Digital Life Design (DLD) is a global conference network, organized by

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

-based DLD Media, a company of

Hubert Burda Media Hubert Burda Media Holding is a German media group with headquarters in Offenburg. It originated as a small printing business, founded by Franz Burda Snr in Philippsburg, in 1903. In 1986, the corporate group was divided up between Franz Jnr ...

. In 2005, Stephanie Czerny founded DLD as an annual conference scheme. Its main purpose is to connect business, creative and social leaders, opinion formers, and investors for crossover conversation and inspiration. Since its first gathering, DLD hosted events in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Hous ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

and

. DLD Conference is referred to by the Economist as one of Europe's leading conferences on innovation. New-media site Sifted, backed by the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

, recently ranked the event platform as one of "Europe's best tech conferences". The company's flagship conference, DLD Munich, hosts over 1000 guests from more than 50 countries. The three-day event always takes place in January, right before the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

Davos , neighboring_municipalities= Arosa, Bergün/Bravuogn, Klosters-Serneus, Langwies, S-chanf, Susch , twintowns = } Davos (, ; or ; rm, ; archaic it, Tavate) is an Alps, Alpine resort town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, muni ...

. DLD's motto, ''Connect the Unexpected'', brings people together from various fields and interests, addressing a wide range of topics such as technology, arts, science and politics, and talking about the future and its implications on today's life. Past speakers include

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipe ...

Maria Ressa Maria Angelita Ressa (, born Maria Angelita Delfin Aycardo on October 2, 1963) is a Filipino and American journalist. She is the co-founder and CEO of Rappler. She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in S ...

Kai-Fu Lee Kai-Fu Lee (; born December 3, 1961) is a Taiwanese computer scientist, businessman, and writer. He is currently based in Beijing, China. Lee developed a speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie ...

, Francis Kéré,

Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (, ; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO, ...

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...

Hans Ulrich Obrist Hans Ulrich Obrist (born 1968) is a Swiss art curator, critic, and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of ''The Interview Project'', an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is ...

Scott Galloway Scott Robert Galloway (born 25 April 1995) is an Australian professional football (soccer) player who plays as a fullback for Melbourne City in the A-League. Born in Perth, Galloway played youth football for the Australian Institute of Spor ...

Sheryl Sandberg Sheryl Kara Sandberg (born August 28, 1969) is an American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is al ...

, Margrethe Vestager,

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...

and many more.

Background

Stephanie Czerny is the event platform's co-founder and managing director, chaired by

Hubert Burda Hubert Burda (born 9 February 1940) is a German billionaire publisher. He is the owner, publisher and general partner of Hubert Burda Media, a global media company of more than 600 media products, including websites, print magazines and other br ...

and

Yossi Vardi Joseph "Yossi" Vardi ( he, יוסי ורדי, born September 2, 1942) is an Israeli entrepreneur and investor. He is one of Israel's first high-tech entrepreneurs. For over 47 years he has founded and helped to build over 85 high-tech companie ...

After bringing DLD Conference to life in 2005, DLD Media GmbH has been founded as a subsidiary of

to expand the brand. Steffi Czerny and Co-Founder Marcel Reichart were named its managing directors. Since then, the company has steadily grown and is now offering various conferences besides DLD Munich around the globe, as well as salons, dinners, lectures, hikes and other events. All events are by invitation only. However, those interested can apply via the company's website. Until 2018, the conference's venue was the listed bank building at Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße 1 (''HVB Forum''). In 2019, DLD Munich took place at Alte Kongresshalle for the first time. All talks and sessions can be watched over a live stream. Each year the slogan of the conference accordingly changes to the dominant theme.

Aenne Burda Award

In memory of his mother's entrepreneurial and social commitment, Hubert Burda established the Aenne Burda Award for creative leadership, honoring women with visionary ideas. Past laureates have been:

Media coverage

DLD is covered and attended every year by over 180 international journalists from opinion forming media such as ''The New York Times, Economist, Guardian, Fast Company, Fortune, Financial Times, FAZ, FOCUS, Spiegel, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Thomson Reuters, Getty, Deutsche Welle, AllThingsD, Huffington Post'' and ''TechCrunch''.

References

{{reflist International conferences