Biography / Speaker-Profile

Tobias Kopka – Curator / Interaction Designer – curatomic

Detailed Bio

Tobias Kopka is an experienced program director, facilitator, and connector of people in the games industry and related fields. He runs the program agency curatomic, supporting partners as  freelance program director and consultant. Recent clients include Gamescom Congress, Reboot Develop, gamesweekberlin, devgamm, A Maze & devcom.

On his creative side, he co-founded VR Dance Club, creating VR&Dance performances for theatre, exhibition, and dance stage contexts. He also supports the industry and his peers as a university-taught Systemic Coach through personal coaching and mentoring.

Before going freelance Tobias has spearheaded some of the most prominent game developer conferences and festivals since 2009, including Ludicious Zürich Game Festival, Reboot Develop, Quo Vadis, devcom, Next Level and Respawn – Gathering of Game Developers, always with a keen eye on improving relationships and the industry.

He is a co-founder and regular contributor to pro bono projects, such as the European Game Showcase during GDC (est. 2017) and #ArtOfCoding (est. 2019), which brought the Demoscene as the first digital culture onto the list of UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage in Finland, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, aiming to expand its reach even further.

Find Tobias on LinkedIn, Facebook,  Instagram and Twitter.

 
Addendum:
Tobias loves to bring together diverse communities from all skill areas and backgrounds and is driven by seeing new things emerge from gathering creators from different knowledge domains.

Tobias has been in the demoscene for more than 30 years, has a background in tech for more than 15 years, and has lectured in higher education for over seven years.

Tobias is certified as Systemic Coach from INEKO institute at University of Cologne, holds an M.A. in Media Studies, History, and Political Science, and is educated as a Physical-technical Assistant, so basically is interested in everything.

As speaker and moderator, he focuses on the games industry, ecosystems & communities, digital culture & digital media. Some of his recent presentations include appearances at the NYU Game Center, New York (03/2015) / Parsons The New School for Design, New York (10/2015) / GMGDC, Chengdu, China (11/2015) / Reboot Develop, Split (04/2016) / Play-Festival, Hamburg (11/2016), Next Level Festival, Düsseldorf (11/2016), X-Mas Pitching of Games Bavaria, Munich (12/2016), Ludicious Zürich Games Festival (01/2017), Reboot Develop, Dubrovnik, Croatia (05/2017), Cologne Game Conference (10/2017), Nordic Game Conference (05/2019), Swiss National Museum (01/2020), 1E9 Conference, Deutsches Museum Munich (11/2020), Reboot Develop 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Tobias is a judge at IGF Independent Games Festival, a member of the advisory board of GIC Games Industry Conference, Poznan, Poland, is part of the jury of the German Game Developer Award, Advisory Board Member at Games.NRW, Advisor at the Swiss Game Hub and has been advising the Swiss national arts council Pro Helvetia as part of the expert jury on Interactive Media.