Holger Kunze was born on 06.12.1971 in Saxony. After studying electrical engineering at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Mr. Kunze began his professional career at Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg. As a research employee in Group Research, he worked on a wide variety of materials topics, including aluminum foams, magnesium and titanium sheets and smart materials. His further career took him to the Fraunhofer IWU in Dresden, where he initially started as a group leader for multifunctional materials, later building up the Adaptronics department and is now responsible for the SYMBIOTIC MECHATRONICS business unit. In 2013, Mr. Kunze founded the innovation network smarthoch3 - today Europe's largest network for smart materials and structures.