DEEPSEA – THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM ACCELERATOR
TOGETHER WE GROW ECOSYSTEMS
experiences and work together on joint projects for transnational ecosystems!
Who should participate?
Managers of startup programs, accelerators or incubators. Economic Development agencies, investors, innovation scouts and startup relations managers. Non-profits and community builders as well as entrepreneurs who are eager to give back.
BUILD TRANSNATIONAL ECOSYSTEMS TOGETHER

Join a passionate community
of international ecosystem builders
Get inspired by leading experts
Become a Master Ecosystem Builder
mentoring and peer advice on your own projects
Turn Ideas into Impact
challenge for the tech ecosystem


DEEPSEA Team
Thomas Kösters
Managing Director at DEEP Ecosystems
Erica Santini
Co-Founder and Head of Research at DEEP Ecosystems and Lecturer at University of Trento
Entrepreneur with 13 years of experience in community building, Lais led the development of entrepreneurial communities across every continent. From leading 2000 volunteers across Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as the president of a non-profit organization, to selecting and training community leaders across Latam, Africa, APAC for Startup Grind and working for governments and innovation agencies in 75+ ecosystems as part of Startup Genome’s executive team.
Serghei Glinca
Head of DEEPSEA and founder of BioTech startup CrystalsFirst
Sebastián Díaz Mesa
Co-founder at DEEP Ecosytems and Head of Acceleration & Community
Takhmina Lolakova
Project Manager at DEEP Ecosystems
Harald is an urban development and governance specialist. Previously worked at German Agency for International Development (GIZ) and [email protected]
Harald Eisenhauer
Co-Founder and Head of Platform at DEEP Ecosystems
Mentors and Coaches
Seth started the Foundry Group together with Techcelerator Founder Brad Feld. They knew each other from Brad’s previous fund Mobius Ventures and are investing in technology companies throughout the US and Canada. His career spans venture capital investing as well as operational, transactional and advisory roles at both public and private companies.
Seth Levine
Managing Director at Foundry Group
Bernhard is Head of the Innovation Accelerator at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The WFP Innovation Accelerator identifies, nurtures and scales disruptive startups and entrepreneurs that accelerate progress towards zero hunger. Previously, Bernhard co-founded the ShareTheMeal app, built up WFP’s Business Innovation team and worked as Project Leader at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for global tech and industrial goods companies.
Bernhard Kowatsch
Head of UN World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator
Entrepreneur with 13 years of experience in community building, Lais led the development of entrepreneurial communities across every continent. From leading 2000 volunteers across Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as the president of a non-profit organization, to selecting and training community leaders across Latam, Africa, APAC for Startup Grind and working for governments and innovation agencies in 75+ ecosystems as part of Startup Genome’s executive team.
Laís de Oliveira
Community Development Consultant at Startup Genome
As Partner at Antler, Youri leads all operations in Amsterdam, the company’s third location globally after Singapore and Stockholm. Together with the rest of the Antler team, he drives to launch variety of new innovative companies through Antler’s unique approach to talent acquisition and business-building.
YOURI DOELEMAN
Partner at Antler Netherlands
Erin Henderson Ouzts
Upstate Entrepreneur Ecosystem Director for Ten at the Top
Pedro is a founder, CEO and jack of all trades at darwinLabs, a specialized IT consulting company focused on #lowcode and out systems. He is also a co-founder at Beta-i, a non-profit organization for the promotion of entrepreneurship. Pedro has extensive experience in the consulting, financial services, telecom, internet and mobile marketing industries.
Pedro Santos
CEO at darwinLabs and Co-founder at Beta-i
Dominik is Innovation Consultant, Design Thinking Coach and Workshop Facilitator with 8+ years of international experience. Previously, Dominik worked as Innovation Manager for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s digital technology branch (EIT Digital). Additionally, he ran intrapreneurship and innovation programs at large international corporations and organizations such as Airbus, Celfocus, Deutsche Telekom, SAP and others.
