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TECHNOLOGY FESTIVAL 2026
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friday JUNE 26, 2026
16:25 - 17:10
Earth to Orbit
Space is going exponential and printed materials indestructible.
You don't capture exponential value with linear thinking. You build at the edge — of your organization, of your industry, of the solar system. That's where the people on stage sit. Two edges at once. Two frontiers. One conviction.
The components traveling there place extreme demands on performance and material properties. D3-AM — Durst's additive manufacturing division — is commercializing industrial system solutions for high-performance components made from advanced SSiC technical ceramics.
What was slow and government-driven is now fast, private, and converging. Orbit is becoming infrastructure — the way the internet did before anyone called it obvious. And the business model has to be just as radical as the technology.
The components traveling there place extreme demands on performance and material properties. D3-AM — Durst's additive manufacturing division — is commercializing industrial system solutions for high-performance components made from advanced SSiC technical ceramics.
What was slow and government-driven is now fast, private, and converging. Orbit is becoming infrastructure — the way the internet did before anyone called it obvious. And the business model has to be just as radical as the technology.
ON STAGE
MODERATOR Stefan Waldner
Salim Ismail
Christoph Gamper
David Karl
Uwe Scheithauer
Matthias Struckmeyer
Earth to Orbit
STEFAN Waldner
D3-AM, Chief Product Officer
Stefan Waldner is the architect behind D3-AM and serves as its Chief Product Officer. D3-AM, a corporate startup of the Durst Group, develops advanced industrial 3D-printing systems for high-performance ceramics.
A technology-driven entrepreneur, he combines innovation, strategy, product development, and cross-functional leadership to advance additive manufacturing and scalable digital production.
Earth to Orbit
SALIM Ismail
Chairman of OpenExO, Executive Director of Singularity University
Salim Ismail is one of the world's most influential business strategists, advising heads of state and Fortune 500 CEOs on exponential growth. Chairman of OpenExO, Founding Executive Director of Singularity University, and XPRIZE board member, his best-selling Exponential Organizations is the definitive playbook for 21st-century business. He co-hosts the Moonshots podcast with Peter Diamandis — delivering weekly insights on AI, exponential growth, and the future of innovation to over one million entrepreneurs worldwide, with guests including Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil, Reid Hoffman, and Eric Schmidt.
CEO Keynote
CHRISTOPH Gamper
Durst Group, CEO & Co-Owner
Christoph Gamper is CEO and Co-Owner of the Durst Group, leading its transformation into a platform-driven industrial technology company spanning digital printing, automation, and AI-enabled production. He is also founder of Kyveris Technologies, building the industrial software and intelligence layer for autonomous manufacturing. Living between Italy and New York, he focuses on long-term value creation, responsible innovation, and global scale.
Earth to Orbit
DAVID Karl
Head of the Ceramic Institute at TU Berlin
David Karl is a materials scientist and lecturer in additive manufacturing at Technische Universität Berlin and Adjunct Professor for Space Resources Utilization at the Colorado School of Mines. His work focuses on ceramic materials, particle-based processing, and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) for space applications. Combining a background in conceptual art and materials engineering, he develops unconventional approaches to turning planetary resources into functional materials and manufacturing processes under extreme conditions.
Earth to Orbit
UWE Scheithauer
Uwe Scheithauer has worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems in Dresden, Germany, for the past 20 years and has been one of the key innovators in the field of additive manufacturing of ceramics in Europe. He is now a co-founder of NUWAM GmbH and is working with another team to prepare for the launch of a new startup at Dresden University of Technology. Living in Dresden, he passionately drives the technology transfer from research laboratories to industry together with his teams and enriches the world with highly functional ceramic components.
