TEDxBerlin

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Alex Garfin

  Alex Garfin, born September 23rd 2003, is an internationally acclaimed actor and youth activist who has dedicated his personal life to uniting people. His acting career spans over a decade with highlights including playing “Superboy” in “Superman and Lois,” “Linus” in “The Peanuts Movie” and a storied on-stage career in NYC. In his advocacy career, he serves as the head of youth and board secretary of the UN ECOSOC NGO World Information Transfer leading a staff of ten young people at UNHQ. He is the founder of The Alethos Initiative, a nonprofit that gives influencers journalism training and access to experts to fight the spread of misinformation online. He says the roots of his advocacy work are in his travels engaging with people on a grassroots level around the world. He has been to 24 countries so far, including the Middle East, the far east, Africa and 30 American states. He plans to continue to engage in grassroots dialogue domestically and abroad.

• Alexander Woellwarth-Lauterburg

  Alexander Woellwarth-Lauterburg is the founder and CEO of InnoButler, where he is building a sovereign European AI platform for enterprise R&D. He founded the company while working inside the hidden human supply chain of the AI industry — an experience that permanently demystified the technology for him. At the core of his work is a fascination with how knowledge moves: why some ideas travel across borders and industries while others get trapped, and what it costs a continent when its intelligence is built somewhere else. Alexander brings a grounded perspective on innovation, sovereignty, and the quiet decisions that shape who owns the future.

• Alvin Wang Graylin

  Alvin Wang Graylin is a global technology strategist, author of Our Next Reality (Hachette), and Chairman of the Virtual World Society. Over a 35+ year career spanning AI, semiconductors, immersive computing, and cybersecurity, he has held senior leadership roles at HTC, Intel, IBM, and Trend Micro, founded four venture-backed startups, and invested in over 100 early-stage technology companies. Graylin is a Digital Fellow at Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis, Professor of AI/Tech Policy at the University of Washington and a lecturer at MIT. He advises governments, multilateral organizations, and Fortune 100 leadership teams on AI policy, global governance, and the socioeconomic implications of increasingly capable systems. Having lived and operated extensively in both the United States and China, with dual master’s degrees from MIT, he brings a rare cross-cultural perspective to questions of bilateral cooperation, technology competition, and the institutional design choices shaping security, prosperity, and public trust in the AI era. He is a frequent keynote speaker and media commentator on emerging technology and public policy.

• Bel Trew

  Bel Trew is a multi award-winning international correspondent, photographer and documentary filmmaker who has spent a decade and a half reporting from some of the most defining crises and conflicts of our time. Trew started her foreign correspondent career reporting as a freelancer during the Arab Spring in 2011, and since then has reported on uprisings, disasters and wars from Sudan to Gaza, joining The Independentin 2018. After Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, she crisscrossed the country for multiple investigations that delved into the fate of thousands of missing civilians, including children and people with disabilities. As part of this work, she created her first original documentary, The Body in the Woods. More recently Bel has made documentaries criss-crossing the US, and sub-saharan Africa, tracking Trump's second term in office, and the deadly impact of the collapse of USAID. That included running a campaign to protect global HIV response programmes as millions more infections and deaths are expected to threaten global health and upend the hope of ending the AIDS pandemic in a few years. In a world of disinformation and misinformation complicated by AI-generated images and growing distrust of the mainstream media, Bel continues to cover global conflict from the ground - including recent wars between the US, Israel, Iran and Lebanon.

• Bright Simons

  Bright Simons is a Ghanaian social innovator, writer, and policy thinker working at the intersection of technology, trust, and development. As President of mPedigree, he has helped deploy technologies across Africa and other regions to transform supply chains and consumer markets. He holds senior affiliations with top think tanks like IMANI and ODI Global and sits on many boards.Bright has advised organizations including Microsoft, the World Economic Forum, and UCB, as well as multiple universities. An inaugural TED Fellow, Fortune World 50 Greatest Leaders honoree, and recipient of multiple global awards, he is passionate about deepening trust & spreading prosperity through policy innovation and tech.

• Bruno Giussani

  Bruno Giussani is the author of "Our Minds Under Siege: How to Avoid Being Manipulated in the Age of artificial intelligence" (Scheidegger & Spiess, 2026) and the former European director and global curator of TED. He’s written for newspapers in Europe and the United States (including, for several years, an internet column for The New York Times), was head of digital strategy at the World Economic Forum and has co-founded two software firms. He lives in Switzerland.

