# Short Biographies (english)

## Founders

### Martin Jost

Martin Jost is an Entrepreneur, Web Developer and Student of Molecular Biology. He was born in Feldbach, Austria and is currently 24 years old. Excited by the creative freedom of virtual worlds he started programming in young years. After specializing in electronic engineering at HTL BULME Graz and finishing school he was underwhelmed by the reality of software engineering soon. Searching for an alternative, Martin found himself fascinated by the science of Molecular Biology. After a few years of studying at Graz University of Technology and University of Graz his interest in the interface of technology and science sparked again by joining his friend and coed Alexander Murer in his process of establishing Austrias first biohackerspace 'Open bioLab Graz“. Together with Bernhard Tittelbach, co-founder of hackerspace 'realraum', they were united by the goal of building a portable DIY bioreactor and finally formed their company 'Briefcase Biotec'. Their recent project 'KiloBaser' is an affordable DNA rapid prototyping machine and is currently developed at SynBio axlr8r in Cork, Ireland in cooperation with University College Cork.

### Alexander Murer

Alexander Murer is the founder of 'