MEX Speakers - 19/20 May 2010

Marko Balabanovic, Head of Innovation, Lastminute.com Bio Marko is Head of Innovation at lastminute.com, leading the lastminute.com labs innovation team currently focused on developing new mobile experiences. Previously he worked on personalisation and search engine optimisation systems for lastminute.com and Travelocity sites across Europe. Prior to lastminute.com, Marko led the development team at Cellectivity and product design at flutter.com/betfair.com. His innovation experience has also included stints at Xerox EuroPARC, Ricoh Innovations and some of the early work on recommender systems during a PhD at Stanford University. Read about Marko's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web lastminute.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Marko Balabanovic Head of Innovation Lastminute.com

Willem Boijens, Marketing, innovation & design executive, Vodafone Bio Design thought leader with 20+ years of experience in local and global, profit and non-profit environments. He spent the last 10 years of his career working at Vodafone. Previously having worked in the area of sustainable energy and starting off owning his own company. Progressive at heart, thriving on pushing boundaries and continuously looking for ways to inspire through value dynamics and visionary design statements. Working with futurologists, cool hunters, future experience architects, (design) hackers, progressive marketers and strategic designers. Holding a industry shaping portfolio that ideates and designs innovative product experiences that truly change the customer conversation across the globe, leveraging the diverse creativity of his team and providing a platform to excel. Read about Willem's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Twitter twitter.com/willemjhboijens >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Willem Boijens Marketing, innovation & design executive Vodafone

Dr Danny Grant, Principal Engineer, Research, Immersion Corporation Bio Danny Grant, principal engineer at Immersion Corporation, brings over 14 years of experience working with haptics (force feedback) technology. He develops innovative user interface experiences for next-generation digital devices and is an authority on haptics technologies and its applications to mobile communications and other industries. His tenure at Immersion includes senior level research and research-management positions, notably leading the research effort behind the haptic rendering algorithms that are now shipping in over 100 million consumer devices. Prior to Immersion, Danny consulted with Haptic Technologies to design and patent high-resolution optical sensors for an award-winning force feedback mouse. He received a doctorate degree in electrical engineering from McGill University in 1999 with a focus on control and robotics, where he continues as an adjunct professor. As senior member of the IEEE, he is the author of several publications on the design of haptic devices, interfaces and controls, holds over 80 US issued or pending patents and is an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Haptics(Toh). Read about Dr Danny's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web immersion.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Dr Danny Grant Principal Engineer, Research Immersion Corporation

Parrish Hanna, Global Director of Experience Planning, Motorola Bio Throughout my professional career, I've been fortunate to design products, physical control systems, digital user interfaces, physical and virtual spaces, services, brands and the occasional marketing strategy and new business model. As a result of these experiences, I've developed a deep appreciation of user-centered design methods, humanising technology, realising innovation, and the general role of design in global business. Currently, I work across Motorola's Mobile Devices division as a liaison between the global Consumer Experience Design Group and other disciplines including business and strategic planning, strategic investments and portfolio development. I particularly focus on the combination of next generation technologies, form factors, input and unique interactive experiences to explore new spaces and inform the defintion of Motorola's future portfolio of products and services. Read about Parrish's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web parrishhanna.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Parrish Hanna Global Director of Experience Planning Motorola

Nick Healey, Founder, Slash Design Bio I do Product Design for normal people. (Or 'UX Design', if you prefer - after all, The UX Is The Product. It's what companies are actually trying to deliver, to achieve.) I founded Slash Design in 1999 and since then I've designed smartphone platforms, PDA platforms, Linux platforms, and all kinds of apps, software, websites and devices, for all kinds of clients. Plus one restaurant UX (Inamo, in Soho). Recently I was UX Consultant to Ambient Industries for their "Flook" iPhone app, which won the MEX-sponsored 'Best User Experience' at the Mobile Premier Awards, Barcelona, Feb 2010. Previously I was Psion's sole Software/UX Designer throughout the 1990s. I led the design of the apps and UI of the Psion Series 3/3a and Series 5, which led to the formation of Symbian in 1998. I then spent a year as Head of Design at Symbian. Read about Nick's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web slashdesign.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Nick Healey Founder Slash Design

