Tech Open Air, taking place in Berlin, starts its largest edition to date

• Now in it’s sixth year, Europe’s largest interdisciplinary festival is uniting the international tech and creative scene in Berlin after World Tour stops in cities like L.A., Tokyo and Austin
• 20,000 attendees, 200 international speakers & 200 satellite events are to be expected

• Highlights include: Alex Ljung (SoundCloud), Rebecca Roth (NASA), Damian Bradfield (WeTransfer), Tom Hulme (Google Ventures), Jake Lodwick (Vimeo) and Scott Heiferman (Meetup)
• This year’s festival will be extended to four days: July 11 – 14, 2017

Berlin, June 22th, 2017. Tech Open Air (TOA) enters its 6th and largest edition to date with four days, more than 200 speakers, 200 satellite events and 20.000 expected participants. The unique festival meets conference format has been an integral part of the international tech and startup scene for the past five years and unites the most diverse branches of technology, music, art and science. This year, the event will be extended by another day and will take place from July 11 – 14 in Berlin. Satellite events will take place on the first and the fourth day as well as on the evenings of July 12th and 13th. These will be hosted and organized throughout the city by national and international corporations, startups and scientific institutions, among others. Confirmed organizers and hosts will include Kayak, Marley Spoon, Trivago, Fanmiles, Quandoo, Kickstarter, DB Labs, Airbus BizLab, Houzz, Deutsche Börse, Bitbond or the Startupbootcamp Demo Night among many others. Like last year, the conference days will take place in the unique Funkhaus Berlin on the Spree bank. Besides the outdoor area as well as the former broadcasting halls where panels, keynotes and workshops will take place, we are happy to introduce our newest edition: The Haus of Tech – a 3.000sqm exhibition space located in a former industrial warehouse that will be divided into five theme areas focusing on AR/VR Entertainment, Mobility, Energy/Cleantech, Life Sciences/Social Impact, Data Infrastructure and Fintech. The clear focus of this: B2B Matchmaking. Also for the first time ever, TOA offers an exclusive conference format for Mittelstand, Corporates and Startups on July 13 – DISRUPTED!. This special format will discuss the best practices, challenges and opportunities for disruptive innovation in an unconventional setting.

“We have certainly taken one of our biggest development leaps forward with TOA this year which is not least thanks to our World Tour stops in L.A., Tokyo and Austin.”, states TOA founder Niko Woischnik. “I am very happy to say that our Berlin edition in 2017 will not lag behind in diversity and internationality among speakers and participants. Hereby, we are taking a further step in our vision to create a global platform for interdisciplinary technology exchange. Our new B2B formats as well as the larger exhibition space and our new format for small and middle sized companies “Family Affairs”, which will make its debut this year, will contribute towards this progress.”, Woischnik explains.

Meet some of the speakers

This year’s edition will again feature top-class speakers like Soundcloud founder and CEO Alex Ljung, NASA Image coordinator & Social Media Specialist Rebecca Roth, Trivago founder Rolf Schrömgens, Head of Design and Google Search Hector Ouilet, WeTransfer President and CMO Damian Bradfield, General Partner of Google Ventures Tom Hulme, Co-Founder of Vimeo Jake Lodwick, Co-founder and CEO of Meetup Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder & CEO of Mindspace Dan Zakai, the self-made Cyborg and founder of Cyborg Nest Liviu Babitz, Former CIO of SpaceX Brendan Spikes and Artist Richie Hawtin. Babitz developed a chip that turns people into compasses for merely 350 US-Dollars. Additionally, the former Vice-Chancellor of Germany Philipp Rösler have confirmed their participation. Further speakers and partners will be announced shortly, find the exact program of the conference here. Furthermore, interactive formats like the TOA Hardware Pitch or the new Chatbot Pitch will take place during the conference. This year’s B2B focus will be complemented by the new TOA “Family Affair” format that aims to connect medium-sized family-run companies with startups. Already over 30 national and international partners like BAYER, SAP, Airbus, hubspot, KPMG, BCG Digital Ventures and AWS confirmed their participation at the Haus of Tech.

TOA goes Global

While Berlin will always remain crucial for Tech Open Air, it is currently aiming to connect the startup world beyond Berlin. The goal is to build new bridges in the international startup and creative industry and thus integrate further aspiring tech and digital hubs into the network and to connect them with Berlin. In addition to the first stops in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Austin, other editions are planned for the upcoming months. As Berlin and Los Angeles celebrate 50 years of city partnership, TOA will go back to L.A. in October and then to Capetown in February 2018. Further destinations will be announced in the upcoming weeks.

About Tech Open Air – www.toa.berlin

Tech Open Air (TOA), founded in Berlin by Nikolas Woischnik,  is the first and largest interdisciplinary technology festival in Europe dedicated to bringing together tech, music, art & science through knowledge exchange and collaboration. Next to the interactive conferences about the newest tech trends in the startup and tech world, the four-day event also includes more than 200 satellite events across Berlin.  TOA represents Berlin’s uniqueness and contributed to the success and development of the city’s tech and startup ecosystem. Within the past five years, the festival grew from being a crowdfunded festival to international grandeur. For its first investment round, it managed to win over big names like the founders of SoundCloud, Native Instruments, Hello Fresh, Zalando, OneFootball or Berlin startup veterans like Christophe Maire (Atlantic Labs) and Project A. TOA is part of the Tech Open Family, which also includes the 5000sqm Coworking Space Ahoy Berlin, the online platform TechBerlin and the startup service provider Openers.

Our own s’COOL is going to be there as well!

We are very proud that Latvians will be presented in Berlin as well. Meet s’COOL – a tool that improves the educational process by offering learning through the wide possibilities of  a smartphone, making the learning process interactive and interesting. s’COOL won the Startup Slalom taking place in Ventspils, Latvia, thus gaining this possibility to present themselves in Berlin.

s’COOL

We wish all the best to them and let’s keep our fingers crossed for their success!