SET Tech Festival 2023

The seventh iteration of the SET Tech Festival took place alongside the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue on the 28 March 2023, in Berlin. Read our official press release, below.

  • +1,000
    Participants

  • +50
    International Speakers

  • +350
    Meetings

SET @ the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue

The SET Tech festival 2023 is a one-day event bringing together a global network of innovators shaping the future of energy (start-ups, innovation-driven corporates, investors, & public organisations). The 7th iteration of the festival took place on 28 March 2023, in Westhafen Event and Convention Center (WECC) in Berlin!

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Main Stage

09:30 – 09:40 | WELCOME ADDRESS

Andreas Kuhlmann, CEO, German Energy Agency
Dr. Angela Wilkinson, Secretary General & CEO, World Energy Council
Pia Dorfinger, Director Start-up Ecosystem, German Energy Agency

09:40-09:50 | A KEYNOTE FROM BREAKTHROUGH ENERGY

Ann Mettler, Vice President Europe, Breakthrough Energy
Keynote

09:50-10:20 | BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: OFFSETTING EMISSIONS IN SMART CITIES

Moderated by Elizabeth Sikiaridi, Founder, Hybrid Space Lab
Rushad Nanavatty
, Managing Director Urban Transformation, Third Derivative / RMI
Nikhil Chaudhary
, Cities Advisor and Strategic Learning Lead, Climate-KIC
Panel

10:20-10:50 | REVOLUTIONISING TRANSPORTATION: NAVIGATING THE LATEST INNOVATIONS IN MOBILITY

Moderated by Adrian Grussendorf, Co-founder, Plug & Play Tech Center
Dr. Jennifer Dungs, Global Head of Mobility, EIT InnoEnergy
Lukas Kaestner, Co-founder & CCO, Sustainable Aero Lab
Fireside chat

10:50-11:20 | START-UP PITCHES: BUILDINGS & CONSTRUCTION

Moderated by Julia Padberg, Partner, SET Ventures
Dorothea Strüber, Community Growth Manager, ClimateView
Silvan Siegrist, Co-founder & Managing Director, Lumoview
Fernando De los Rios, CEO, Hyperion Robotics
SET Award finalist pitches

11:20-11:50 | START-UP PITCHES: MOBILITY & TRANSPORTATION

Moderated by Julia Padberg, Partner, SET Ventures
Sandith Thandasherry, Founder & CEO, Navalt
Karin Ebbinghaus, CEO, Elonroad
Mathias Bösl, CEO & Co-founder, Spark e-Fuels
SET Award finalist pitches

11:50-12:00 | A KEYNOTE FROM VILLAGE DATA ANALYTICS

Dr. Tobias Engelmeier, Co-founder, Village Data Analytics (VIDA)
Keynote

12:00-13:10 | NETWORKING LUNCH BREAK

13:10-13:50 | UNIVERSITY SPIN-OFFS & CLIMATE ACTION: WHEN WILL ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE JOIN FORCES WITH ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

Moderated by Iris ten Have, Founder, CO2NVERT & Head of Science, Extantia Capital
Shirley Sheffer Hoffman, Senior VP Business Development, BGN Technology
Dr. Christian Bogatu, Investment Advisor, SPRIND
Dr. Philipp Gerbert, General Managing Director, TUM Venture Labs
Panel

13:50-14:20 | START-UP PITCHES: QUALITY ENERGY ACCESS & SDG-7

Moderated by Victoria McIvor, VC Energy & Mobility, World Fund
Peter Njeri, Co-founder & CEO, Mega Gas Alternative Energy
Etim Monic Monday, CFO, Solaristique
Dr. Clementine Chambon, Co-founder & CTO, Oorja
SET Award finalist pitches

14:20-15:00 | ARE LONG DURATION ENERGY STORAGE SOLUTIONS THE NEXT FRONTIER IN CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION?

Moderated by Jessica Burley, Investor, Planet-A Ventures
Lidia Aviles, EU Climate Pact Ambassador, European Commission
Dr. Martin Schichtel, Founder & CEO, Kraftblock
Patrick Clerens, Secretary General, EASE- The European Association for Storage of Energy
Panel

15:00-15:40 | SURVIVING THE START-UP VALLEY OF DEATH

Moderated by Freerk Bisschop, Venture Partner, Inven Capital
Arnaud Castaignet, VP, Public Relations & Government Affairs, Skeleton Technologies
Dr. Stephan Herrmann, CEO, Reverion
Robina von Stein, Climate Tech Investor, Contrarian Ventures
Céline Göhlich, Co-founder, Everyone Energy
Panel