Nicky Hickman, Director, Inglis Jane Bio Nicky Hickman has over 10 years experience working in the international mobile communications sector as a product and innovation manager. She has specific interest and expertise in the domains of Digital Identity and Inclusive Design. Nicky is a Director and owner of Inglis Jane Ltd, who's current customers include Sky and Vodafone Group. Read about Nicky's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web inglisjane.co.uk >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Nicky Hickman Director Inglis Jane

Penny Allen, MSc Student, Interactive Systems, Edinburgh Napier University Bio A psychologist with a passion for user experience. As a UX intern for Inglis Jane Ltd, Penny worked alongside Nicky Hickman in researching the current voice user interface (VUI) market, specifically providing insight into psychological issues surrounding the use of voice in mobile applications and devices. Currently studying for a Masters degree in Interactive Systems: UX, specialising in areas of Interaction Design, Prototyping for Interactive Media, UX and Usability Methods. In the final stages of her masters, she is carrying out a research project into engagement with technology and the contingent nature of identity, concentrating on what constitutes identity at any moment, and the stories we construct about the self, and how these emerge within particular contexts of practical engagement. A proven high achiever, she is on line for a distinction and will have her research published. Read about Penny's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Penny Allen MSc Student, Interactive Systems Edinburgh Napier University

Oren Horev, User Experience Strategist, Plan Bio Oren is an interaction designer and user experience strategist. His interest in how people use technology was sparked while spending a few years tucked in the cramped cockpit of a fighter jet, eventually leading to a BA in industrial design. Over the next seven years, working as a product designer, he specialised in envisioning high-tech and medical products, helping clients and their users make sense of them in real life. As he spent progressively more time designing product interfaces, Oren then chose to take an MA at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy, graduating with distinction. His next stop was Denmark, where he helped found the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, before joining ReD Associates in Copenhagen where he spent the next two years translating research into insight, experience strategies and user experience concepts. In 2009 Oren joined Plan, a product strategy consultancy in London, where he leads the consulting work on user experience strategy. Along his career Oren has worked for clients including Intel, Lego, Philips, Mattel, Samsung, Mars, Johnson and Johnson, Orange and Vodafone. Read about Oren's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web plan.bz >> Twitter twitter.com/oreneeshy >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Oren Horev User Experience Strategist Plan

Garrett Johnston, Group Director, Strategic Marketing, MTS Bio Garrett Johnston is the director of strategic marketing at MTS, responsible for the formulation of marketing strategy and innovative marketing solutions. Previously, he served as the chief marketing officer in Kyivstar. Garrett is a successful senior marketing and sales professional with wide international exposure to the mobile, fixed and internet telecommunications markets. He has a 15 year track record working on customer facing assignments with blue chip ICT employers, living and working in 12 different countries around the world covering both emerging markets such as the former USSR, China, Middle East and Latin America as well as advanced markets such as the UK/Ireland, Western Europe and North America. Garrett is fluent in 8 languages with intermediate capacity in several more. Read about Garrett's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web mts.ru >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Garrett Johnston Group Director, Strategic Marketing MTS

Dr Jonas Landgren, PhD, University of Gothenburg / Ideaviate AB Bio Dr Jonas Landgren (M.Sc. and Ph.D. both in Informatics) studies the use and design of mobile technology and services for crisis and emergency response. Specifically, Jonas' research focuses on how to design information technology that complies to time-critical and distributed work practices. He is assistant professor at the Department of Applied IT, University of Gothenburg. He holds a MSc in informatics (1998) and a Ph.D. in informatics (2007) from University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Jonas is the founder of the Crisis Response Lab, consisting of researchers from Gothenburg University, Chalmers University and the Viktoria Institute. His research is conducted in collaboration with Gothenburg fire & rescue services, the Swedish Rescue Services Agency as well as Swedish Emergency Management Agency. He is also involved in research-transfer projects with commercial organisations within civil security and mobile telecommunications. Jonas regularly gives lectures nationally as well as internationally on his research to practitioners, industry and academia. In addition, Jonas is the co-founder of Ideaviate, a small technology design company, focusing on bringing low cost mobile services to a crisis response professional mass market. Read about Dr Jonas's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web jonaslandgren.blogspot.com >> Twitter twitter.com/jonaslandgren >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Dr Jonas Landgren PhD University of Gothenburg / Ideaviate AB