Dominik Krabbe
Innovation Consultant
Claudia has more than 16 years of experience as an international development consultant and technical adviser, working extensively in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Her work has involved designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating multi-million-dollar development programmes, particularly focused on entrepreneurship and business development, across several government and non-governmental organizations.
Claudia Pompa
Founder and Managing Director at Consulting for Growth Group (C4G)
Aneth is a Hub Network Community Manager at Tech Entrepreneurship Initiative ‘Make-IT in Africa’ implemented by GIZ. Aneth is passionate about entrepreneurship and ecosystem building having been involved in various entrepreneurship projects. Previously, Aneth led the Reach for Change incubator program in Rwanda. For the past 3 years, Aneth has supported the 2nd year seminar course as a teaching assistant at Carnegie Mellon University Africa.
Aneth Batamuliza
Hub Network Community Manager at Make-IT in Africa
Inty is the co-founder and CEO of Ichthion, an award-winning start-up in the United Kingdom. The aim of this company is the development of disruptive technologies to extract plastics and synthetic waste from rivers and oceans. Inty is also the President and co-founder of the Circular foundation in Ecuador, an NGO with the goal of improving the life of vulnerable social groups through technology and innovation, while contributing to the protection of the environment.
INTY GRØNNEBERG
Co-founder and CEO of Ichthion, Co-founder and President of Circular Foundation in Ecuador
Anna is a trained systemic consultant and heads the Berlin team of the Conscious Innovation consultancy Mandalah. She has led various national and international projects with corporations, public institutions and NGOs alike. She also is the co-founder of Welana, a social business importing fabrics from Ethiopia.
Anna Papadopoulos
Managing Partner at Mandalah
Eric Weissmann
Vice President at Cintrifuse
Marketing, technology, operations, and startup development professional with specialties in data analytics, growth, operations management, digital strategy, investor relations, product management, business development, ecosystem development, user/market research, data analytics, operations digitization, & product launch. His past clients include Startupbootcamp, Touch Surgery, Hackster.io, Incident gTar, Car and Driver Magazine, Noisebridge, Asa, among many others.
Matthew Eisner
VP of Marketing and Growth at Ansible Advisory
Khatuchi is a Program Manager at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) East Africa Chapter. In this capacity, she provides oversight to all the chapter’s Programs . Khatuchi also oversees ANDE’s activities in Tanzania and Uganda. Prior to joining ANDE, she worked with INGOs in both Kenya and Uganda.
Khatuchi Khasandi
Program Manager at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE)
Alain is a senior fellow at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University. He is the author of a book “Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities.” His operational work as an independent consultant and researcher focuses on the interaction between markets, regulations, and transport infrastructure in shaping the spatial structures of cities.
Alain Bertaud
Senior Fellow NYU, Former Principal Urbanist Planner at the World Bank
Lisa-Marie Fassl
Co-Founder & CEO at Female Founders
Bart is one of Europe's leading and awarded experts on the digital transformation of healthcare, and one of the most progressive forward thinkers focuses on finding alternative European strategies for the current postmodern world to create a more desirable future with greater social benefits. He is the initiator of the HIPPO AI Foundation in Berlin and co-founded the Digital Health Academy where he shares his knowledge to improve digital literacy.