15:40-16:10 | START-UP PITCHES: CLEAN ENERGY & STORAGE

Moderated by Felix Krause, Partner, Vireo Ventures
Paul Smith, VP Sales Europe, Energy Dome
Éléonore Lazat, Commercial Director, Granular SAS
Andres Anijalg, Co-founder & CEO, Roofit.Solar
SET Award finalist pitches

16:10-16:40 | START-UP PITCHES: INDUSTRY

Moderated by Felix Krause, Partner, Vireo Ventures
Wei Wu, Co-founder, Heatrix
Marcell Zámbó, Head of Strategy & Operations Europe, Rondo Energy
Stefano Melchior, Founder & CEO, BeChained
SET Award finalist pitches

16:40-17:15 | OUR BLUE PLANET: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF HYDROGEN IN THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL ENERGY TRADE

Moderated by Geraldine de Bastion, Founder, Global Innovation Gathering
Dr. Angela Wilkinson, Secretary General & CEO, World Energy Council
Arik Ganor, VP Business Development, QD-SOL LTD
Louise Witt Sengeløv, Co-founder & Green Transition Expert, Peak Element ApS
Panel

17:15-17:25 | SHATTERING GLASS CEILINGS: HOW PLUG & PLAY EMPOWERS WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS THROUGH THE FOUNDHER PROGRAM

Giorgia Rancati, Associate Programme Manager, Plug & Play Tech Center
Keynote

17:25-18:00 | ENERGY INVESTMENT INSIGHTS: VCs TAKE THE HOT SEAT

Moderated by Giorgia Rancati, Associate Programme Manager, Plug & Play Tech Center
Małgorzata Walczak, Managing Director, PFR Ventures
Aziz Sulaiman Rahim, Principal, Siemens Energy Ventures
Namratha Kothapalli, Principal, Speedinvest
Dr. Torsten Löffler, Principal, DeepTech & Climate Fonds
Panel

18:00-18:10 | CLOSING REMARKS

19:30 | SET AWARD CEREMONY & EVENING RECEPTION

Announcement of the SET Award 2023 winners
With Andreas Kuhlmann, CEO, German Energy Agency
Geraldine de Bastion, Founder, Global Innovation Gathering
Anja Hajduk, State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action
Jennifer Morgan, State Secretary & Special Envoy for International Climate Action, Federal Foreign Office
Mark Van Stiphout, Deputy Head of Unit for Research, Innovation, Competitiveness & Digitalisation, European Commission
Elizabeth Press, Director of Planning & Programme Support, IRENA
Lubomila Jordanova, Co-founder & CEO, Plan A.Earth
Adrian Chua, Deputy Secretary Singapore
Kersti Berge, Scottish Government Director of Energy and Climate Change, Scotland

Side Stages

13:00-14:00 | BREAKING BARRIERS: UNLEASHING FEMALE-LED START-UPS TO DRIVE THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Hosted by Siemens Energy
Mineta Galijasevic, Business Model & Partnering, Siemens Energy
Sandra Leschber, Innovation Manager, Siemens Energy
Robina von Stein, Climate Tech Investor, Contrarian Ventures
Workshop

14:30-15:15 | FROM GOOD TO GREAT: HOW IMPACT MEASUREMENT CAN TAKE YOUR START-UP TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Hosted by >SMART> GREEN Accelerator and ImpactNexus
Alexander Schabel, Co-founder, ImpactNexus
Johannes Mielitz, Programme Manager, SMART GREEN ACCELERATOR
Deep Dive

14:30-15:30 | OVERCOMING CHALLENGES TO SCALE CARBON REMOVAL IN ENERGY: THE ROLE OF THE VOLUNTARY CARBON MARKET

Hosted by Ceezer
André Drochner, VP Growth, Ceezer
Sophie-Louise Elsässer, Impact Manager, Ceezer
Maarten van Roon, CCO, Carbon8
René Haas, Co-Founder & CEO, Neocarbon
Workshop

15:30-16:30 | CLIMATE TECH COLLABORATION

Hosted by Urban Innovation
Sarah Schappert, Director Europe, URBAN-X
Robinson Hernandez, Executive Director, Urban Tech Hub
Stephen Lorimer, Lead of the Clean Energy Cities Programme, Centre for Net Zero
Tadaaki Kimura, CEO, Addlight Inc.
Juliane Nandra, Director Corporate Innovation & Partnerships, GACC WEST
Panel and Q&A

Speakers

Lubomila Jordanova, Plan A

Lubomila Jordanova

Co-founder & CEO, Plan A

Lubomila Jordanova is the co-founder and CEO of Plan A, a software provider offering an end-to-end platform that uses machine learning and science to enable businesses to reduce their emissions and improve and report on their ESG performance. The company was recently named World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2022.

