Mirko Meboldt was born in Mannheim, Germany. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (KIT) and launched his academic career at the Institute of Product Engineering Karlsruhe (IPEK), where he completed a doctorate in the field of product development. He embarked on his industrial career at Hilti AG in Liechtenstein, where he was globally responsible for CAD/PDM systems, standardisation and development methods. In his last position at Hilti, he was responsible for global technology and product development processes. In 2012 he was appointed as a full professor of product development and engineering design at ETH Zurich. His main research focuses on the development of new products in the field of mechanical engineering industries, biomedical applications and associated technologies. He regards the impact on the education of young engineers and its relevance for industry as a key motivation and benchmark for his research. He currently works in the field of engineering design and product development, specialising in user-oriented product innovations, new production technologies and challenging applications.
Christoph Klahn studied aircraft systems engineering at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH). For his Master’s thesis, he performed a topology optimisation on an aircraft bracket to demonstrate the potential of additive manufacturing for Airbus. After his degree, he worked at Airbus on the final assembly lines for A400M and A380, and in A350XWB manufacturing engineering before embarking on his PhD in laser additive-manufactured, gas-permeable materials for industrial applications at TUHH. Christoph has been head of design for the additive manufacturing group at ETH Product Development Group pd|z and at Inspire AG since 2013. The goal of his work is to transfer knowledge of these new manufacturing processes to Swiss industry.