Dr. Christian Toelg

Line-free checkout and service counter solutions. Scan, pay and walk out of the store. Pre-order from anywhere on your smart phone, pay and collect your purchase at the store without waiting in line. FutureProof Retail develops retail solutions that bring shoppers the convenience of eCommerce when shopping at physical stores and retailers and retailers the ability to personalize each shopper's experience.

I work with technology companies and international institutions in strategic planning, product planning and product management, project management, technology transfer, R&D, new business development, innovation management and entrepreneurship.

This position was part of a three year project to establish a national center for innovation and entrepreneurship in Namibia - the Namibia Business Innovation Centre (NBIC) at the Polytechnic of Namibia. I built the R&D team of technical experts and project officers and established programs to support software developers, manufacturing SMEs, rural innovators, researchers, young high potentials and innovation executives. This included acquisition of funding for programs, staff and infrastructure, most no

Acting as General Manager I led the founding and establishment of the Namibia Business Innovation Centre (NBIC) in setting up operations, establishing programs and hiring local staff including a Namibian General Manager. I implemented the Entrepreneurship & Incubation Programs and initiated the establishment of the NBIC Innovation Village.

NEC Laboratories America, Inc. is the US research unit of NEC Corporation, Japan. I joined NEC Labs at a time when the research had to be realigned with business to generate higher value for NEC Corporation as a whole. The initial target was to monetize technologies and patents that could not be utilized within the company through licensing, spin offs or asset sale. My focus then shifted to new business development based on technologies that were within NEC’s field of business and presented large enough opp

Incipient was one of the first providers of SAN based storage virtualization and management utilizing Layer 3 switches. My role in this short term consulting engagement was to close the first joint development and OEM agreements with storage hardware vendors and to finalize Incipient’s business plan.

Relocated to the US to establish this joint venture between Bertelsmann AG and TopicalNet, Inc. with teams in the US and Germany. Successfully rolled-out the TopicalNet Classifier product, designed to automatically index and classify digital content.

I joined Bertelsmann’s CTO office to establish and later coordinate its technology think tank. My focus was on scouting of new technologies in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Europe, strategic impact assessment for Bertelsmann’s media businesses, development of strategic recommendations to the executive boards of Bertelsmann AG and its divisions (Random House, BMG Music, RTL, arvato), technical and business due diligence of companies in start-up or expansion phase prior to investment or acquisition.

Built up and managed a team of 10 consultants and external staff to develop the first video-based applications following the opening of the Internet. I led the acquisition and implementation of development and consulting projects for interactive TV, Business TV, video-based web applications, long distance learning mainly with large clients such as Daimler Benz, Deutsche Telekom and Siemens. I also coordinated the activities and projects of Fraunhofer IAO in South-East Asia.

Traveling in South America, the Pacific and Asia for more than a year totally changed my perception of other cultures. Longer stays in some locations and engagements such as the environmental and economic assessment studies for Rawa Penning Lake, Salatiga, Indonesia and Karimunjawa Marine National Park, Indonesia provided experience in working with local staff and integrating into their culture.

The Max-Planck-Institute provided me the opportunity to conduct research in synergetics and self-organization in highly non-linear systems. I was also a guest researcher at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and a lecturer in theoretical and applied physics at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. I obtained funding for my research through two scholarships for academic excellence from Max-Planck-Society and the Federal State of Baden- Württemberg.

Synergetics, Solid State Physics

Research Assistent, Theoretical Nuclear Physics Teaching Assistant