Lubomila is also co-founder of the Greentech Alliance, a community of more than 2,000 Greentech startups connected to more than 500 advisors from VC, media, and business. Prior to Plan A, she worked in investment banking and venture capital as well as the fintech industry in Asia and Europe. Lubomila has been recognised as an Obama Europe Leader 2022, MIT Innovator Under 35 Europe 2022, Marshall Fund Fellow 2022, Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs in Germany 2022 (Handelsblatt) and 30 under 30 (Forbes), among others.

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Mark van Stiphout

Mark van Stiphout

Deputy Head of Unit for Research, Innovation, Competitiveness and Digitalisation DG Energy, European Commission

Mark van Stiphout is currently Deputy Head of Unit in DG Energy in the unit that is responsible for Research, Innovation, Competitiveness and Digitalisation, including support for energy research and innovation in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, and the Energy Union Competitiveness Progress Report.

Until the 1st of November 2014 he was a member of the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Energy, Günther H. Oettinger, who he advised on nuclear energy and energy research, as well as smart grids, retail markets and the relations with Russia. This included for example the Commission’s work on nuclear safety and the trilateral negotiations with Russia and Ukraine on gas supply.

Before that he was assistant to the Director-General for Energy, and from 2006 to 2010 he was responsible for the liberalisation of the internal market for natural gas as Policy Officer in DG Energy in the Electricity and Gas Unit.

Previous roles include consultancy on renewable energy projects at Ecofys and market analyst at Cogas Energie.

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Lidia Aviles

Lidia Aviles

EU Climate Pact Ambassador, European Commission

Lidia Aviles is EU Climate Pact Ambassador, International Investors Relations, EIC Seasonal Expert, and she is Global Advisor at Guidepoint, Advisory Board at Galanthus Initiative, and Vetted Sustainability Trusted Advisor EMEA. Previous Director of Operations at Long Duration Energy Storage Council.

Sustainability, Metaverse, and Space Travel Scholar.

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Dr. Tobias-Engelmeier

Dr. Tobias Engelmeier

Co-founder, Village Data Analytics (VIDA)

Victoria McIvor, VC at World Fund

Victoria McIvor

Investor, World Fund

Patrick Clerens

Patrick Clerens

Secretary General, European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE)

Mr Clerens studied law at the University of Saarbrücken and the University of Mainz. Since 1996, he has worked as a consultant for a private company specialising in European Affairs in Brussels. In his capacity as Brussels Representative of different European associations, he has been involved in the climate and energy field since 2003.

He has managed the EASE office in Brussels as Secretary General since its establishment in September 2011. Since then, EASE has grown from the initial 13 founding members to over 60.

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Ann Mettler

Ann Mettler

Vice President Europe, Breakthrough Energy

Christian Bogatu, SPRIND

Dr.-Ing. Christian Bogatu

Investment Advisor, SRPIND

Christian is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He works with the German Federal Agency
for Disruptive Innovation (www.sprind.org), identifying and supporting innovators with
radical ideas with a billion Euro budget. Since 2018, Christian also serves as Venture Partner for Eurazeo/Idinvest Partners, the largest EU based Venture Capital fund, investing in cleantech start-ups. From 2017 until 2020 he was co-founder and CEO of Fresh Energy, generating unparalleled insights based on smart meter data, before selling Fresh Energy to EWE end of 2020. From 2011 until 2017 he was co-founder and managing director of KIWI (www.kiwi.ki), building a city-scale handsfree access-as-a-service system. Prior to KIWI, he co-founded Kirsen Global Security in the Silicon Valley that became global leader in container security and exclusive provider for DB Schenker. Christian has more than 5 years of experience as senior consultant with McKinsey. Christian holds/held several Board memberships: innogy (former RWE) Digital Transformation Board; German PropTech Initiative (GPTI); Vali Berlin – The Entrepreneurship Hub at ESMT Berlin; UC Berkeley BA International Diploma. Christian holds a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in security technology and logistics and a master (Diplom) in energy management and chemical engineering from the University of Technology in Berlin, Germany.

