The DeafIT team introduces itself: Who are we?

Nicole Weisskopf

DeafIT Leader

Location: Munich
Job & Company: Senior Community Manager at Ray Sono AG & Freelancer
follow me @NickelPic

What was the reason to take your job?

I have worked in a wide range of areas during my school and training period, including in the commercial area, health care and social services – such as physiotherapy, social care of people in need of care, and care for the elderly. After completing my degree in social sciences, I finished the education as a photo media laboratory technician and then worked for a short time in the photo & advertising industry. By chance, I joined one of the most successful German media companies on the internet as a community manager, where I acquired my skills and know-how in community management for over 10 years, as well as in online marketing. I have found my passion in it and am a passionate community & online marketing manager with heart and soul who has now explored the digital data world. After a stopover at an e-commerce startup, I am now a senior community manager at a large digital agency and also work as a freelancer.

Why you are in the team?

I have noticed again and again in the past several years that the exchange between other like-minded people in the field of IT and Online area was missing and there are great advantage for all of us and DeafIT community. I want to be here to build up a network for hard of hearing and deaf IT experts with the team and create DeafIT conferences.

Florian Erfurth

DeafIT Leader

Location: Kaufbeuren
Job & Company: Owner of SamuraIT UG (haftungsbeschränkt)

What was the reason to take your job?

My passion for technology started in my early childhood when I started to experiment with the Philips VR2334 programmable video recorder. To the “enthusiasm” of my parents some recordings on VIDEO2000 video cassettes had to believe after my “programming” with the bright red button on it. I found out my first command `LOAD ‘*”, 8,1` at the age of six years alone. From that point on, I sold my soul to IT. I studied computer science at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and worked in the area of IT administration. After graduation, I started as a software developer with C / C ++ and Java and went up to the project management and finally to the IT manager. With 20 years of know-how in software development, IT administration, project management as well as team management, I gladly to pass on my experience.

Why you are in the team?

After more than 20 years in IT, I would like to share my wide-ranging know-how with the team and, conversely, learn from the experiences of others. Networking is everything and DeafIT is an ideal platform for this. Among other things, I would like to give other hard of hearing and deaf people the courage to venture into a leadership position and consider the hard of hearing and deaf not as a disadvantage, but in the sense of Deaf Gain as an advantage!

Christina Gebhard

Location: Munich
Job & Employer: Business Analyst at Siemens

What was the reason to take your job?

With my apprenticeship as a clerical assistant for office management and the subsequent part-time study for Bachelor of Business Administration and various in-house trainings, I am now working as a business analyst in the back office of the account management for central research and development at Siemens AG in Munich.

Why you are in the team?

I attended the DeafIT for the first time as a participant in November 2018 and was impressed by the interesting lectures and the possibilities which offers the digitization for the hard of hearing and deaf people. Since I am convinced of the further development and the potential of DeafIT in the German-speaking area, but also in the international area, I am pleased to be part of the team and to be able to contribute my knowledge, especially from the commercial sector.

Nick Massing

Location: Mainz
Job & Employer:
Working student at Vitronic & Student for Digital Media at the Hochschule Mainz

What was the reason to take your job?

After my apprenticeship as an electronics technician, I gained eight years of professional experience in various companies and in the meantime successfully completed the technical college for electrical engineering. Due to the lack of accessibility in communication and advanced digitalisation, my dream job as a computer scientist was not possible. With the increasing change in the two areas, I now see a great opportunity for me to further develop my professional career with a degree in Digital Media at Mainz University of Applied Sciences.

Why you are in the team?

Based on my experience with the difficult situation in accessibility in two worlds, I would like to actively support the DeafIT community and connect the world more with digital development. We can do this successfully together and reach our goal faster. Therefore, I can say one thing: Change the World!

Melina Möhnle

Location: Munich
Job & Company: Digital Accessibility & mindscreen GmbH

What was the reason to take your job?

I had to experience the barriers of communication at an early age, as I have been deaf-limited hearing impaired since birth. Therefore, I have decided to do everything I can to break down these barriers and make media accessible to all. After graduating from technical college, I studied “Multimedia Information and Communication” at Ansbach University of Applied Sciences and successfully completed the Master of Arts Degree (M.A.) with a grade of 1.7. Both my Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis dealt with the topic of accessibility in media.

Parallel to my Master’s degree, I worked as a student trainee at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) in Munich-Freimann. After completing my Master’s degree in 2019, I jumped at the chance to join IRT’s Accessibility and Metadata team as an engineer. My focus was on accessibility services for media content and platforms. After IRT was discontinued by the German media institutions for financial reasons, I applied to a digital accessibility agency and can thus continue my task.

Why you are in the team?

Since the field of IT was not very pronounced during my studies, I decided to improve this. At the digital accessibility agency, Mindscreen, I work on accessibility implementation and training. As a trainee, I am also being prepared for this in IT. With DeafIT I want to learn and gain experience. I find it absolutely motivating to work on the task in a team of people concerned.

Selina Marchewicz

Location: Geislingen an der Steige
Job & Company: System administrator at the IHK Ulm

What was the reason to take your job?

I’ve known for a long time that I belonged in the IT industry.

In 2013, I started and successfully completed an apprenticeship as an IT systems electronics technician at Telekom.