• Cori Lathan

  Dr. Corinna Lathan is an inventor, entrepreneur, and self-described future cyborg. Over three decades she's built technology to make humans stronger, smarter, and healthier. Her inventions sit at the intersection of science fiction and real-world impact — robots for kids with disabilities, brain-health tools for soldiers, virtual reality for astronauts, and wearables that turn electricity into medicine. She founded AnthroTronix, holds 35 patents, and wrote the bestseller, Inventing the Future: Stories from a Techno-Optimist. She earned her PhD in neuroscience from MIT, was named a Technology Pioneer and Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has chaired its Global Future Council on AI & Robotics. Forbes, Time, and The New Yorker have profiled her work and the Smithsonian featured a full-size statue of her in its Contemporary Women in STEM exhibit. She lives in Maryland with her family under the motto: "We may be crazy, but we're not stupid."

• Daniele Quercia

  Daniele Quercia asks: what if AI isn't coming for the boring parts of your job, but the parts you love? His latest research finds that the tasks workers describe as creative, joyful, and theirs are the ones most exposed to AI. Across his work, he asks a simple question: what would technology look like if it cared not only about efficiency, but also about people's wellbeing? He first explored this idea at TED with "happy maps”, which reroute you through a city's most beautiful streets rather than the fastest. He directs Responsible AI at Nokia Bell Labs in Cambridge and teaches at Politecnico di Torino and King’s College London. Fortune named him a 2014 Data All-Star. He's previously worked at Yahoo Labs, the University of Cambridge, and MIT, and earned his PhD at UC London. researchswinger.org

• Dex Hunter-Torricke

  After nearly two decades advising some of the world's most influential leaders - from Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg to the UN Secretary-General - and most recently leading communications for Google DeepMind, Dex Hunter-Torricke walked away from Big Tech in October 2025. Not because he'd lost faith in technology, but because he'd seen firsthand how the world's most powerful institutions were sleepwalking into AI's transformation of society. The son of a refugee from Burma and an immigrant from Malaysia, and the first in his family to earn a degree, Dex developed an outsider's perspective on power that shaped his entire career. Throughout his time advising tech CEOs and political leaders, he witnessed the dangerous gap between Silicon Valley's promises and the cascading crises - climate breakdown, economic inequality, democratic fragility - that AI threatens to amplify rather than solve. Now focused on public service, Dex is Founder and President of the Center for Tomorrow, a new global nonprofit launched in 2026 dedicated to building the ideas, communities, and leadership capacity the world urgently needs as AI reshapes our societies. He also serves as a non-executive board member at HM Treasury, the UK's economic and finance ministry. Through his research and public advocacy, he's building a movement that refuses to treat AI as inevitable fate and instead fights for intentional, systemic solutions to our interconnected planetary challenges.

• Elena Poughia

  Elena Poughia is the founder of Data Natives, one of Europe's largest AI and data science communities, and Managing Director of Dataconomy, a leading global publication covering artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. For over a decade, she has worked at the intersection of technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and community building, helping connect founders, researchers, policymakers, and investors across Europe and beyond. She serves on the SXSW Pitch Board and as an expert for the European Commission’s innovation programs. In her talk, she explores why communities, not just technology, will determine the future of artificial intelligence.

• Florian Bankoley

  Florian Bankoley is Chief Digital Officer of Bosch Mobility, leading digital, AI, software, data, and IT transformation across one of the world’s largest mobility businesses. Over two decades, he has moved between corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and board roles — including founding a digital mobility business within Bosch and driving major global transformation programs. Florian is fascinated by the human side of change: why some ideas scale, why others fail, and what leadership really demands in times of disruption. With roots across Europe and a career shaped by technology and business, he brings a practical but deeply personal perspective on transformation, innovation, and the future of mobility.

• Ina Remmers

  Ina Remmers is an impact entrepreneur interested in how systems can strengthen social cohesion and democratic agency. She co-founded nebenan.de, Germany’s largest neighbourhood network, inspired by her own experience of growing up in small villages. Her work has been recognized by the German Startup Awards, where she was named Best Female Founder. Today, Remmers is the founder of the Rulemapping Group, where she works with her team to make laws and rules understandable, traceable and applicable for both people and machines. Her work focuses on building a citizen-focused state in which bureaucracy becomes a lever for trust, innovation, and democracy.

• Julia Ebner

  Dr Julia Ebner is an international expert on online radicalisation, violent extremism and threats to democracy. She leads the Violent Extremism Lab at the University of Oxford and is Co-Executive Director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. She is passionate about researching and countering digital threats to democracy and has worked with various governments, intelligence agencies, as well as the UN, Europol and NATO. Her undercover investigations inside extremist movements combined with her academic work have provided her with a deeper understanding of where human vulnerabilities intersect with technological change. Julia is the award-winning author of The Rage, Going Dark and Going Mainstream.