Guillaume Largillier, Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer, Stantum Bio Stantum (www.stantum.com) has been the pioneering company in multi-touch technology since 2002, and in 2005 was the first company to market commercial products using a truly reliable multi-touch user interface. Today, Stantum's patented and breakthrough multi-touch technology portfolio is available under license of IP bricks and associated engineering and design services. Stantum's headquarters are in France, with subsidiary offices in Japan, California and Taiwan. Guillaume Largillier has seven years experience in entrepreneurship, being one of the original founders of Stantum and Jazzmutant (www.jazzmutant.com). He has a broad knowledge of Human-Machine Interface technologies with a strong expertise in multi-modal user interfaces. Guillaume has taken part in many major conferences (Siggraph, SID, Microsoft Display Summit). Read about Guillaume's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web stantum.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Guillaume Largillier Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer Stantum

Christian Lindholm, Managing Partner, Fjord Bio Christian is Managing Partner at Fjord, Europe's leading convergence design agency. He is a globally recognised visionary on mobility and digital lifestyle. He was Vice President of Global Mobile Products at Yahoo. He worked for ten years for Nokia in various roles in the areas of user interface, product creation and venturing. He is also chairman of Tech21 Sensor, developing a revolutionary touch sensor and user interface. Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's largest daily newspaper called him the 'godfather of mobile phone users', a tribute to the long-term efforts making Nokia phones easier to use. His innovations have been seen in nearly 1 billion phones sold all over the world. He writes about moving experiences on his blog at www.christianlindholm.com He believes: everything can always be simplified and made more delightful to use, everything that can be mobile will be mobile. He has a master's degree in Economics and takes a strategic and unified perspective on design, design management and product creation. Read about Christian's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web www.christianlindholm.com >> Twitter twitter.com/CLindholm >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Christian Lindholm Managing Partner Fjord

Heather Martin, Director of Interaction Design, Smart Design Bio Heather leads interaction design in the Barcelona office of Smart Design. She has experience working with multi-disciplinary teams designing new products and services for clients including Prada, Lufthansa Technik, Nokia, Intel, Artemide and Samsung. Heather's career has always spanned consulting and academia. She began her career as a product designer at Tangerine in London and then joined IDEO after completing her Masters in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art. She has experience not only designing products, service and systems but also running large multi-disciplinary teams across multiple offices. Before joining Smart she co-founded CIID, a new school teaching interaction design to international graduate students in Denmark. She has taught interaction design to Master level students at the Royal College of Art and was an Associate Professor and Academic Director at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII). She holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from the University of Northumbria and a Master of Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art. She has lived and worked in several countries including the UK, USA, Italy, Denmark and now Spain. Read about Heather's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web smartdesignworldwide.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Heather Martin Director of Interaction Design Smart Design

Blake McEldowney, Director of Industrial Design & Creative Director, Smart Design Bio Blake brings a broad, global perspective to the design process, he has over 13 years experience designing innovative solutions for many clients in many industries, from house wares, home appliances, mobile devices, consumer electronics to sports & recreation products, in addition to various user interfaces, and packaging systems. He holds numerous awards and patents. In addition to developing products and services for clients worldwide, Blake was instrumental in establishing the European office of Smart Design in Barcelona. Prior to joining Smart Design 8 years ago, Blake worked at Fisher and Paykel, an innovative New Zealand appliance manufacturer. Partial Client list: ACCO, OXO, Coca-Cola, ESPN, Groupe SEB, HP, Johnson Controls, Kia, Hyundai, Microsoft, Shell, XM Satellite Radio, Johnson & Johnson, Simple Human, Indesit, P&G. Blake holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. Read about Blake's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web smartdesignworldwide.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Blake McEldowney Director of Industrial Design & Creative Director Smart Design

Norbert Metzner, Research Director, MEX Bio Norbert is the driving force behind the research and agenda for the MEX conference. His previous leadership roles at Vodafone, T-Mobile, Option Wireless and, more recently, as principal of his own consulting practice provide in-depth knowledge of digital industry and mobile user experience. Web pmn.co.uk/mex/ >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Norbert Metzner Research Director MEX