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Angela Wilkinson

Dr. Angela Wilkinson

Secretary General & CEO, World Energy Council

Angela provides direction and innovative leadership for SET and is the Secretary General & CEO of the World Energy Council. Angela has a PhD in Physics and has become one of the world’s leading global energy futures experts. She has 30 years of experience in leading national, international and global multi-stakeholder transformation initiatives on a wide range of economic, energy, climate and sustainable development related challenges.

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Lukas Kaestner

Lukas Kaestner

Co-founder & CCO, Sustainable Aero Lab

Lukas Kaestner is a co-founder and chief commercial officer of the Sustainable Aero Lab, as well as President of the Crystal Cabin Award Association, the world’s most renowned award for aircraft interiors and passenger experience. Lukas has been an aviation enthusiast since childhood and has been working in the industry since 2014, serving as Head of Marketing, PR & Events at the Hamburg Aviation Cluster, as well as the ZAL Center of Applied Aeronautical Research. He is an experienced moderator on stage at events like SXSW. Before moving to aviation, he was a communications consultant in renewable energies, publishing, and start-ups. Lukas is a graduate of the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich and holds an MBA from the University of Hamburg / Hamburg Media School.

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Jennifer Dungs

Jennifer Dungs

Global Head of Mobility, EIT InnoEnergy

Jennifer Jacobs Dungs believes we will see more disruption in mobility in these current 10 years than we have in the past 100. And hyperlocal mobility will be part of the core. She is currently Global Head of Mobility at EIT InnoEnergy, Europe’s #1 early-stage impact investor in cleantech, where she’s responsible for all investments in this field – with 25 new investments in the last 2 years.

Previously, she spent over 20 years in the automotive industry, including Ford Motor Company, BMW, and Porsche. Jennifer also was the director at the Fraunhofer Institute, responsible for Mobility and Smart Cities and established a joint lab with MIT called Ambient Mobility focused on using big data to help revolutionize cities.

A regular contributor to Forbes and speaker on the topic of future mobility, she is an expert on sustainability, alternative powertrain technologies, autonomous driving and business models for digital products for the mobility sector and beyond. Jennifer holds an MS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Chemistry.

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Philipp Gerbert

Philipp Gerbert

General Managing Director, TUM Venture Labs

Jessica Burley, Planet A

Jessica Burley

Investor, Planet-A

Jessica Burley is an investor at Planet A ventures, and active in the climate ecosystem, leading the Berlin arm for both Climate Mosaic and Rising Tide. Jessica studied Politics and International Relations at Cambridge and worked as a Climate Venture Researcher for the United Nations. She got deeper into the world of climate tech when leading the authorship team for the European chapter of the world’s first textbook on lab-grown meat and developed this interest by working at a pre-seed circular economy start-up, before joining climate VC. Today she applies her research background to understanding the technologies and predicting the trends in climate.

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Small image of Freerk Bisschop, Venture Partner at Inven Capital

Freerk Bisschop

Venture Partner, Inven Capital

Freerk Bisschop is a seasoned investor and advisor in energy-transition innovation. He has a long background in the energy industry, as a scientist, strategist, consultant, manager, entrepreneur, executive, non-executive, investor and advisor. Currently he acts as Venture Partner to Inven Capital and as an independent advisor to start-ups, scale-ups and investors.

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Giorgia Rancati

Giorgia Rancati

Associate Program Manager, Plug and Play Tech Center

Giorgia is the Program Manager at Plug and Play Hamburg where she’s in charge of managing the Supply Chain and Hydrogen (H2 StartUp Accelerator) programs, as well as leading the scaling of the Plug and Play FoundHER start-up accelerator, an equity-free and fee-free program for female entrepreneurs in the Nordics.

She holds a Master degree from Bocconi University where she graduated in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology.

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arnaud castaignet

Arnaud Castaignet

VP, Public Relations & Government Affairs, Skeleton Technologies

Arnaud Castaignet is Vice President of Public Relations & Government Affairs at Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in high-power and fast charging energy storage technology. Skeleton is a deep tech and industrial company founded in 2009 in Estonia with manufacturing facilities in Germany. Among key customers, Skeleton works with Shell, Siemens, Skoda, CAF, to name a few. The company is a member of the European Battery Alliance, Cleantech for Europe, and the EU Unicorns Group.

Arnaud previously worked as Head of Public Relations for the Republic of Estonia’s e-Residency programme and as a Communication Officer for the French President François Hollande. He started his professional career as a business journalist specialized in geopolitics of energy in Istanbul.

He also co-manages the Adopt a drone initiative, supplying drones to the Ukrainian army, and is senior fellow in a French think tank named Open Diplomacy.

