Rafael Laguna de la Vera

Mr. Rafael Laguna de la Vera is the founding director of “SPRIND”, the Agency for Breakthrough Innovation of the Federal Republic of Germany, implementing a unique approach of innovation politics for Germany to promote disruptive innovations.
Mr. Laguna was born in 1964 in Leipzig, in the former GDR. Since his father is Spanish, the family was allowed to immigrate to the Federal Republic. The family took up their residence at Bleche in the Sauerland region. Having passed the school-leaving examination (A-Level) and completed the civilian service, he studied informatics at the Dortmund University for some weeks in 1986. In 1998, he completed management programme at the Harvard Business School.
Mr. Laguna has been active as an entrepreneur and investor in the software business for more than 30 years. At the age of 16 years he founded his first software company (Elephant Software). At the age 21 he programmed a cash register system for the beverage industry (dicomputer) and at the age of 31 he sold his first company (micado).
At the turn of the millennium, Mr. Laguna worked as a technology investor, interim manager and advisor for Venture Capital Funds. From 2001 to 2004, he was involved in the salvage and sale of the Nuremberg-based SUSE Linux to Novell. From 2003 to 2006, he committed himself to the relaunch of Bäurer until its sale to the Sage Group.
Since January 2008 Mr. Laguna has been active as the CEO of the Open-Xchange company which he co-founded in 2005. The company is active in the area of open source software for e-mail and office productivity, employing 270 staff members.
Mr. Laguna is a guest lecturer at several high-schools and co-founding partner of the CODE University of Applied Sciences.