Market Discovery Lab Germany 2026
Lab-Team
Dr. Birgit Stelzer
Dr. Birgit Stelzer is an expert in building innovation and startup ecosystems in Germany. She develops and scales programs that connect research, entrepreneurship, industry and public institutions. She led the Entrepreneurs Campus at Ulm University, supported the development of the Startup Factory Baden-Württemberg, and now serves as an auditor for university entrepreneurship ecosystems with the Stifterverband.
Today, she develops new ventures and innovation programs as an independent entrepreneur. Her focus: identifying new opportunities at the intersection of science, technology, markets and future societal needs.
Dr. Slawa Tomin
Dr. Slawa Tomin is Managing Director of Factory33, a serial entrepreneur, and an expert in (corporate) entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and innovation ecosystems. He previously headed the Corporate Entrepreneurship division at the Excellence Startup Center at Paderborn University. He played a key role in building the startup ecosystem in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region and developed startup and intrapreneurship programs for researchers and companies.
In addition, he has supported numerous academic and corporate spin-offs. His work focuses on the commercialization and piloting of science-based innovations at the intersection of academia and the industrial SME sector.
Prof. Jerome S. Engel
Professor Jerome S. Engel is an internationally recognized expert in innovation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. He lectures worldwide and advises leaders from business and government. After an initial career in industry, Engel joined the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, where he founded the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. As Founding Faculty Director, he also developed the national I-Corps program on behalf of the U.S. government, designed to support entrepreneurial teams at universities in commercializing their technologies.
Today, in addition to his teaching, he works as an advisor, investor, author, and speaker. His research on innovation ecosystems has received several awards.
Prof. Chris Hayter
Prof. Chris Hayter is Associate Professor with the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. His research focuses on academic entrepreneurship, non-academic career transitions among university postdocs, and the performance of entrepreneurship development programs.
Chris also serves as a senior consultant for the World Bank and co-founded a software startup. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Chris was on faculty at Arizona State University for nine years and spent 15 years prior working as a science and entrepreneurship policy advisor with organizations such as the National Academies, Council of Competitiveness, National Governors Association, and New York Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Dorothea Ringe
Dr. Dorothea Ringe heads the Entrepreneurship Cluster at the Joachim Herz Foundation. Her ambition is to sustainably strengthen the promotion of entrepreneurial talent in Germany – particularly by advancing entrepreneurship education and building high-performing innovation ecosystems.
After completing her PhD in economics, she began her professional career at the Entrepreneurship Centre at the University of Oxford. She then went on to lead the DESY Startup Office, where she played a key role in establishing startup support structures at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY), one of Germany’s leading research centers for physics.
Dr. Max Vellguth
Dr. Max Vellguth, Ecosystem Lead, works at the Joachim Herz Foundation to foster deeptech entrepreneurship. In his current role, he develops innovative programs to support and fund deeptech ecosystems at the intersection of venture philanthropy and venture capital. He collaborates with leading universities, research institutions, and entrepreneurship centers to drive the creation of deeptech spin-offs.
Previously, Max earned a PhD from the Technical University of Denmark, specializing in deeptech entrepreneurship. As a research fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management, he conducted comparative research on deeptech ventures across the Nordic countries and the Boston ecosystem. Prior to that, he worked in industry in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), focusing on the acquisition of young technology companies.