Mentors

Thomas Donker is the head of future-project programming for the broadcaster rbb. His responsibilities include conceiving a program distribution strategy, developing interactive TV formats and elements, and supporting the evolution of an interconnected mode of working across diverse media. He introduced video journalism at rbb in 2007 and is presently working to make cell phone reporting “socially acceptable at the station.” He teaches TV journalism in the Cultural Journalism program at Berlin University of the Arts.

Michael Karhausen is a journalist and holds a degree in public administration. After attending a journalism school in Munich and training at a newspaper, he served for two and a half years as an editor and reporter for a Hong Kong news agency. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked as a radio and television journalist for the broadcasters WDR, Deutschlandfunk, and Deutsche Welle (DW). He has also been a journalism trainer at the DW Akademie since 2003. He trains young editors and supervises journalism training in the framework of media development cooperation in Asia (Laos and Myanmar).

Jonas Loh is a designer and cofounder of Studio NAND, a multidisciplinary design studio that works at the interface between technology, culture, and research. He studied in the Interfacedesign program at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences and the Design Interactions program at the Royal College of Art (MA). He is an artistic associate at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.

Bernd M. Scherer is Director of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The philosopher and author of numerous publications in the fields of aesthetics and international cultural exchange previously worked at the Goethe-Institut, heading its Mexican operations and, subsequently, its central arts department in Munich. Since 2011, he has taught as an honorary professor at the European Ethnology department of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. At Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Bernd M. Scherer has developed and established the Anthropocene Project, which is concerned with the human role in geological history.

Tanja Schmoller studied in the digital television and MultiMediaArt film production programs at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. After producing feature films of her own, she served as a research associate in the area of film in the framework of a Design Thinking research project at the Hasso-Plattner-Institut in Potsdam. Since December 2012, she has worked as a crossmedia producer for gebrueder beetz filmproduktion, where she has headed production of the “Wagner Files” interactive graphic novel app, the “Make Love” Web special, and the current “Vikings” educational game project.

Christina Maria Schollerer is an author, concept developer, and lecturer. She writes graphic stories, scripts, book trailer voiceovers, and more. She conceives and produces promotional films, series for TV and the Web, transmedia projects, games, and educational formats, in both analog and digital media. Since 2012, she has taught fiction writing and format development at Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, and in 2013 she co-created and taught “The Future of Storytelling,” Germany’s largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to date.

Lars Weinzierl is the executive editor at BILD TV. He decisively influenced the creation of the video department at BILD. As a producer at Avistura Medienproduktion GmbH, he developed crossmedia formats for television broadcasters. Prior to that, he was involved in the launch of Timm TV and was instrumental in establishing the Berlin radio station Kiss FM, where he served as chief editor.

Philipp Zimmermann is a freelance writer who has authored various transmedia projects. In 2011, as a concept developer and online author at UFA Lab Berlin, he co-created the alternate reality game and crossmedia event “Rescue Dina Foxx!” in cooperation with the public broadcaster ZDF. He is one of the initiators of the Transmedia Manifesto, which was presented at the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair. Among other activities, he currently works for a Berlin gaming studio and as a consultant for the Medieninnovationszentrum Babelsberg.