over 13 years experience working with product teams and growing research in agile environments. Stephanie is passionate about understanding and championing users, bringing them to the heart of product development to create intelligent, smart products that bring value and delight people.
Originally from Scotland, Stephanie has a background in cognitive psychology and HCI Internet Software development and has spent time in the US and Australia. She leads Facebook’s Ad and Business Research team in London where they focus on Facebook Advertisers and Publishers – ranging from small business owners in emerging markets to the largest global brands.
Before joining Facebook, Stephanie also led Global UX research efforts for Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson Healthcare and Motorola (Chicago) for B2B and consumer products.
Stephanie also mentors professionals through professional sharing and UXPA, to help early professionals grow in their careers.
Timo Sackmann \ User Experience Consulting
User Experience Researcher and Design Thinking Coach \ User Experience Consulting
Timo Sackmann works as a Design Thinking Coach across different organizations and industries.
Timo started his professional carreer 10 years ago as User Researcher in R&D for Deutsche Telekom Laboratories. He built-up and headed the User Experience Center located in the Telekom Headquarters in Bonn. His academic background is Cognitive Science and Human-Computer-Interaction.
» Different users, different website UX « on Thursday 10:25
Verena Seibert-Giller \ UX & Human Brain
Consultant, Trainer und Coach \ UX & Human Brain
Dr. Verena Seibert-Giller is one of the European pioneers of Usability and User Experience, having worked in respective industrial as well as research settings for 25 years.
Currently her prime interest lies on enhancing user experience work through insights of modern cognitive sciences. “Know your brain – understand your users better”. Her work has already positively influenced several projects and trainings, while astonishing clients and attendees!
In the 90ties she co-founded the CURE Usability research centre and then the USECON consultancy and directed both until she decided to downsize work for a while for her kids. Verena shows one of the broadest experiences in the field, which is well founded in the spectrum of her past and ongoing international activities (more than 500 relevant projects in numerous domains and technologies, publications and talks, activities in committees and expert groups, development of university and industry curricula and training courses, e.g. IBUQ User Experience Certifications).
» UXQCC Foundation Level Certification « on Thursday 09:00
Vivian Gomes \ Human Factors Research & Design Pvt. Ltd.
Co-Founder & Director \ Human Factors Research & Design Pvt. Ltd.
Vivian Gomes is an experienced Human Centered Design professional. Hands-on and practical to the core, he believes that insights at the intersection of user needs, technology and business helps create highly effective and innovative products and solutions defining a brand on the foundation of DESIGN.
His strengths lie in creating a vision for experience design, crafting compelling stories and developing a solution’s design ecosystems across multiple media and devices for a connected, seamless end-user experience for customers from a variety of industries. He is also a teacher-mentor and a usability/ UX specialist with a successful track record of innovating, creating, delivering, while collaborating, motivating and working with local and globally disparate design teams, studios, stake holders and partners. Vivian enjoys interfacing with customers globally and with internal and external partners to bring innovative and disruptive design ideas to life.
He thrives on managing and mentoring creative talent, collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams, maneuvering through project and business challenges and most importantly, envisioning and conceptualizing intuitive, cohesive, immersive design experiences that delight users and profit end customers. On a day today basis Vivian plays many roles, driving creation of compelling products and solution portfolios for customers that include healthcare, Social innovation in community uplifting program design and application, retail, Analytics and data Science, Military, Government, GIS, payments/finance, social, search, e-commerce, startups, cloud based web applications, portals, IOT products and solutions, mobile/telecom, wearable tech, and so on.
He has been working with core management team of many leading organizations and on on company boards as an advisor. He has set up many design innovation labs across the globe to make ideas come to life, focusing on future of design needs.
He has built UX/design teams, imbibed a culture of design thinking, mentored design managers and leaders, set up global design centers and design research labs in India, EUROPE, Asia, UK, Middle East and USA.
A certified Design thinking trainer from LUMA Institute, Pittsburgh and a UX / Design mentor on Google Launchpad and Tien OS, he leads by example to drive a cultural transformation in organizations through Design.
» Institutionalizing UX: How to establish a go-to UX team in your organisation? « on Thursday 11:20
Wolf Brüning \ Otto (GmbH & Co KG)
Executive User Experience Designer \ Otto (GmbH & Co KG)
Wolf is a Hamburg based Senior User Experience Designer. He is working at the e-commerce department of Germany’s second largest online retail company OTTO. He is also the lead of the Discovery School, OTTO’s internal training program for Design Thinking and Product Discovery. Besides his job he is blogging about user experience and product management on hin blog produktbezogen.de
» How to build awesome products – 13 principles for an efficient Product Discovery « on Thursday 11:20
Yannick Forster \ BMW
UX PHD Candidate \ BMW
Yannick studied Psychology at the University of Wuerzburg and the University of Texas at Austin. During this time he specialized in traffic psychology and human factors research. Having graduated with a Master’s degree in 2016 he worked at the Wuerzburg Institute for Traffic Sciences before starting a PhD position at BMW. He is currently developing a novel evaluation methodology for human-machine interfaces in the area of automated driving. His research interest is mainly focused on trust and the relationship to affective consequences of technology use.
» Usability at OEMs « on Wednesday 10:15
Zeljka Pozgaj \ Frequentis AG
Human Factors & Safety Expert \ Frequentis AG
Željka Požgaj has been with Frequentis AG and Safety Management Department since November 2006, currently as Human Factors and Safety Expert. She holds a MSc. (Dipl.-Ing.) in Architecture from Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and was trained in the field of System Safety and UX Design at Frequentis AG. She has a strong background in anthropometry, ergonomics and project management as well as a long work experience in application of human factors in workplace design.
More Speakers will be announced soon.