PHILIPP DOHMEN
CEO & CO-FOUNDER
QAECY | WWW.QAECY.COM | LINKEDIN

Philipp Dohmen (CEO) — founding member of buildingSMART Switzerland, long-time SIA committee president, and BIM/data-strategy authority. Manos Argyris — former ETH Zurich researcher in deep learning, graphs and NLP; builder of semantic-search and information-extraction systems. Mads Rasmussen — PhD, author of the Building Topology Ontology (BOT) and a leading expert in linked data for the built environment.





DEBORAH ANDERSON
EDUCATOR & FOUNDER
BLKWMNANIMATOR | WWW.DEBTHE3DMODELER.COM | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @blkwmnanimator | YouTube: @blkwmnanimator

Deborah Anderson is a versatile animation professional and educator with over a decade of experience in the industry. She began her career as a 3D artist at South Korea’s Digital eMation, contributing to series including Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Scooby-Doo. Her studio work has since spanned across the country, including roles at TurboSquid in New Orleans and as an Animation Specialist for the state of Louisiana. Currently based in Los Angeles, her recent credits include Amazon Prime’s Invincible and Al Roker’s PBS series, The Weather Hunters. Beyond her studio work, Deborah is a dedicated educator and the founder of BlkWmnAnimator, a platform she established in 2008 to provide workshops, presentations, and classes on animation. In 2017, she expanded the initiative to include content creation, and her YouTube interview series has become a cornerstone of the community—recently celebrating a milestone of 100 interviews with Black animation professionals from across the globe.





MAZZE ADERHOLD
PRODUCT DESIGN & WORLDWIDE SUPPORT
ASSIMILATE INC. | WWW.ASSIMILATEINC.COM | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @assimilateinc | Facebook: @Assimilateinc

Mazze Aderhold is a freelance application engineer, workflow specialist and trainer with extensive experience in post-production, colour workflows and virtual production. He works as a technical consultant for software developers in the film and television industry and is closely associated with ASSIMILATE, where he has been involved in product design, worldwide support and innovation around tools such as SCRATCH and Live FX. In 2015, he founded Angry Face, a company focused on color grading hardware.





DR. JACOB THORN
SENIOR 3D SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
VRBN | WWW.VRBN.IO | LINKEDIN
GitHub: https://github.com/jakethorn/ShadingLanguageX

I am a senior 3D software engineer at vrbn studios where I develop algorithms, write high-performance code for processing 3D geometry and shaders for both real-time and offline rendering applications. I am also the lead developer of ShadingLanguageX, combining my love of compilers and computer graphics into one project. I have an MSc and PhD in Computer Science from University College London, and have previously worked at EPFL, researching real-time simulations of cortical prostheses.





SACHIKO STENROOS
CEO
SONAGRAF | WWW.SONAGRAF.COM | LINKEDIN

Sachiko Stenroos (pen name: Sachiko Kutsuke) is a Finland-based Japanese writer, journalist, and CEO of Sonagraf Oy, a real-time 3D and XR studio. Since moving to Finland in 2004 after working at Nokia Japan, she has prominently covered Finnish design, culture, and technological innovation. Her insightful articles frequently feature in major Japanese media outlets, bridging the two countries. She also serves as a cross-cultural coordinator, driving business development and localization.





JAAKKO SAARI
CCO
SONAGRAF | WWW.SONAGRAF.COM | LINKEDIN
X: @crwjaakko

Jaakko Saari is a Finland-born creative technologist, educator, and real-time graphics specialist with more than two decades of experience in 3D, VFX, photorealistic rendering, virtual production, and immersive media. Based in Japan for over 20 years, he is fluent in Japanese and deeply connected to the country’s creative, academic, and broadcast production communities. He is currently an Associate Professor at Digital Hollywood University in Tokyo, where he teaches Unreal Engine, real-time visualization, photorealistic rendering, and modern technical art workflows. His industry career spans traditional VFX, photorealistic rendering, and emerging real-time pipelines. At Adobe, he worked as a Substance 3D Technical Artist, delivering advanced demonstrations, workflow development, and training for Japan’s design, gaming, and VFX industries. His VFX experience includes roles at BCN Visuals and Territory Studio, contributing to commercial, broadcast, experiential, and film projects. He has also worked on virtual production for commercial projects, including a television advertisement for Otsuka Pharmaceutical, combining real-time environments with cinematic production techniques. As founder of Sonagraf Oy, Jaakko provides Unreal Engine training and production consulting to broadcasters, studios, and corporate teams across Japan and Finland. His expertise includes Houdini procedural workflows, simulation-driven design, environment creation, photorealistic rendering, virtual production, and efficient, artist-friendly pipeline development. Bridging Japanese and Nordic communication styles, Jaakko brings clarity, cultural fluency, and practical industry insight to technical education. His talks examine how real-time technologies, photorealistic rendering, and virtual production are transforming creative direction, production strategy, and team collaboration, helping creative teams adopt new tools with confidence and purpose.