In 2018, I did further training to be able to get out of the field.

Now I work as a system administrator at the IHK Ulm.

In short: almost everything that has a power plug is my responsibility 😉

Why you are in the team?

Through a good friend who had told me about DeafIT, I became curious and found the work of DeafIT simply super. Since IT and hearing loss are part of my everyday life, I would like to help lower the barriers here. I see a lot of potential in DeafIT and I am happy to be part of it.

Veronika Winter

Location: Oberschleißheim
Job & Company: Trainee lawyer at the Ingolstadt Regional Court; self-employed translator and game developer

What was the reason to take your job?

I studied law at the University of Passau and at the LMU Munich and passed my first state examination in 2020. I have been a trainee teacher in Ingolstadt since April 2021. I came to game development and translation through my hobby. I first worked at the Essen Game Fair as a game explainer, later proofreading with the publisher Portal Games and translating games with Board Game Circus. Later, I tested games at Reiner Knizia’s in Munich.

Why you are in the team?

As a lawyer with a state examination, I have the knowledge to use this when translating contracts or other legal texts. I am also very interested in languages and people. I am also always very keen to be as inclusive as possible in addressing all people and letting them participate. Gender-neutral formulation is also part of this.

Former DeafIT team members:

Tobias Burz

DeafIT Founder

Location: Munich
Job & Employer: Resource Manager and Senior IT Consultant
at Atos Information Technology GmbH

What was the reason to take your job?

In 1986, I dropped out of my electrical engineering studies after 2 years because this field did not match my professional expectations. I started with a two-year IT Program at the Siemens academy as an engineer assistant in Data Engineering, to see if this area would fit me. After a successful completion, I have made the right choice with IT field, and after my completing the examination, I immediately joined Siemens Nixdorf as a software developer. After several years as a software developer, through various positions as an Internet architect, system administrator, project manager and senior IT consultant, I had become acquainted with various facets of the IT industry.

Why you are in the team?

I know only a few friends and acquaintances who are working in the IT branch. I have founded the team together with Vincent Rothländer because I would like to expand the network with the DeafIT conference so that we can get to know other IT experts and benefit from our expertise and experience.

Miriam Jourdan

Location: Munich

Job & Company: HR Advisor
at Siemens

What was the reason to take your job?

After my education as an industrial clerk at Siemens AG, I worked as a sales clerk for 1.5 years and was responsible commercially for the product and process business of various clients. I liked to work with different people and wanted to help them with my experience – which was the basic idea – and that is the reason why I moved to the Human Resources (HR) area. Since more than 8 years I am working in the operating HR at the Siemens AG and have done a whole range of variety tasks.

Why you are in the team?

Honestly – because my colleague, Christina Gebhard, convinced me to join and be part of the DeafIT team! Because I am “only” deaf in one ear, am actually more so called in hearing world than in the non-hearing or Deaf world. Also because of my deaf ear, the topic of hearing and hard of hearing always has been my interest! I also believe, that in the future there will be not “two worlds such as hearing and non-hearing” world due the fact of digitization as well as a change conscious in the society. Through Storytelling, Networking and much more with the DeafIT team working together for the greater future!

Manuel Gnerlich

Location: Hamburg

Job & Company: self-employed Software Consultant
at Open Mind IT-Training

Anne Zander

place of residence: Berlin

Job & Company: Freelancer in the Entertainment Industry

What was the reason to take your job?

Already in my youth time I was interested in computers and often played with friends on the computer. During my training as an industrial electronics engineer, I first came into contact with the programming languages (assembler) and was immediately fascinated by it. Consequently I decided after my school education, to study at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg in order to intensify my interest in this area.

Why you are in the team?

The desire to solve me from the dependence on a third person (here: interpreters) in professional exchange with IT experts, for example at conferences, gave me the impetus to re-engineer myself professionally – especially with regard to the direct exchange with colleagues. For me, the barrier-free approach is crucial. Furthermore, it is my motivation to give career prospects in the IT area for other deaf people. That’s why I’m in the team!

Leif Möhr

Location: Oberried in the beautiful Black forest
Job & Employer: Automation Programmer at Kofax Development GmbH

What was the reason to take your job?

My father was a Professor at University in field of Health Information Science. Through him I was already exposed to several different Computers and was able to experiment and learn more about it. The first home computer was a Sharp MZ 80 K., there before I could play a game, it was required to be created and thus I learned programming to get my fix on playing a game on the computer. At the age of 23, I started working at Canadian Navy at Department of National Defence (DND) as “computer nerd” for first-level computer support. There, I quickly climbed up career ladder, was soon responsible for over 500 workstations and administer branch network. At DND, allowed me to learn a lot about networks, databases, and other information technology systems. This was a very exciting time for me. For personal reasons, I moved to Germany in 1999 and started working at Lexware GmbH as an Automation Programmer. In 2004, I moved back to Canada where I joined at Intuit Inc. as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer. Since 2009 been working at Kofax Development GmbH in Germany.

Why you are in the team?

I joined the Team because I always have been interested in the IT area and find it quite important that DeafIT community always have access to latest information and have a great DeafIT network. Therefore I want to support and promote this community and meet other like-minded people.