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Namratha Kothapalli

Namratha Kothapalli

Principal, Speedinvest

At Speedinvest, Namratha invests in early-stage start-ups that are creating the foundations of a new decarbonized economy. Speedinvest is an early-stage venture capital firm, with more than €1 billion in AuM and dedicated sector-focused teams combining financial and operational support for start-ups across Europe. Prior to investing, she spent a decade as a software and hardware engineer at several large and early-stage start-ups, including Intel, HP, Dell-EMC and Expedia. She holds an MBA from London Business School and degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.

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Stephan Hermann

Dr.-Ing. Stephan Herrmann

CEO, Reverion

Dr.-Ing. Stephan Herrmann studied physics at the Julius Maximilians Universität Würzburg and at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. In 2012 he started his PhD at the Chair for Energy Systems at the Technical University of Munich which he completed in 2018. Remaining at the chair as a group leader until 2022, he led the group for advanced power plants and, together with his group, developed what has now become the core technology of Reverion. Spinning-off in early 2022 they created Reverion GmbH to bring their revolutionary power plants to the market.

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Julia Padberg

Julia Padberg

Principal, SET Ventures

Julia Padberg is Principal at SET Ventures, the Amsterdam-based climate VC fund that has invested since 2007 in European technology companies that impact the future of energy.

Julia joined the team six years ago after six years of working as a corporate finance advisor in the energy & green tech sectors. She serves on the supervisory boards of Energyworx, DEPsys, FlexiDAO, Trunkrs and Green Eagle Solutions.

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Felix Krause

Felix Krause

Investment Partner, Innogy Ventures

Felix is an active Business Angel as well as Start-up Advisor and Coach for Clean-tech, Mobility & Smart City companies. For the last four years, Felix worked as an Investment Partner at innogy Ventures, the venture capital arm of one of Europe’s largest utility companies.

At innogy Ventures, he had the end-to-end investment responsibility for early to growth stage investments in North America, Europe and Israel for the investment fields Future Energy, Smart City and Mobility. Additionally, he led the “Future of Cities” investment segment (Mobility, Smart City and PropTech) for the expanded innogy Innovation Hub (60+ investments and €162m under management).

Besides his various board roles, he regularly provided post-transaction support to innogy’s portfolio companies in the form of B2B sales and marketing training sessions as well as preparation for and support during follow-on financing rounds. Overall, he has been part of the start-up scene for more than 10 years, founding two companies himself, leading the European expansion of a US start-up as MD, and supporting founders as consultant, interim manager, trainer and mentor.

He holds a MSc in International Business Studies from University of Maastricht.

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Elizabeth Sikiaridi

Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi

Founder, Hybrid Space Lab

Elizabeth Sikiaridi is founder of Hybrid Space Lab, a Think Tank and Design Lab for Architecture, Urbanism, Design and Digital Culture – a cultural breeding ground for incubating breakthrough concepts, fostering innovation contributing to positive societal and environmental change. “Hybrid” stands for interdisciplinarity, “Space” for spatial expertise and “Lab” for an innovative transdisciplinary working method where city, nature and the digital are considered and developed in an integrated way.

Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi has lectured since 1997 on design in the urban landscape at the University of Duisburg-Essen and at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts OWL, where she heads the international master’s program “Sustainable Landscape Design and Development”. Elizabeth was born in London, grew up in Athens, studied architecture at the École d’Architecture de Belleville/Paris and at TU Darmstadt (graduated with honours) and worked at Behnisch & Partner and TU Berlin.

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Arik Ganor

Arik Ganor

VP Business Development, QD-SOL

Mr. Ganor has over 15 years of experience leading business units towards growth in some of the world’s leading corporates and start-ups. As a strong believer in values-based business leadership, he has always strived to manage business activities involving sustainable products and services and was one of the pioneers of the environmental CSR in Israel. Under his leadership, 3M Israel won the prestigious Platinum sustainability index.

Arik joined QD-SOL in 2022 to lead its fundraising activities around the globe and help drive the company’s vision of becoming a key player in the Green Hydrogen market. QD-SOL brings a revolutionary method of quantum green hydrogen production, with no need for electricity, while utilizing the energy of the sun.

Arik has studied in Israel, France and the US, and holds an international MBA from Ben-Gurion University, specializing in international strategy, management, and marketing. This international experience strengthened his belief in cross cultural collaboration as necessary for dealing with the world’s most challenging issues.

