Organising Team

Sebastian Marcu is the Managing Director (with Björn Brockmann) of Design & Data GmbH. With over 15 years of experience as a Content Marketing expert he has developed creative media applications for organisations such as the European Space Agency (ESA) and EUMETSAT. He enjoys the challenge of developing new, innovative space concepts and is keen to support the “newspace” scene in Europe. Having realised the first Startup Weekend Space in Europe, he came up with the idea for INNOspace Weekend and will lead the event.

Björn Brockmann is CEO of Design & Data GmbH (with Sebastian Marcu). He studied “common informatics” at FH Cologne and has strong programming skills in PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS. He has created and managed over 100 web projects including for ESA (lunarexploration.esa.int) and DLR (mex10.dlr.de). As a video producer and livestreaming specialist he has completed several projects for EUMETSAT and DLR. He is also an IHK-certificated Trainee Teacher for informatics/ video and audio productions.

Ryan Laird is Editor at Design & Data GmbH. He studied Physics with Astrophysics MPhys (Hons) and has several years’ experience in science communication where he has promoted astronomy and space sciences at every level. He is a keen advocate for the space sector and has organised several events in his roles in Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) and UKSEDS. He is managing the INNOspace Weekend on behalf of DLR.

Adrian is passionate about startups, entrepreneurship and social media. He has a deep understanding of consumer-facing mobile/web applications in areas such as automotive, location services, navigation, connected cars and self-driving cars.
He has served as a mentor at Startupbootcamp, Founders Institute, Spherik Accelerator and Sprint Point accelerator, and has lead workshops on Lean Startup, MVP creation and early stage startup at several universities (Maastricht University, Bolzano University, Trento University, Timisoara University, Cluj University). He will be moderating the INNOspace Weekend on behalf of DLR.

Lucia Epstein is the Personal Assistant at Design & Data GmbH. She studied Event Management at Macromedia and has gained a lot of work experience in different sectors. She worked for several event agencies and in a radio station as a project manager, where she was responsible for the events, organising, planning and marketing. At Design & Data GmbH she does the organising of internal and external meetings, travel management, coordinating accounting, personnel management, supports the team with their work and helps to lift a burden from her colleagues’ shoulders.

Saskia Meister is a Freelance Media Manager. She started her career at the biggest rap magazine in Germany where currently she works as a Chief-Editor, creating ideas for diverse website- or video content and finding ways to use growth hacking strategies to push the produced content to a maximum reach are her daily challenges. The Cologne-based social media specialist supports the team of Design & Data GmbH in different ways, like doing research, connecting with the press for special projects and editing texts.

Andre Knüfing is Video Editor at Design & Data GmbH. After a few years’ experience in media post production, he studied computer science for media (B.Sc.) in Cologne. He worked as a videographer and web streaming specialist internationally, including several UN world climate summits and European medical conferences. At Design & Data GmbH he has worked on many projects over the last years for clients including ESA, DLR and other European organisations from the space sector.

Roman Litzler is a media and web designer from Cologne. After he finished his apprenticeship successfully, he started working for Design & Data GmbH as full member of the team. He not only likes to improve continuously but also taught himself new skills. Working with HTML, CSS and JQuery is as familiar for him as PHP to develop WordPress themes and program websites of all kinds.

After her studies in economics Dr Franziska Zeitler worked for scientific foundations as expert for political research and consulting. In the following eight years as leading business consultant, she gained methodical knowledge in Innovation and Knowledge Management. Since 2005 she supported in the Technology Marketing Department at DLR the market launch of scientific technologies (Road2Market) with processes, methods and tools. As Head of Department of Innovation & New Markets at the DLR Space Administration, Dr Zeitler recognises future trends and innovative potentials. She promotes transfer and synergy of space technologies with the INNOspace initiative.

With more than eight years of work and experience in the field of space, Andreas Kriechbaumer has an advanced knowledge on design and construction of space equipment and the medical and biomechanical aspects of human spaceflight. He studied technical engineering with a focus on space technologies and has since then delved ever deeper into the matter. Currently, he is a technical officer at the Innovation & New Markets Department at DLR and organising the INNOspace weekend with great enthusiasm.