AUREA#7 Jury Announced
We are thrilled to announce the jury for AUREA#7! This year’s jury brings together industry leaders and visionaries who are at the forefront of immersive technology and entertainment. Their expertise and insights will guide us in recognising the most groundbreaking projects shaping the future of XR in entertainment!
Kathleen Cohen
Jury Chair
Kathleen is known as a Tech Humanist and an XR Immersive Strategist with over 25 years building both user and guest experiences.
Founder of The Collaboratorium, a consultancy focusing on Spatial Computing, XR/AI Research, Strategy & Production, as well as Public Engagement - Kathleen’s clients range from Megacity, Gigacity projects to Media & Entertainment and Health & Wellness implementations. Her XR/AI Research focuses on key learnings from both the Indigenous Science and the Neurodivergent communities. Currently, Kathleen is teaming up to build a City of Los Angeles Reclamation project - turning abandoned parcels of land into immersive, urban sanctuaries.
Kathleen’s background as a Creative and a Producer include: DreamWorks Interactive, IBM Centers for Innovation and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. Kathleen also was the former Vice President of Digital Innovation & Integration for The National Constitution Center helping to tell the contemporary story of the U.S. Constitution. For the past six years, Kathleen has been the Jury Chair and a Keynote Speaker for the AUREA Award, a conference and awards show, focusing on global excellence in immersive XR entertainment, hosted by Europa-Park.
Thomas Wagner
Thomas Wagner is Co-Founder and CEO of VR Coaster GmbH&Co.KG, the worldwide leading company for Virtual-Reality-Experiences on ride attractions. He is also Professor for Virtual Design at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern. Working in the Media and Games Industry for over 20 years now, Wagner has won several international Awards for Excellence in Game-, 3D- and Mobile App Design, including two Adobe Max Awards, the iTunes „Best of“ Selection and multiple awards in the Theme Park Industry. He is the inventor of the wireless VR Coaster System that changed the Theme Park Industry with over 70 installations on roller coasters and drop towers all over the world.
Emily Olman
Hopscotch Interactive CEO & Chief Media Officer Emily Olman is a real estate photographer, 3D/VR photographer, and VR/AR evangelist. She is a member of the Commercial Real Estate Professionals Network (CRePN) San Francisco, where she chairs proptech. She was the VR/AR Association SF Chapter Co-President from 2016-2019, advocating and evangelising VR/AR acceleration. As a consultant, she educates her clients on the current state of technology, and its current business applications from traditional property marketing to mixed-reality services. Emily holds an M.B.A. from BerkeleyHaas and a B.A. in German Studies with a minor concentration in Fine Art from Scripps College, Claremont.
Frank Govaere
Born in Belgium, Frank Govaere studied film and animation at the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium and was a master student of Raoul Servais, one of the founding fathers of European animation. He graduated as Master of Fine Arts.
He started his career in traditional animation working on Feature Films and TV-Series and became one of the pioneers of digitising 2D-Animation workflows and extended his skills into 3D Animation and VFX, specialising in the realisation of large media productions. Frank headed the VFX-Unit at UFA Serial Drama and is a driving force behind UFA’s endeavours in VR/AR/XR -specifically in regard to the creative and technical development of Volumetric Film.
In 2021, he joined ICT AG and was involved in the set-up of one of the first virtual production studios in Germany: HALOSTAGE.
Simon Alexanderson
Simon Alexanderson is a senior researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Co-founder and CTO of Motorica AI. His interests are in machine learning, motion capture and animation where his aim is to create novel ways of animating and directing expressive 3D characters. He enjoys collaborating with artists, actors and directors, and has a history of innovating in the fields of theatre and film production. His work has frequently been presented at top computer graphics conferences such as SIGGRAPH and Eurographics.
Dirk Freytag
Since 2021, Dirk Freytag has served as President of the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW e.V.). He is also the CEO and founder of Content Pass. With a degree in business administration and over 20 years of experience in advertising technology, Dirk has held leadership roles including CEO of ADTECH, Senior Vice President at AOL Advertising Global, and CEO of YOC AG.
As a business angel, he actively supports several emerging companies in the digital sector.