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Lara Glowatzki

Lara Glowatzki

Investor Relations Analyst, Siemens Energy

After starting her career in Asset Management, Lara Glowatzki joined Siemens Energy in 2020. Since then, she is actively shaping the Energy Transition in various roles (Investor Relations, Corporate Strategy). As a young female professional herself, always being passionate about new business models, she together with a team and Siemens Energy Ventures created Forces.Networking with the goal of supporting young female founders in Climate Tech.

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Torsten Löffler

Dr. Torsten Löffler

Principal, DeepTech & Climate Fonds

Dr. Torsten Löffler is as enthusiastic about corporate strategy as he is about deep tech. The physicist, who holds numerous patents, also founded a measurement technology start-up and held senior positions at a number of technology companies. As part of the High-Tech Gründerfonds hardware team, he was responsible for investments in industrial hardware and software companies, including successful exits.

As Principal, Torsten is now a part of the investment team at the DeepTech & Climate Fonds, which he was actively involved in setting up.

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Mineta Galijasevic

Mineta Galijasevic

Business Model & Partnering, Siemens Energy

Mineta Galijasevic is a business model and partnering professional with over 10 years of experience in the energy industry. In 2019, Mineta was appointed co-chair of the company’s Site Innovation Board, where she has been instrumental in promoting corporate-entrepreneurship, innovation, and start-up collaborations. Mineta has a strong passion for advancing equality in the industry sector and is actively engaged in promoting Inclusion & Diversity efforts within her company.

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Rushad Nanavatty

Rushad Nanavatty

Managing Director Urban Transformation, Third Derivative at RMI

Rushad currently leads two programs at RMI: Urban Transformation and Third Derivative. Prior to D3, Rushad helped establish the Global Cooling Prize, a global innovation competition to develop a climate-friendly residential cooling solution. He also worked with the Energy Web Foundation, a partnership between RMI and Grid Singularity to develop promising applications for blockchain technology in the energy sector. Prior to RMI, Rushad was the founding COO of WeGen Energy — a DER startup developing off-grid

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Louise Witt Sengeløv

Louise Witt Sengeløv

Co-founder & Green Transition Expert, Peak Element

Louise Witt Sengeløv is Co-founder & Green Transition Expert at Peak Element, where she brings new solutions into the market. She has achieved many milestones, including:

  • Commercially maturing the Danish project by Arcadia eFuels and securing funding from investors for making eJet fuel. Serving on their advisory board
  • Advising top management at Topsoe and making the strategy for scaling up and commercializing their SOEC electrolysis technology
  • Running a cement pilot plant in oxy-fuel combustion mode for FLSmidth, proving its technical potential and enabling an easier capture of CO2

She holds an elite MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and is focused on maximizing her impact on combatting climate change.

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Robinson Hernandez

Robinson Hernandez

Executive Director, Urban Tech Hub

Robinson Hernandez has 25 years of experience working at the intersection of business and government. He is with Company Ventures and launched the Urban Tech Hub, a one-of-a-kind ecosystem supporting & materially advancing entrepreneurs and companies seeking to address NYC’s most pressing urban challenges. Previously, Robinson served as an Executive Director in the Mayor’s Office & Deputy Commissioner of Small Business Services for NYC, where he led a mayoral task force on regulatory reform and economic development to change how the City of New York interacts with small business owners.

Prior to this, he was a Special Advisor to the Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and also worked at the Mayor’s Office of Industrial and Manufacturing Businesses. Earlier in his career, he had roles at the General Electric Financial Management Program, Ernst & Young, and at the business/government tech start-up govWorks.com.

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Sarah Schappert

Sarah Schappert

Director Europe, URBAN-X

Sarah Schappert is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship, sustainability and city improvement. She is working at the Brand & Business Strategy team at MINI and as Director Europe at URBAN-X, a start-up platform built by MINI, dedicated to entrepreneurs reimagining city life. Over the last years URBAN-X has worked with over 80 startups.

Sarah is expanding the reach of URBAN-X throughout Europe in her role as Director Europe. Working at MINI headquarters in Munich, Germany, Sarah facilitates the relationship between URBAN-X, MINI and the BMW Group.

Previously, Sarah worked at a startup Opentabs and co-founded an online magazine Das Münchner Kindl, exploring the city life in Munich. Based on her diverse experience, computer science and art history education, she has a passion for connecting left brain and right brain topics by finding the common ground.