• Katerina Biliouri

  Katerina Biliouri Davidson curates ideas, conferences, and narratives that move people. For a decade, she worked alongside the TED Conferences curation team, coaching speakers to bring their boldest messages to life. Known for turning complexity into clarity, she helps individuals and leaders around the world speak with confidence, authenticity, and power. She leads public speaking workshops online and in person for individuals, companies, and global organizations. Katerina is the co-founder of lemondrop agency. https://lemondrop.agency

• Maks Giordano

  Maks Giordano is a digital creative strategist and innovation specialist with more than 30 years of experience leading innovation projects for iconic brands. He works at the intersection of exponential technologies and practical innovation, recognised both for his thinking on generative AI and for the hands-on work of applying it to transform industries and business models. He has served as a management board member and Head of Innovation at ProSiebenSat.1, co-founded iconmobile (Exit to WPP) and Nunatak, and led the digital unit at MetaDesign. He also ran kyte's European operations, working with clients including Lady Gaga. Nominated as Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, Maks is known for identifying the technologies that will matter and reading their impact across very different industries. He published two books, teaches Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship as an associate professor and holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen. His current work, including a new book on "Innovation Alchemy" (Harriman House, 2027), examines what keeps people relevant as machines grow more capable: the human wandering, taste, and intuition that do not transfer easily to a model.

• Marco Gentile

  Marco Gentile is an Italian advertising, music videos and film director, writer, and speaker exploring storytelling, imagination, and human agency in the age of artificial intelligence. Known for his cinematic approach to commercial storytelling, he has directed international campaigns for brands including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Adidas, Toyota, Vodafone, Lexus, and Coca-Cola, with work recognized at Cannes Lions and other major international festivals. A Fulbright Scholar, Marco holds a Master’s degree in Film and Media Arts from Emerson College in Boston, as well as a degree in Political Science. He spent several years on the director roster at Ridley Scott Associates in Los Angeles, developing large-scale international projects across advertising and film. Alongside his directing work, Marco has increasingly focused on a deeper question: what happens to human imagination, authorship, and decision making when the symbolic environment around us becomes increasingly generated rather than authored? He is currently completing his first book, Time Does Not Rehearse, a philosophical narrative work exploring storytelling, human finitude, and imagination in the age of AI.

• Martin Rehak

  Martin Rehak is a technology entrepreneur, security and AI researcher, and co-founder and CEO of Resistant AI, where he works to protect financial systems from fraud committed by both human and AI-assisted criminals. His work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and financial crime prevention. With more than 20 years of experience building intelligent systems for high-risk environments, Martin and his team are shaping how organizations stop financial crime and maintain security in the age of financial automation. He is known for connecting deep technical insight with practical business impact, helping teams understand not only what AI can do, but how criminals can exploit it (and how to defend AI systems against manipulation). In his TED Talk, Martin explores the future of crime: a world in which AI-assisted criminals commit scalable, highly automated, and rapidly evolving attacks tailored to the weaknesses of our increasingly automated and embedded financial

• Maxim Nitsche

  Maxim Nitsche builds AI to defend democracies against disinformation. He is the co-founder and CEO of deep, a Berlin-based company whose system, deepTrust, detects coordinated manipulation campaigns before they go viral. His path started early. At 15, Maxim co-founded MATH 42 with his brother and his father. The AI tutor helped over 7 million students overcome their fear of math at a fraction of the cost of private tutoring, and was acquired by Chegg in 2017. The lesson stayed with him: AI is a tool for good — if it is applied thoughtfully. Maxim is curious to a fault, which shows up in his lifelong, flailing attempts to get better at chess and tennis, and in a treasure trove of useless facts no one asked for.

• Shani Lehrer

  Shani Lehrer is a strategic consultant, founder and creator of the Inner Geopolitics Method — a framework for inner leadership and how to navigate internal states with the same clarity and precision typically applied to external systems and global challenges. Over the past two decades, she has worked with world leaders, Fortune 500 executives, elite athletes, and artists, bridging advanced mind management with authentic, impactful leadership. With academic foundations in Economics and ongoing PhD research in Natural Medicine, Shani also works as a speaker, podcast host, and author. Her work focuses on helping leaders align who they are with what they build — amplifying their influence to compound across companies, communities, countries, and beyond.

• Stephanie Hare

  Dr. Stephanie Hare is a researcher, broadcaster and author focused on technology, politics and history. She co-presents “Artificial Intelligence: Decoded” on BBC television and contributes to the BBC World Service. Her first book, Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics, was named a Financial Times Best Technology Book of summer 2022, and her writing has featured in the Financial Times, The Washington Post, the Guardian/Observer, the Harvard Business Review, WIRED and Computer Weekly. She has worked at Accenture, Palantir, and Oxford Analytica; held the Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford; and earned a PhD and MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, including a year at the Université de la Sorbonne (Paris IV). Praise Order: via the publisher (for the United Kingdom and rest of Europe) via Blackwells (free shipping UK only) via Book Depository (offers free shipping to many countries around the world) via Barnes and Noble (North America) via Bookshop.org (for the United Kingdom only) via Bookshop.org (for the United States only) via Amazon (global)