Ulrike Reinhard, is a German publisher, author and futurist. She holds a masters degree and PHD in business administration specializing in marketing and human resources. She worked for ARD and ZDF and is currently editor in chief of we-magazine.
Ulrike's quote from her very first blog in 2004:
"I just love the idea of the internet with all its opportunities. If I am at home or in the office I am more or less online (24/7). The most fascinating thing about it is that it has become so easy to »connect« people."
Ulrike Reinhard discovered email when she entered the “one and only internet community” The WELL in 1987. Since then she has become addicted to the digital lifestyle. Inspired by the WELL and their new way of thinking and connecting the world, in 1994 in Europe she founded whoiswho.de - a website/internet platform where thousands of Internet companies in German-speaking countries connect to one another. whoiswho was one of the very first cross-media-projects (print, CD-ROM and Internet). For more than 10 years she worked on establishing whoiswho.de as “the place to be” in the German-speaking Internet world.[1] As editor-in-chief and publisher she has produced close to 50 "whoiswho" books and CD-ROMs. She sold the domain in early 2010.
In 2004 - the 10th anniversary of whoiswho.de - she edited and published "Digital Transformations". This weighty (4 kilo) beautifully made book quickly became a benchmark. It deals with the fundamental transformations in business, culture and science driven by digital technologies.
At the end of 2006 she sold parts of whoiswho.de and redefined her mission and vision of business. With a background in TV (German TV funded her PhD.) she embraced Internet broadband and the exciting opportunities of Web video. Since then, she has interviewed people all over the world and posted pioneering interviews on the Internet. She is certainly among those who shape new forms of journalism – far away from traditional media companies.
Ulrike lives and works as a digital nomad. Her homebase is Heidelberg.
As founding partner of DNAdigital,[2] she played a major role in establishing a platform where digital natives meet top managers to discuss future ways of work,[3] learning,[4] collaboration and communication. She hosts the SCOPE09 - Web meets HR conference, an informal hub where HR at the cutting edge is discussed in innovative ways. People who attended SCOPE say that it is one of the best events they've ever been to.
Her latest book REBOOT_D - digital democracy about the way the internet is shaping and transforming society and politics in Germany was downloaded more than 15,000 times in 4 months.[5][6] Ulrike is founder and editor in chief of WE-Magazine. The idea behind WE-Magazine can be most aptly described as being dedicated to the "empowerment of the many given to us by the Internet”. WE stands for a community of believers, high profile visionaries and innovators, who, in their work and studies, have proven that the Internet is shaping and transforming our society, politics, education and economics. In 2008 Ulrike set up the WeBenin project, a new decentralised informal way of helping people to self-empowerment that circumvents the traditional paradigm of rich NGOs and poor aid-receivers while also taking account of the challenges of the lack of infrastructure in one of the poorest countries in West Africa.[7] Since 2009 she has collaborated with Prof. Peter Kruse and his What's Next Institute in investigating how the internet is a transformational force on society, education and politics.
Her recent (and ongoing) investigative work in the Middle East - especially the WikiRevolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and the growing grassroots peace movements in Israel and Palestine - is an integral part of this endeavor.
From late 2009 she consulted various programs of the Bertelsmann Stiftung on the effects of the internet on society and culture. She mainly worked on the strategy and relaunch of the futurechallenges.org platform, connected it with international organizations and netizens. She published 3 magazines for them, the latest THRIVE in cooperation with the Institute of World Economy in Kiel.