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Stephen Lorimer

Stephen Lorimer

Lead of the Clean Energy Cities programme, Centre for Net Zero

Stephen has more than 15 years experience working in and with local and central governments in the technology, transport and built environment sectors. He’s led teams across urban planning, spatial analysis, smart cities, government data and software development. He is currently leading built environment work as the lead of the Clean Energy Cities programme at Centre for Net Zero, powered by Octopus Energy.
In central government, he led a multidisciplinary team of data analysts and delivery managers researching and developing the UK government’s data portfolio and capability at DCMS and the UK Government Digital Service. As part of the nation’s coronavirus response, was on the founding team of the NHS Covid-19 App, managing teams of scientific researchers and civil servants and connecting scientific advisers, decision-makers and software developers.

He was formerly the policy lead for smart cities and the lead for the Mayor of London’s data, digital, and technology strategy. The ‘Smarter London Together Roadmap’ set out the city’s approach to digital transformation of services and collaborative public procurement of smart city technology products for a low-carbon, high air quality city, and capability building of local government’s digital skills.
As a manager of public investments in innovation, he was the programme manager of the Sustainable Society Network at Imperial College Business School. The network made 45 seed funding grants for prototypes of technologies to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable society. It was co-led with New York University, and Ericsson Labs Sweden.

He has a doctorate in energy and built environment, specialising in geospatial science and postdoctoral work in spatial analysis, transport, and urban planning. He started his career in practice as an urban and transport consultant to local authorities across the UK, Ireland, and France, including prototyping software tools for masterplanning cities.

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Juliane Nandra

Juliane Nandra

Director Corporate Innovation & Partnerships, GACC WEST

Juliane Nandra has spent almost 15 years in Silicon Valley working in various roles at Siemens Healthineers, driving business strategy, financial operations, and diversity & inclusion efforts. She actively engaged in German-American business networks across all industries, fostering transatlantic relations. Currently, Juliane is the Director for Corporate Innovation and Partnerships at GACC West, which is a delegation of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). In this role, she leads the promotion and development of transatlantic innovation journeys and partnerships out of Berlin.

Earlier in her career, she worked in investment banking at Société Générale in Paris, France, and also in a consulting role in Vienna, Austria. Juliane holds a triple Master’s degree in International Finance and Management.

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Tad Kimura

Tadaaki Kimura

CEO, addlight Inc.

After graduating from graduate school of Tokyo University, Tadaaki Kimura started to work for Deloitte and engaged in various areas such as IPO consulting service. In 2008, he founded addlight Inc. and providing Business consulting for big enterprises and incubation service for startups inside/outside Japan.

Tadaaki Kimura is on the board as director of some tech start-ups and has involved five of them to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange market.

He graduated from the Economic Department of the University of Tokyo, and from the Master’s Course in the Economic Department of Graduate School of the University of Tokyo.

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Robina von Stein

Robina von Stein

Climate Tech Investor, Contrarian Ventures

Robina is an investor at Contrarian Ventures, where she currently oversees the DACH region. Prior to joining Contrarian Ventures, she co-founded the climate tech startup RE-NT. The startup provides a SaaS solution for textile companies to track and reduce their CO2 footprint. This is achieved by integrating rental, resale, and recycling channels. She is a member of the Green Tech Alliance, a mentor at Founderland, which supports underrepresented female founders, and part of the advisory board at dena, where she supports energy tech start-ups in Germany.

Robina holds a Master’s degree in Politics, Economics, and Philosophy from the University of Zurich, a B.Sc. in Economics from Maastricht University, and completed exchange semesters in Montreal and Cambridge. Recently, she graduated from the Energy Markets & Climate Change summer course at HEC Paris.

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André Drochner

André Drochner

VP Growth, CEEZER

André has a background in industrial engineering, management and technical sustainability. He started his career as a production engineer before moving into software sales and the climate-tech space to build and run the sales team at carbon accounting player planetly. André is responsible for the customer-facing side at CEEZER.

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Sandra Leschber

Sandra Leschber

Innovation Manager, Siemens Energy

Sandra Leschber is an innovation manager, skilled in innovation program management, corporate intrapreneurship and innovation processes with over 20 years of experience in the Energy sector.

Sandra leads an Innovation movement at Siemens Energy fostering innovation and intrapreneurship, and is part of the team that builds and implements the innovation ecosystem within her company to help shaping the Energy Transition.

She is passionate about and actively involved in transformation processes that help shifting the mindset of employees, which is the key enabler for any change.

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René Haas

René Haas

Co-founder & CEO, Neocarbon

René is a strongly value-driven industrial engineer. His passion is long-distance mountain running, and after years of running through the Alps, he became very aware of the damages of climate change, leading him to study Energy and Resource Management before eventually founding NeoCarbon.

