PARTICIPANTS 2024.

Inga currently works as a freelance conference interpreter for the languages Czech, French, English, and German at the European institutions in Brussels. She believes that interdisciplinarity and cross-sector collaboration are always key concepts for success. Throughout her professional career, she has been involved in the fields of education/culture and international cooperation for governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as in customer/business development for emerging companies in Germany, France, and the Czech Republic alike. She studied Applied Linguistics with a focus on Translation/Interpreting, as well as Law and Bohemistics at the universities of Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Prague, additionally completing courses at the FernUniversität Hagen.

Milan is a digital and energy innovation enthusiast with a background in management consulting. In recent years, he served as an International Business Developer at nano energies, expanding blackout prevention solutions across Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to this, Milan dedicated six years to driving transformative initiatives at innogy/RWE (now e.on), where he reshaped the company’s approach to energy production and distribution across Germany and Europe. Milan’s expertise spans project management, business transformation, and IT development, with a special focus on portal and app development. Milan holds a Master’s degree in International Business from the University of Economics in Prague. He has also participated in global business programs, including “Doing Business in China” at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a semester exchange at Universität zu Köln focusing on European Energy Policy. In his free time, Milan enjoys reading books on Czech-German history (among others), riding his bike in the nature near Prague, or attending music concerts with his friends.

Léa holds a Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School in Berlin, including an exchange at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in Toronto, as well as a Franco-German BA from Sciences Po Aix and the University of Freiburg. Specializing in European affairs, Léa has cultivated a keen interest in governance issues and the intricate relationship between civil society and the rule of law. Since October 2022, she has been employed at seebohm.berlin, a political consultancy dedicated to supporting non-profit organizations that address the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular focus on critical areas such as food security, climate change, global health, and feminist foreign policy. Additionally, she is part of the Netzwerk F, an intersectional coalition advocating for feminist foreign policy, and actively contributes to the European Horizons Core Writer’s team, focusing on transatlantic policy issues. Her diverse professional background includes roles at the German Embassy in South Africa, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Ivory Coast, and the Stiftung Genshagen. Alongside her studies, she also worked for the Franco-German Dialogue at the Jacques Delors Centre and as a Student Assistant to Professor Ruth Ditlmann for a research project on intergroup relations.

Tomáš is a Czech-German attorney based in Prague specializing in German law, cross-border cooperation and e-commerce. In particular, he assists Czech companies and e-shops in Germany as well as German companies operating in the Czech Republic. Originally from the Czech Republic, he studied law in Germany and Scotland. He is a proud DAAD alumnus. He holds a PhD from the University of Freiburg, Germany, with a PhD thesis on the liability of social network sites for user-generated content. Tomáš lived abroad for more than fifteen years and is very interested in other cultures and countries. In his free time, he is politically active and loves spending time in nature and writing.

Pavel works as a Junior Consultant at CEC Group, a leading Central European public affairs agency. He holds a Master’s degree in European Studies at KU Leuven in Belgium. He also studied Political Science and European Studies at the Palacky University Olomouc in the Czech Republic. Pavel has been with CEC Group since 2022. Prior, Pavel worked as an intern at various institutions of both national and EU politics, such as the European Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic, and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his studies, he also spent two semesters abroad – at KU Leuven (BE) and later at the Hague University of Applied Sciences (NL).

Kateřina is an analyst at Fakta o klimatu (Facts on Climate) where she focuses primarily on climate and energy policy and net-zero transition. Prior to that, she worked as a data analyst in the business sphere and volunteered for non-profits. She holds a master’s degree in economic policy and international relations from Masaryk University in Brno. In her free time, she enjoys coffee, discussing gender issues, and practicing her beginner-level French.

Born in Plzeň, graduated from Geography and Social Sciences (Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia), until her mid-30s Veronika worked within the educational institutions in Denmark, Myanmar, Germany and Czechia. The issues she has covered vary from global education and environmental education to place-based learning, both within formal and non-formal educational field. Since 2015, she has been “crossing the borders” between Germany and Czechia, trying to bring members of various generations together by taking an active part in educational and cultural projects. Her activities have received a few awards, a. a. Czech-German Journalist Prize, Kulturpreis für Publizistik (both for the documentary movie Generation “N”: Deutschböhme) or Brückenbauer-Stavitelé mostů (for the educational project Přísečnice žije-Pressnitz lebt). Finding her place in the Ore Mountains, she tries to understand what does it mean when a town disappeared (socially, culturally, regionally, globally) and link the visible and invisible heritage of a significantly modified place with the meanings that are left. Currently, as a PhD candidate at the University of J. E. Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem, her research let Veronika address an interdisciplinary inquiry, moreover, in a cooperation with the last time witnesses. Appart from that, together with a Czech-German NGO, she tries to co-create a space for various cultural and educational activities in the Saxonian-Bohemian borderland.

