Jury of Innovation Awards

Dr. Alex Jin Sung Choi

SVP of Research and Technology Innovation
Head of T-Laboratories Innovation at Deutsche Telekom AG

Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi is SVP Strategy and Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom AG. In addition, he is member of the Technology & Innovation management board, where he has responsibility for several strategic projects. In his position, he reports directly to Claudia Nemat, Member of the Board Management, Technology & Innovation.

Dr. Choi has more than 20 years of experience in the mobile telecommunication industry. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, he served from 2012 as Chief Technology Officer(CTO) and Head of the Corporate R&D Division and the Technology Strategy Office for SK Telekom in South Korea, where he advanced key strategic and research topics. An important focus was on the development of next generation ICT technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G and autonomous driving. With the introduction of "NUGU", the first AI-based virtual assistant in Korea, Dr. Choi was influential in the development of AI solutions. Before SK Telekom, Dr. Choi held various position at LG Electronics, including Head of the Mobile Core Technology Lab and the Next Generation Telecommunications Lab. He was also previously chaired the Korea Artificial Intelligence Industry Association, as well as serving as Chairman of Telecom Infra Project(TIP), headed by Facebook, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom.

Benjamin Kang

Vice President of SMEs Cooperation Division 
KETI

Benjamin Kang is currently Vice President of SMEs Cooperation Division at Korea Electronics Technology Institute.

Benjamin was awarded B.S. in Mathematics at Hannam University and M.A. in Business Administration at Ajou University, and now working on his Ph.D. in Technology Policy Course at Yonsei University.

In 2011 and 2017 he has won two awards, which are Chairman Award (Korea Semiconductor Industry Association) and Minister Award (Minister of Trade, Industry, Energy) by supporting Korean SME's global industrial competitiveness in Semiconductor Area and Sensor Industry.

He also attained a patent on sequential circuit design method for low power implementation and a clock gating circuit used in the method. 

Arne Küper

Counsellor for Economic Affairs
Embassy of the Federal Republic of  Germany Seoul

Arne Küper is Counsellor for Economic Affairs at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Seoul since January 2020. Prior to this post, he was Deputy Head of Division "Economic Relations with South and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand" at the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin, Germany, a post which he took over in 2018. Since joining the Ministry in 2012, he held various positions in the "Foreign Trade Law" division and in the "Industry Policy" Department of the Ministry.

Dr. Thomas Gries

Univ.-Prof. Prof. h.c. Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Thomas Gries

Director/Professor

RWTH Aachen University

Thomas Gries received the Dipl. Ing. degree in mechanical engineering and the Dipl. Wirt. Ing. degree from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 1989 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from RWTH Aachen University in 1995. From 1995 to 2000 he worked at the Lurgi Zimmer AG, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, as the Head of the Department and Central Division of Technologies for Fibers. In 2001, he became a Professor at RWTH Aachen University for textile machinery and the Director of the Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA). Since 2013, he is honorary Professor with Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation. He has authored and coauthored more than 850 scientific articles and held more than 160 presentations, mainly at international congresses.

Prof. Dr. Michael Maskos

CEO
Fraunhofer ICT-IMM

Prof. Dr. Michael Maskos, graduate chemist, heads the Fraunhofer ICT-IMM as a director since 2014 in combination with a full professorship in the field of Chemical Process Engineering / Microfluidics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Before that he was CEO of the former Insitut für Mikrotechnik Mainz GmbH(IMM). In 2000 he obtained the Reserach Award of the Boehringer-Ingelheim Foundation and in the same year went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada, as a research scholar of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina. Back in Germany Maskos moved to Berlin where he took the lead of the Division Durability of Polymers at the Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing (BAM). In 2015 Maskos won the Literature Prize of the Chemical Industry of Germany for the textbook "Polymers: Synthesis, Characteristics and Applications".

Nils Müller

CEO
TRENDONE

Nils Müller is the CEO of TRENDONE, which he founded in 2002 and has managed ever since. As the market leader for trend research & innovation consulting in Germanspeaking countries, TRENDONE defines today's standards for targeted future orientation in a rapidly developing world, with a view on markets, industries and societies. With the help of the globally active network "LaFutura", Nils Müller brings together leading futurists and visionaries at an international level. Nils sets enthralling standards for multimedia-based journeys into the future with active audience particiation with his "Journey into the Future" and the brand-new "Creators Keynote".