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Sophie-Louise Elsässer

Sophie-Louise Elsässer

Impact Manager, CEEZER

Sophie-Louise has a background in Psychology and Sustainability Entrepreneurship. Before joining the climate-tech space, she gained experience in Business Development at start-ups in sustainability and health-tech. At CEEZER, Sophie manages the supplier relations and is in charge of screening and evaluating the impact of projects.

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Maarten van Roon

Maarten van Roon

Chief Commercial Officer, Carbon8

Maarten has over 16 years of experience in commercial leadership roles across specialty commodity businesses and, as COO at Carbon8 Systems, is responsible for the growth and expansion of the company. He oversees the delivery of the international growth strategy across the company’s business development, sales and marketing functions.

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Start-up pitches

Meet the SET Award 2023 finalists who will pitch at the festival.

Dorothea Strüber, Climate View

Dorothea Strüber

Community Growth Manager, ClimateView

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

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Silvan Siegrist, Lumoview

Silvan Siegrist

Co-founder & Managing Director, Lumoview

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

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Fernando De los Rios, Hyperion Robotics

Fernando De los Rios

CEO Hyperion Robotics

Finalist in the “Buildings and Construction” category

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Sandith Thandasherry

Sandith Thandasherry

Founder & CEO, Navalt Solar

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

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Karin Ebbinghaus

Karin Ebbinghaus

CEO, Elonroad

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

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Mathias Bösl

Mathias Bösl

CEO & Co-founder, Spark e-Fuels

Finalist in the “Mobility & Transportation” category

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Peter Njeri, Mega Gas

Peter Njeri

Co-founder & CEO, Mega Gas

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

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Etim Monic Monday

Etim Monic Monday

CFO, Solaristique

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

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Dr. Clementine Chambon

Dr. Clementine Chambon

Co-founder & CTO, Oorja

Finalist in the “Quality Energy Access & SDG-7” category

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Paul Smith

Paul Smith

VP Sales Europe, Energy Dome

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category

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Éléonore Lazat

Commercial Director, Granular SAS

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category

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Andres Anijalg

Andres Anijalg

Co-founder & CEO, Roofit.Solar

Finalist in the “Clean Energy & Storage” category

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Wei Wu

Wei Wu

Co-founder, Heatrix

Marcell Zámbó

Marcell Zámbó

Head of Strategy & Operations Europe, Rondo Energy

Stefano Melchior

Stefano Melchior

Founder & CEO, BeChained

A solution-oriented exhibition

For our exhibition area, we partner with corporates, accelerators, incubators, VCs, and start-ups from all over the world to showcase innovative energy solutions.

BeChained Artificial Intelligence Technologies S.L.

SET Award 2023 finalist
Industry

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ClimateView

SET Award 2023 finalist
Buildings & Construction

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Elonroad AB

SET Award 2023 finalist
Mobility & Transportation

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Energy Dome S.p.A.

SET Award 2023 finalist
Clean Energy & Storage

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Granular SAS

SET Award 2023 finalist
Clean Energy & Storage

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Heatrix GmbH

SET Award 2023 finalist
Industry

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Hyperion Robotics Oy

SET Award 2023 finalist
Buildings & Construction

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Lumoview Building Analytics GmbH

SET Award 2023 finalist
Buildings & Construction

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SET Award 2023 finalist
Quality Energy Access & SDG-7

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Navalt Solar & Electric Boats Pvt Ltd

SET Award 2023 finalist
Mobility & Transportation

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Oorja Development Solutions India Limited

SET Award 2023 finalist
Quality Energy Access & SDG-7

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Rondo Energy

SET Award 2023 finalist
Industry

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Roofit Solar Energy OÜ

SET Award 2023 finalists
Clean Energy & Storage

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Solaristique Nigeria Limited_Logo

SET Award 2023 finalist
Quality Energy Access & SDG-7

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SET Award 2023 finalist
Mobility & Transportation

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  • Berlin Partner booth at the SET Tech Festival 2022 am 20. September 2022 in Berlin. Image: Maximilian Grosser/phototek.de/Berlin / dena
  • Image: Maximilian Grosser/phototek.de/Berlin / dena
  • Exhibition area SET Tech Festival 2022. Image: Maximilian Grosser/phototek.de/Berlin / dena

Images: Maximilian Grosser/phototek.de/Berlin / dena

Sustainability commitments

Sustainability and innovation are at the heart of the Start Up Energy Transition project. That is why our team is committed to constantly look for sustainable solutions to make sure the SET Tech Festival is as responsible as possible.

In collaboration with

Logo World Energy Council in orange and blue
  • Logo World Energy Council in orange and blue