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JEFF KATZ

From early on Jeff has always been interested in electronics and computers. When
he "grew up", Jeff became a serial entrepreneur, founding companies in a wide
variety of industries, including security, finance, and IT. With his background
in engineering, computer science, and business, Jeff is at once a
forward-thinking technologist and a practical engineer. He is currently
consulting a variety of clients through JK Ventures & Consulting UG with a focus
on security, data-driven business models, and the internet of things.

Get in touch

At home in the lab or up on stage, Jeff has a wide range of experience at his
disposal. He has personally developed consumer devices, cloud services, and
hardware as well as spoken at conferences and events across the world. Jeff
enjoys building and leading amazing teams; he's built and managed engineering
teams up to 50 with seven-figure budgets, but especially likes to be
future-oriented—anticipating opportunities and threats from emerging
technologies such as pervasive computing, artificial intelligence, and
blockchain.

EXTERNAL RESOURCES




GITHUB

kraln


LINKEDIN

kraln


TWITTER

@kraln

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE






JK VENTURES & CONSULTING GMBH

FOUNDER

OCTOBER 2018 -

Consulting on a variety of topics, including:

 * Security Evaluation of IoT Device for Consumers
 * Prototyping of IoT Device in Construction Industry
 * Technical Due Dilligence of IoT Company in Construction Industry
 * VR Project in Automotive Industry
 * Production Consultation for IoT Logistics Company
 * Mentoring Startups in Logistics Industry
 * Mentoring Embedded Software Development





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MBITION MERCEDES-BENZ INNOVATION LAB

SENIOR PRINCIPAL SYSTEMS ARCHITECT

APRIL 2019 - JAN 2022

MBition GmbH is a 100% owned subsidiary of Daimler AG. By combining the spirit
and flexibility of a startup and the resources of a global active OEM, MBition
develops advanced digital solutions. MBition's innovative products lead to
disruptive changes in the automobile industry!

Here Jeff is responsible for the system architecture of the next-generation
infotainment platform for future Mercedes-Benz vehicles.



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TELEFÓNICA GERMANY NEXT GMBH

SENIOR PRACTICE LEAD IT/ENGINEERING

JAN 2017 - SEPTEMBER 2018

Telefónica NEXT contains 'future bets' for Telefónica Germany. Whether improving
the information available to retail stores, building big data processing
pipelines for data anonymization, or building consumer-focused IoT services for
consumer products, the business units of NEXT are all working on
forward-thinking technologies.

Jeff was responsible for all horizontal IT functions across all the business
units as well as a multi-million Euro budget. For all units he crafted a unified
strategy and identified synergies that can be exploited between services. For
Geeny, the consumer IoT platform, Jeff was additionally in charge of system
architecture and long term strategy.



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KIWI.KI GMBH

NÉE DOORFID GMBH

VP TECHNOLOGY

JAN 2016 - DECEMBER 2016

VP ENGINEERING

OCTOBER 2014 - JAN 2016

CHIEF SYSTEMS ARCHITECT

JUNE 2012 - OCTOBER 2014

ENGINEERING CONSULTANT

APRIL 2012 - JUNE 2012

KIWI.KI GmbH is an IoT Physical Access as a Service company based in Berlin,
Germany. They sell a system for apartment buildings where doors unlock
automagically as their users approach them. You could consider KIWI a
Hardware/SaaS startup with both B2B and B2C components.

Jeff was brought on as a contractor to KIWI shortly after it was founded, in
order to translate the ideas of the founders into a functional prototype using
licensed technology which could be used for fundraising.

Following that, he was hired as the Chief Systems Architect, with the primary
task to productize the prototype, designing and developing new systems and
applications from the mobile phone to the backend, firmware, and even hardware
design. The ultimate goal of the KIWI system is to enable new behaviors and
modernize residential access control while still strongly guarding user privacy
and security.

As KIWI grew, Jeff took on the title and additional roles of the VP of
Engineering, establishing a strong engineering team as well as the agile
processes and products involved in building and supporting the KIWI system.

Ultimately, Jeff assumed the title of VP Technolgy, being responsible for not
just the development and the development team, but also the future direction of
the KIWI System.



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CLARITYSPRING INC.

 

TECHNICAL CO-FOUNDER

JULY 2011 - OCTOBER 2013

Hedgefund managers send emails with pages and pages of documents in PDF format
to potential investors. Hedgefund investors have to dig through these mountains
of documentation to determine if the fund is right for them. Neither the
managers nor the investors can measure if their time is well spent.

ClaritySpring is a platform for helping to increase transparency for hedgefunds,
allowing managers to gain meaningful insights to their investor activities, and
investors to cut through the paperwork saving time and money.