Anne studied Slavonic linguistics and Eastern European Studies in Dresden, Prague and Berlin with further stays in Moscow, Chișinău and Chernivtsi. After completing her Master’s degree, she taught for three semesters at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem and worked for over five years for the German-Czech Future Fund. After two years of full-time self-employment, during which she also took over the project management with over 45 international partners for the German-Czech-Polish cultural hackathon Coding da Vinci Ost³ 2022 for the Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library, she is now responsible for events and the internationalisation of Saxony’s cultural and creative industries at KREATIVES SACHSEN. She still works as a freelancer for her own projects, in festival production and translates from Czech into German.

She is currently working at T-Mobile Czech Republic as a senior external communication specialist within the corporate affairs and sustainability team, which perfectly combines 3 streams – public relations, public affairs and ESG. Prior to T-Mobile, she spent 4 years at Czech Radio, first as an international relations specialist and then as brand manager of Czech Radio Plus, the analytical and spoken word station. She started her professional life during her university studies at the Association for International Affairs, where she was involved in the Prague Student Summit project for 4 years, the last year as the chief coordinator. She have remained with the Association afterwards as a member and between 2017 and 2021 as a member of the Advisory Board, including two years as its Chairwoman. She graduated from Charles University with a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary History and a master’s degree in Russian, Eurasian, and Central European Studies, during which she spent several months in Warsaw. In addition to her studies, she had an internship at the Czech Embassy there as well.

Daniel is currently employed as an associate consultant at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy firm headquartered in Berlin. In his role, he specialises in assessing potential business partners for any involvement in illegal or questionable practices, particularly focusing on corruption and financial crime. His responsibilities extend to conducting open-source research investigations across German-speaking countries and the wider Central and Eastern European region. Daniel holds a master’s degree in European Studies, which he earned from both the University of Groningen and the University of Göttingen. Throughout his master’s program, he concentrated on EU cyber diplomacy and gaining practical experience through research internships at the independent think tanks EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Brussels and the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin. Prior to pursuing his master’s, Daniel obtained his bachelor’s degree in Area Studies from Charles University in Prague and completed an internship at the Czech Centre Berlin. Daniel’s interest for fostering Czech-German relations began during his high school years when he actively participated in projects and school exchanges dedicated to promoting mutual understanding between the two countries.

Jindřich works in Berlin as a Senior Account Manager at Cint, a market research provider and a global software leader in digital insights, that offers one of the world’s largest consumer networks for digital survey-based research. He graduated with a Master’s degree in East European Studies with a focus in Sociology at the Free University of Berlin. Furthermore, he studied Social Science and Humanities in Prague, Frankfurt am Main and Chernivtsi in Ukraine. In the past, he was awarded the International Parliamentary Scholarship by the German Federal Parliament. He is a passionate musician and sometimes performs concerts with his instrumental band in Berlin. Last year he fulfilled one of his dreams and cycled from Berlin to Prague.

Filip works in the Science Affairs Department at the German Embassy Prague. His task is to promote Czech-German scientific cooperation, which includes, among other things, the co-organization of international workshops, roundtables, conferences and public debates on various topics – from the use of artificial intelligence in industry to academic freedom to environmental protection. Besides that, Filip is also a freelance radio journalist and host with a focus on science, research and climate protection. He is co-author of the Czech-German podcasts Karbon (awarded with the Czech-German Journalism Award in 2022) and Czechia in Six Chapters (released in 2023 and 2024). Filip graduated from Charles University in Prague with a degree in German and Austrian Studies and from the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna with a degree in Nationalism Studies. In his free time, he enjoys playing and listening to jazz as well as travelling by train around Europe.

Verena is a development cooperation professional who grew up in the borderlands of Bavaria, neighbouring the Plzeň Region. Her current professional focus is on good governance and citizen participation as well as on societal and ethical issues posed by technological developments. She is an undergraduate in Political Science and European Ethnology and holds a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Freiburg. During her studies, she spent semesters abroad in Vienna, Buenos Aires, and New Delhi. Longer work and research stays have also taken her to West and South Africa as well as the MENA region. Verena specialized in international cooperation at the Institute of Development and Sustainability in Bonn. She then spent several years working in official development cooperation with a focus on sustainable economic development in South and Southeast Asia. She looks forward to discussing the future of Czech-German cooperation, while also shedding light on perspectives from outside Europe.

Johanna is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Public and Social Policy at Charles University Prague. In addition, she is a researcher at the Technology Campus Freyung (Germany), where she works in the Horizon Europe Project “PoliRuralPLUS”. Johanna has degrees of the University Passau and Prague University of Economics and Business. In her dissertational research, she investigate the emergence and development of cross-border commuting from the Czech Republic to Bavaria by framing the bilateral labor market of the border region in an EU context.