Marc Nagel, CEO, Pilotfish Bio Born in 1967 in Hamburg. Studied Industrial Design at the Hochschule fur bildende Kunste (HfbK), Hamburg (Diploma: Diplom Industrial designer). Numerous awarded projects as a senior designer at Godoff Design, e.g. Iris von Arnim - reconstruction of a private house / office, J's - Der Klub im Bunker (night club), Lucky Strike Bar. Launch of a limited series of products in the luxury segment. Post-graduate studies of industrial design at LES ATELIERS - Ecole Nationale Superieure de Creation Industrielle (ENSCI), Paris (advanced studies/ master: creation industrielle). Designer/Project manager at Van Dijk Eger Associates later renamed to WeLL Design Associates. In 2000 Harm-Willem Hogenbirk and Marc Nagel founded Pilotfish. Pilotfish is a progressive design and innovation agency based in Munich, Amsterdam and Taipei. The company focuses on creating unique user experiences on both the rational and emotional level. By combining the complete range of services from trend and user research to design strategy, industrial design, user interface design, mechanical engineering, sourcing, tooling, and production, Pilotfish offers an integrated design process which allows for the creation of innovative products enhancing the user experience. Pilotfish is specialised in electronic products for the consumer and professional industries, including the medical and automotive sector. Since its foundation in 2000, Pilotfish has grown to a multinational team of 28 industrial, graphic, and user interface designers, engineers and manufacturing experts catering to international brands worldwide. Web pilotfish.eu >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Marc Nagel CEO Pilotfish

Marek Pawlowski, Founder, MEX Bio Marek leads the development of the MEX conferences and research services for PMN. Since founding PMN in 1995, Marek has focused the company's activities on helping the mobile telecoms industry to improve its understanding of customers and translate that understanding into better user experience and increased profitability. In addition to his extensive research portfolio for PMN, he is widely published in print and digital media, a frequent speaker at international conferences and provides commentary for leading broadcast channels such as the BBC and CNN. Web pmn.co.uk/mex/ >> Twitter twitter.com/marekpawlowski >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Marek Pawlowski Founder MEX

Jo Rabin, CTO, The Handheld Company Bio Jo is a consultant CTO, with recent assignments at dotMobi, Flirtomatic and before that at Reuters Mobile. He was responsible for the development of Reuters Foreign Exchange Dealing system and helped start the UK's first electronic mail system, Telecom Gold. Jo chairs the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group at W3C and is editor of and contributor to numerous W3C Mobile Web Recommendations including the Mobile Web Best Practices, mobileOK Tests and Content Transformation Guidelines. He's one of the founders and organisers of MobileMonday London. Twitter twitter.com/jorabin >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Jo Rabin CTO The Handheld Company

Daniel Tenner, CTO, Woobius Bio To be published shortly... Read about Daniel's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web woobius.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Daniel Tenner CTO Woobius

Chris Thomason, Managing Consultant, Seren Bio Chris has 11 years experience in the identification, analysis and development of innovative business opportunities. Chris worked both in-house and in consultancy offering strategic consulting and innovation development in service design in the financial services, media, publishing, consumer goods, automotive and FMCG industries. Web seren.com >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Chris Thomason Managing Consultant Seren

Itai Vonshak, Co-founder, Elements Bio Itai Vonshak specialises in creating platforms for novel technologies. He combines his knowledge in HCI and Computer science to create designs that are not only innovative but also possible under real world constraints. Itai, with over 10 years experience in the field of interaction design, is a co-founder of Elements. Elements is a UX design studio focused on the consumer electronics market. Elements aims to help companies use their technology and know-how to create products and services that make people's lives better. Read about Itai's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web uxelements.com >> Twitter twitter.com/UXelements >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Itai Vonshak Co-founder Elements

Alex Rapoport, Co-founder, Elements Bio Alex Rapoport uses his extensive experience in behavioral sciences research, pushing innovation that answers real human needs. Alex enjoys the observation of day to day human behavior finding niches and moments that can be made better through technology. Alex has 10 years experience in interaction design. He is a co-founder of Elements - a UX design studio located in Israel, working in the past 3 years with leading device manufacturers and operators in the mobile space. Read about Alex's session on the MEX agenda Link >> Web uxelements.com >> Twitter twitter.com/UXelements >> Register for MEX | Back to top

Alex Rapoport Co-founder Elements

• New - you are presenting fresh ideas for the first time
• Personal - you are speaking on the basis of your personal passion for a subject, not pitching your company
• Open - you are engaging in a conversation with the conference, as open to receiving ideas as you are to giving them