Steffi Czerny is a co-founder of the DLD Conference, which was first held in 2005, and was appointed Managing Director of DLD Media in 2010. Since the early days of the internet in the 1990s, she has closely followed every development in the digital world.

As Managing Director of DLD, she has established "one of the most important innovation conferences in Europe" (The Economist) as well as numerous topic-specific spin-off formats such as DLD Women, DLD Europe, DLD Campus, DLD Cities, DLD Circular and, most recently, DLD Nature. Steffi Czerny is a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit and an active member of various advisory boards and committees, including the Center for Art and Media (ZKM Karlsruhe), the Biotopia Life Science Museum and the Deutsches Museum.

Simone Fleischmann has been President of the BLLV since May 2015, the first woman in the history of the association since it was founded in 1861. She was previously active in the BLLV as Head of the Professional Science Department (2002-2007 for the district association of Upper Bavaria, 2007-2015 for the state association) and as a member of the state board (2007-2015). Her areas of work in the BLLV cover a broad spectrum from primary school to teacher training and BLLV policy.

Before that, she worked as a teacher, school psychologist, vice principal and most recently as principal of Poing elementary school, one of the largest schools in Bavaria (2007-2015).

In addition to her work at the BLLV, Simone Fleischmann is also Chairwoman of the Education Policy Forum in Bavaria (since 2016), Deputy Chairwoman of the Broadcasting Council of Bayerischer Rundfunk (since May 2022) and Deputy Federal Chairwoman of the Deutscher Beamtenbund und Tarifunion (dbb, since November 2022).

Benedikt Grothe investigates how the human brain processes sensory signals and how this leads to perception. He studied at LMU, was a curator at the Museum Mensch und Natur and conducted research at the University of Texas in Austin, New York University and the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology. He is also one of the world's leading experts in the field of hearing.

He is also the founder and director of the Munich Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, a globally recognized, innovative PhD program run by LMU together with its partner institutions, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), three Max Planck Institutes and the Helmholtz Zentrum München.

Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch, born in 1960, university lecturer in physics and philosophy. Since 1995 Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at LMU, since 2002 Lecturer in Natural Philosophy at the School of Philosophy. Since 1998 presenter of science programs on natural sciences, philosophy and theology for BR-alpha and since 2008 for ZDF in series such as Leschs Kosmos and Terra-X.

(Photo: Gerald von Foris)

Beatrice Lugger is a consultant at NaWik, the National Institute for Science Communication gGmbH. She is a science journalist, social media expert and chemist. She has worked for almost two decades for numerous German print and online media, including Politische Ökologie, SZ, FOCUS and WIRED. She set up the platform for blogging researchers ScienceBlogs.de. And she managed the social media presence of international conferences.

Beatrice Lugger has published various specialist articles on science communication topics, is active in relevant committees and is jointly responsible for the platform wissenschaftskommunikation.de.

Klaus Josef Lutz has been President of the General Assembly of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria and President of the Bavarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BIHK) since 2021.

The law graduate (LMU) has worked as a lawyer and in leading positions at companies in a wide range of industries, including Digital Equipment, Burda Druck GmbH, Süddeutscher Verlag and BayWa AG. He is currently Managing Director of Churfirst Assets GmbH.

He is a member of various supervisory boards, including Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, Munich, and AMG N.V. ContinuityFoundation, Amsterdam. In 2013, the Technical University of Munich appointed him Honorary Professor of Business Administration of Cooperatives.

Christoph Neuberger teaches journalism and communication studies at the Free University of Berlin. He is Scientific Managing Director and a member of the board and directorate of the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin. There, as PI, he heads the research group "Dynamics of Digital News Dissemination". After graduating in journalism and completing his doctorate and habilitation in communication science at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Neuberger held a professorship in journalism at the University of Leipzig (2001/2002).

From 2002 to 2011, he was Professor of Communication Science with a focus on journalism at the University of Münster and from 2011 to 2019 Professor of Communication Science with a focus on media change at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His work focuses on the digital transformation of media, the public sphere and journalism. Christoph Neuberger is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW) and the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech).

Prof. Dr. Mike S. Schäfer is a full professor specializing in science communication and has been Director of the Institute for Communication Science and Media Research at the University of Zurich (IKMZ) since 2020. He has also been Director of the Competence Center for Higher Education and Science Studies (CHESS) at the University of Zurich since 2015, a full member of acatech - German Academy of Science and Engineering and a member of the advisory boards of the Science Media Center Germany, Science Barometer Germany and others. He has co-edited overview and basic works such as "Forschungsfeld Wissenschaftskommunikation", "Forschungsfeld Hochschulkommunikation" and the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Change Communication" and has published extensively on science communication.

Hannah Schmid-Petri has held the Chair of Science Communication at the University of Passau since 2017 and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) since 2020.

She studied communication science at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. She then worked at the market research institute Ipsos before completing her doctorate at HMTM in 2011. From 2011 to 2017, she worked as a post-doc at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern.

In her research, she deals with the public discussion of (politicized) scientific topics and with the change and specificity of discourses in online environments.

After studying in Zurich, Paris and Lausanne, Marlene Weiß completed her doctorate in theoretical physics at the CERN research center near Geneva. She has been working for the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) since March 2010, first as a trainee, then as a freelancer in domestic politics, and later as an editor in the Knowledge section, responsible for climate, environment and physics. Weiß has been head of the SZ's science department since September 2020.

Willi was born in Marburg an der Lahn in 1972.

It has always been his passion to share newly learned and newly experienced things with his fellow human beings. He became known throughout Germany through the children's knowledge program "Willi wills wissen". Before that, he accompanied or interviewed children as a radio reporter. Through them, he got to know children's eye level, capacity for abstraction, impartiality and humor and prefers to base his work on this standard.

In his award-winning children's book "Peace has broken out", he explores the question of why wars break out and how they can be ended. With his films for the Sternsinger, he points out that globality means not only economic, but above all humanitarian solidarity. His feature film "Willi and the Wonder Toad" focused on the extinction of species. In his film series "Willi macht Schule" (Willi goes to school), he provides support in various areas of knowledge in school lessons. With his multivision show "Willis wilde Wege" (Willi's Wild Ways), he inspires his audience and encourages them to explore nature with amazed eyes.

Willi Weitzel is married, has three children and lives near Munich.

Katja Wildermuth is Director General of Bayerischer Rundfunk. She is also a member of the Executive Board of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Wildermuth attaches great importance to ensuring that Bayerischer Rundfunk reaches the entire population with programming excellence and promotes social discourse. Prior to her time at BR, she was Program Director of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and Head of Culture at Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

Wildermuth came to journalism after a university career as a lecturer in ancient history at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 1994, she started as an author and editor at Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and became head of the MDR History and Society editorial department in 2004. There she was responsible for major cross-media projects and international award-winning documentaries such as "Wall Rabbits", "Hitler's Children", "Night Will Fall", "Putin's Games", "Neo Rauch" and "Gerhard Richter Painting".

(Photo: BR / Markus Konvalin)