Being Part of the European Film Industry

21. Dezember 2025

It is one of the strangest assignments in recent years, and actually I am not even allowed to talk about it (lol) – although it is about taxpayers‘ money, which is distributed through the European Media Fund to pre-productions in the Eastern European film market. And because there are hundreds of applications for the quick money, one has to choose — and so I was one of those who evaluated, discussed, and weighted proposals, written in endless text, often AI-text. Strictly confidential of course, no idea why. It is a peculiarly complicated, basically standardized but still very imprecise procedure driven by the EU, with millions of euros in the funding pot. And with many hardly comprehensible rules, weightings and preferences, and cumbersome processes. Very strange, a lot of work for almost nothing, but also very interesting to see how European money is spent. Let’s see which films will ever make it to the cinemas.

The Final One of a Historic Satellite Set

4. November 2025

More than ten years ago I have done the launch event for Sentinel 1A, which at that time was the first modern radar satellite and the first of the EU Commission’s giant Copernicus programme. With two more in between, today the fourth and last Sentinel-1 set off into Space, marking a decade of incredible science progress in Earth Observations, led by European industry and European science. That’s pretty impressive and a reason to be proud and happy, but on top of the launch, it was one of the first flights of the brand new European Ariane-6 rocket, with all the excitement it takes. This might have been one of my last launch events, and it was a good one – with lots of directors, politics, media and scientists, a great mood, and moderated by lovely Chiara Moenter. The next generation of radar satellites is already in the making – for the generations to come.

Hard Talk and Cosy Nighttime Club Ambience

15. August 2025

It is not easy to attract people to an event in the middle of the summer holidays and in the middle of the night around 2 a.m. That is why we turned the actual stage show for the launch of a huge satellite into a night party and gained two hundred guests as spectators. It started at eleven at night; the program was full of music, entertainment, food, drinks, and all the informative parts on stage that needed to be said. When the rocket launched at 2:40 a.m., everyone was well informed and in a good mood—just like the mission, which went smoothly. Everything ended at four in the morning, and the audience left the event into the just-dawning day.

On Stage for a 3,500 Living Planet Audience

24. Juni 2025

We are in Vienna: A huge hall with 3,500 chairs, the stage 160 square meters, and an 18-meters 8K projection – this framed the opening of the Living Planet Symposium 2025, including a speech by the President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen. The room was packed, the audience was  satisfied. I made the program, organized and directed it. Afterwards, the symposium continued for a full week, with hundreds of meetings and briefings for a total of 6,500 attendees – it’s the world’s largest event for satellite Earth observation.

The Feeling of a Rainforest with a Sloth

30. April 2025

Who would have thought that the CO2 debate, which is at the core of the climate change issue, is based on completely uncertain data about the CO2 itself? In fact, we do not know how much carbon from the atmosphere goes where – into the oceans, into trees – or does it remain in the air? That’s why an experimental satellite called BioMass has now been launched, which is supposed to provide exactly these values and will enable a baseline calibration of all calculations. A rather useful project, for whose launch I have come up with an event featuring plenty of greenery, birds‘ chirping, and great experts on stage. BioMass launched successfully on April 29, with a happy audience and a soft toy sloth watching it live at ESA in Darmstadt .

Arzttermin verpasst? Die KI hilft

17. Januar 2025

Meine Erklärvideo-Serie beleuchtet jetzt auch das Thema Künstliche Intelligenz. Wer hätte gedacht, dass jedes Jahr etwa 80 Millionen Patienten einfach nicht zu ihrem Arzttermin erscheinen und die Praxen deshalb massiv überbuchen – mit den bekannten Problemen. Jetzt aber kann spezielle Software mit KI helfen, die No-Shows vorauszusagen, sei es aus Gründen schlechten Wetters oder aus der Patientenhistorie herausgelesen – oder sie gar verhindern , indem individuell erinnert wird. Im Pilotprojekt schrumpfte die Nichterscheinensrate auf wenige Prozentpunkte, und Arzt und Patient waren happy. Vier weitere Videos zum Thema KI in der Gesundheitswirtschaft sind in Arbeit.

When we have to save the world

11. Oktober 2024

Sometimes tasks have to be big, for example when it comes to the extinction of humanity. An asteroid could do that some time in the future. But luckily there is the beginning of a European Space safety program – nowhere near as spectacular as Armageddon, but feasible. When ESA launched its Hera  space probe into space to investigate the defense of an asteroid, almost a thousand visitors came to the open-air party. I put together the five-hour program and directed it. Among them: two astronauts, seven experts, five kindergarten children and two bands, including the artist Thomas D., known from the famous Fantastsichen-Vier.

Closing the 30% Gap in the Climate Debate

1. Juni 2024

When I write event scripts, I dive deep into the subject matter, talk to a number of experts and learn amazing things – like at the launch event for the EarthCare satellite, an 800 million project led by ESA and Japan to study cloud formation and aerosol migration. For example, there is a 30% knowledge gap in the climate debate because the warming and cooling effects of clouds cannot be adequately modeled, and to this day no one understands exactly how ice crystals form from water vapor and finally make clouds. This is all amazing and gives me a feel of rapture and joy to learn first-hand from the best experts about how the planet works. The stage program around the successful launch of the mission was full house and followed online by >100K viewers.

Die Reinkarnation des Türkmenbaşy

11. September 2023

Als die völkische Politik Viktor Orbáns noch an ihrem Anfang stand, da wandte ich mich der ungarischen Medienpolitik zu und war einer der ersten deutschen Journalisten bzw. Blogger, die aufzeigten und beschrieben, was in Ungarn vor sich geht. Über Jahre hinweg habe ich recherchiert und berichtet, während sich die die deutschen Medien zunächst überrascht zeigten, dann meine Themen übernahmen, manche gar wörtlich ablasen. Etlichen Leitmedien habe ich ausführliche Briefings gegeben und Gesprächspartner vermittelt. Es war eine interessante Zeit, weil man in Echtzeit zusehen konnte, wie Grundrechte einfach so verschwinden, und niemand störte sich daran. Und es war der Beginn eines langen Prozesses, in dessen Verlauf die Regierung Orbán in Europa mehr und mehr isoliert dastand. Inzwischen ist dieser Zustand akzeptiert, die einst vielfältige Medienlandschaft unumkehrbar ausgetrocknet, die Bevölkerung brainwashed. Ein Artikel von vor genau 12 Jahren, darin geht es um die neue Verfassung des Landes,  gefällt mir vom Thema her besonders, weil es meine beiden Kompetenzen – Medienpolitik und Raumfahrt – auf absurde Weise verbindet. Er heißt: Die Reinkarnation des Turkmenbaşy.

When Dark Stuff Becomes a Media Topic

5. Juni 2023

One Nobel Prize is almost certain, maybe even more. This space mission sounds pointless and nerdy, but it has the makings of revolutionizing theoretical physics. Understanding dark matter and dark energy in the Universe – hypothetical assumptions so far – could explain gravity and even connect quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity for the first time. My humble part of this revolution was to design, prepare and direct the launch event for 300 VIPs and media for the European Space Agency’s mission EUCLID in Darmstadt. Despite this intellectual topic, it was great fun working with all these brilliant minds of the project!