#btconf Berlin, Germany 07 - 08 Nov 2024

Below you find the speakers of Berlin 2024. The core of any beyond tellerrand event. The wonderful humans who inspire, encourage, educate and motivate and around which the magical things onsite happen.

Craig Black

Craig Black

Craig Black is a Scottish visual artist renowned for his innovative “Acrylic Fusion” technique.

Specialising in bespoke artwork, installations, and live performance art, Craig is committed to creating captivating and original visuals in all his work.

Craig’s “Acrylic Fusion” has garnered international acclaim, captivating brands, galleries, and art collectors alike. This versatile analogue process involves hand-pouring layers of acrylic paint to create a mesmerising and unique effect.

Craig’s versatility has led to diverse collaborations, including bespoke football artworks for FIFA at the World Cup, match-day narratives for UEFA, iconic basketballs for Wilson and the NBA, and customising American footballs for the NFL. His portfolio extends to creating an iconic “Acrylic Fusion” Taycan for Porsche, designing elegant packaging for Mucho, transforming the W Edinburgh hotel lobby with an immersive mural, and crafting bespoke helmets for Jaguar TCS Racing at the Monaco E-Prix.

Sheryl Cababa

Sheryl Cababa

Sheryl Cababa is the author of Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers. She's a design researcher and strategist, and is the Chief Strategy Officer at Substantial, an education-focused research and insights studio based in Seattle. Her practice is focused on systems thinking and equity-centred design, and she's worked with a diverse base of clients including the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, IKEA, and Khan Academy. Her focus is on using design to help clients reimagine education.

Jan De Coster

Jan De Coster

Jan De Coster has been making physical interactive installations since 1999. He has worked as an art director and producer for most large agencies in Belgium. Since 2012 his focus is on Robots and their place in society. He gives talks and makes exhibitions and workshops for many creative festivals. His robots have traveled the world, from Mexico City to Moscow and Beijing.

Since 2018 he has devoted a lot of time to activism, working on several campaigns to protect city forests and helping people start their own campaigns.
Jan De Coster is based right between Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium.

Paddy Donnelly

Paddy Donnelly

Paddy Donnelly is an Irish author and illustrator of picture books. His books include Fox & Son Tailers, The Vanishing Lake, Here Be Dragons and Wolves in Helicopters. In 2023 his books won at both the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards and the LAI Biennial Children’s Book Awards. Paddy grew up on the beautiful north coast of Ireland, surrounded by mythical stories of giants, magical creatures and shape-shifting animals. All of this prompted his love for nature, animals and storytelling.

Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische is a lettering artist and New York Times Best-selling author based in Oakland, California. She specialises in typographical work for logos, film, books, and other commercial applications. Her clients include Wes Anderson, The United States Postal Service, Target, Hallmark, and Penguin Books and her work has been featured again and again in design and illustration annuals both in the US and internationally. She’s been named a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, a “Person to Watch” by GD USA, and an Adweek “Creative 100”. She's the author and illustrator of four children's books, including My First Book of Fancy Letters (Penguin Workshop, Oct 2024) and the owner of two brick and mortar shops in Oakland: Drawling All Ages Art Supply and Jessica Hische & Friends.

Sophie Koonin

Sophie Koonin

Sophie is the web engineering lead at Monzo Bank in London, responsible for the web platform across the organisation and working on internal tooling that powers Monzo’s award-winning customer service. Building websites since the age of 10, she’s passionate about creating inclusive, accessible and fun websites that people love. Sophie writes about tech & mental health at localghost.dev, builds intentionally useless web apps, and makes music.

Linda Liukas

Linda Liukas

Linda is a bright voice on global technology education from Helsinki, Finland.

With her Hello Ruby books and philosophy she brings a Nordic playful perspective to the sometimes serious world of computer science. Translated into nearly 40 languages, this children’s picture book series asks: What else is there to technology education than “Learn to code”? If computer code is the
Lego block of our time – a tool of creation – how do we teach curiosity, joy, and wonder to our kids?

Linda is building a playground to Helsinki where you can learn about how computers work without a single screen.

Miriam Suzanne

Miriam Suzanne

Miriam is an author, artist, developer, and open web advocate. She’s an Invited Expert with the W3C CSS Working Group, and member of the Sass core team, and a co-founder of OddBird – providing a range of web development and design services, along with in-depth web development workshops and trainings. Offline, Miriam spends her time repairing clocks, knitting socks, or creating hybrid performances with Teacup Gorilla & Grapefruit Lab.

Christine Vallaure

Christine Vallaure

Christine Vallaure is the founder of moonlearning.io, a UX, UI Design, and Figma learning platform where design meets code. With experience working with leading brands, agencies, and startups across Berlin, Mexico City, and London, Christine now calls Madrid home.

As a designer and educator, she is passionate about the intersection of design and technology, always encouraging designers and developers to stay curious about each other's work.

Through her journey with moonlearning.io, Christine embraced solopreneurship, which has become central to her work. She speaks at conferences on design, code, and solopreneurship, sharing how staying small can lead to both personal and financial success. She is also working on her first book, The Solo: A Guide on Solopreneurship, offering practical insights for thriving as a one-person business.

Hidde de Vries

Hidde de Vries

Hidde (@hdv) is a freelance front-end and accessibility specialist, currently working in the NL Design System team at the Dutch government. He is also involved in the W3C’s Open UI Community Group and Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. His favourite programming language is CSS and he strongly believes in a web that puts people first. Hidde writes about these things and more on hidde.blog. In his free time, he works on a coffee table book covering the video conferencing applications of our decade.

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