Bart de Witte
Founder at HIPPO AI Foundation and Digital Health Academy
Michal Michaeli
Director of International Economic Development @Tel Aviv Global
Laura Egg
Managing Director at Austrian Angel Investors Association
David Bowles
Venture Capital Investor at The Yield Lab Europe
Harald is an urban development and governance specialist. Previously worked at German Agency for International Development (GIZ) and [email protected]
Harald Eisenhauer
Co-Founder and Head of Platform at DEEP Ecosystems
Igor Oliveira
UN consultant on ecosystem modelling,former Managing Director of Semente (Brazil)
Sebastián Díaz Mesa
Co-Founder at DEEP Ecosystems and Head of Acceleration & Community
Erica Santini
President of the European Startup Initiative and Lecturer at University of Trento
Thomas Kösters
Managing Director at DEEP Ecosystems
Zane Bojāre
Head of marketing and communications at Startup Wise Guys
Aru runs his own data science consultancy called Arulytics, and is the Director of Data Science at Willapay, a fintech startup based in Stockholm. Previously, he has been building and scaling analytics and data science functions at HiQ, Springworks and Truecaller in Stockholm. He also has experience working as an Analyst for the Search team at Yahoo in London, and at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Arunabh Singh
Director of Data Science @Willapay
Natalie is a sociologist and researcher on early-stage entrepreneurship in Europe. For the last five years, she has been conducting fieldwork with entrepreneurs and community builders for the project, The Startup City. Her research and experience in the startup ecosystem spans 27 different countries on nearly all continents.
Natalie Novick
Market Researcher, Content and Digital Marketing @PIRATEx
Rocio is the Executive Director of InnovaChile CORFO and former CEO at Start-Up Chile one of the biggest and most diverse startup community in the world. She has a MS in Management at MIT, is a Master in innovation and entrepreneurship and Biotech Engineer. Her passion is to help people to transform their ideas into business.
Rocio Fonseca
Executive Director of InnovaChile
Stefano is a Lecturer of Economics of the European Union at Bocconi University (Italy) and at University of Auckland (New Zealand), and Lecturer of EU competition policy at ISPI (Italy). He is also a board member of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in New Zealand and of the NZ European Business Council. He is also an 'angel investor' in love with clear-cut differentiation and scalability.
Stefano Riela
Board member of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in NZ and European Business Council
Michaela Werther
Startup Coach @Technical University of Munich
Stephan is an Investment Partner at TS Ventures and Director Founders Education at the Founders Foundation. Prior to that, he has led the startup units at Microsoft in Germany and Europe and was co-founder of the Microsoft Accelerator in Berlin. He manages a portfolio of 20 angel investments in Germany, Europe and the US with a focus on AdTech, Marketplaces, SaaS and Climate Tech.
Stephan Jacquemot
Investment Partner @TS Ventures and Director Founders Education @Founders Foundation
George is Director of Strategic Projects & Innovation; and Accreditation & China Director at AMBA (the Association of MBAs) in London. He leads on the accreditation of 130 universities / business schools in China, Japan, Russia, Eastern Europe, Spain, Latin America, Turkey and London. In this capacity, George advises business school deans and MBA directors in designing their MBA, DBA and Master's in Management and Entrepreneurship programmes.
George Iliev
Director of Strategic Projects & Innovation and Accreditation & China Director at AMBA
Entrepreneur, community builder & public speaker. Sebastien has a real passion for startups, innovation, and social impact. He currently dedicates his time to helping startup founders to build successful, inclusive & sustainable ventures. He also facilitates workshops at European Commission, EIT InnoEnergy, SeedStars. Previously worked at TNW Impact Startups, Innofest, The Global Hack.
Sebastien Toupy
Advisor @Greentech Alliance
Lucia is the program manager at the UNLOCK Accelerator, a program by Wikimedia Deutschland supporting social innovations that make knowledge freely and widely accessible to all. She has many years of experience in program design and implementation as well as community engagement in the non-profit sector. Drawing from her background as a theatre scholar her mission is to create experiences that provide the framework and inspiration that access the potential in all of us.
Lucia Obst
Program Manager @UNLOCK Accelerator
Carlos is a Senior Advisor at EIT Digital, where he taps into 25 years of professional experience across Europe and the US – as a consultant and executive at firms like McKinsey, Microsoft, Indra or Aldesa, and as CEO of multiple SMEs – to help digital tech scaleups grow on an international basis, and corporations adopt innovative solutions from the scaleup ecosystem.
Carlos Rubal
Senior Advisor @EIT Digital
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