As the technical co-founder, Jeff distilled requirements and built the first
version of the ClaritySpring platform. He then oversaw the contractors working
on it. Jeff left to focus on KIWI.



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BRIVO SYSTEMS LLC

 

EMBEDDED ENGINEER

MAY 2009 - APRIL 2012

Brivo Systems is a physical access control as a service vendor based in
Bethesda, MD USA.

Jeff's work at Brivo primarily focused on products (firmware, web development)
that were not connected to the internet, but still configured through a web
browser. In addition, he spearheaded an effort to develop the company’s first
new hardware product in more than five years.



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GWHIZ LLC

 

LEAD IOS DEVELOPER

2007 - 2009

gWHIZ is a mobile educational software provider. Jeff was hired to port their
BlackBerry software to iOS–in the process he was able to introduce software
development best practices and laid down the architecture for a host of
successful educational apps.



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ADVANCED ACOUSTIC CONCEPTS LLC

 

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

2006 - 2007

AAC is a defense contractor for the US Navy. Jeff worked on documentation, test
cases, and developed an automated API testing suite. Clearance was required for
this job.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Selected highlights of events or conferences where Jeff has spoken, given
workshops, and/or mentored.




LIVING BITS AND THINGS

TOWARDS A RESPONSIBLE INTERNET OF THINGS

BLED, SLOVENIA

2019


CODEMASH

TOWARDS A RESPONSIBLE INTERNET OF THINGS

SANDUSKY, OH USA

2019




CORPORATE INCUBATION AND ACCELERATION SUMMIT

EXPERIENCES RUNNING HARDWARE.CO

BERLIN, GERMANY

2018




MCKINSEY CIO CONFERENCE

IOT MADE FOR THE FUTURE

KITZBÜHEL, AUSTRIA

2018


BITS & BEER

BERLIN HARDWARE STARTUP STATUS UPDATE

BERLIN, GERMANY

2018


THINGSCON

A SURVEY OF STRUCTURAL INSECURITIES IN IOT

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

2017


MAKERFAIRE SHENZHEN

MAKER GONE PRO: MY STORY

SHENZHEN, CHINA

2017


SHENZHEN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN FAIRE

WHERE IS MY SMART HOME?

SHENZHEN, CHINA

2017


HARDWARE MASSIVE

UNLOCKING THE WESTERN RETAIL MARKETS

SHENZHEN, CHINA

2017


RIOT FESTIVAL

INTERNET OF INVISIBLE THINGS

BERLIN, GERMANY

2017


TECHNOMANIA

IT'S 2017, WHERE IS MY SMART HOME?

HERNING, DENMARK

2017


WT | WEARABLE TECHNOLOGIES

BEYOND THE DRAWER

SAN FRANCISCO, USA

2017


BUNDESVERBAND DIGITALE WIRTSCHAFT

PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN IOT

HAMBURG, GERMANY

2017


HARDWARE.CO ACCELERATOR

FOUNDER, MENTOR, SPEAKER

BERLIN, GERMANY

2013-2016


PHDAYS VI

PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN IOT

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

2016


GFYL

PRIVACY AND SECURITY IN IOT

PARIS, FRANCE

2016


IOT CONFERENCE

PRIVACY AND SECURITY TALK

BERLIN, GERMANY

2015


DATA NATIVES CONFERENCE

HARDWARE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM PANEL

BERLIN, GERMANY

2015


STARTUP PIRATES

HARDWARE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WORKSHOPS

LISBON, PORTUGAL

2015


IDCEE

HARDWARE ACCELERATOR PANEL

KYIV, UKRAINE

2014


PHDAYS III

PRIVACY WORKSHOP

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

2013


BRUCON

ELECTRONIC BADGES

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

2011

HIGHER EDUCATION






BACHELOR OF SCIENCE, COMPUTER SCIENCE

MINOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

FROSTBURG STATE UNIVERSITY

2009







BACHELOR OF SCIENCE, COMPUTER ENGINEERING

NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

2004 - 2006

MISCELLANEOUS




"Accomplishments" Time's "Man of the Year" 2006, Zimbabwean Trillionaire,
Redditor [kraln], Married in 2010 to loving, wonderful wife

Work StatusUS Citizen, German Permanent Resident

CONTACT

Jeff is always interested in interesting conversations. He prefers to meet in
person over coffee, however he is also reachable via email.

HOME BASE

Berlin, Germany

MOBILE NUMBER

+49 (0)157 377 279 89
+1 (240) 423-0144

EMAIL

kraln@kraln.com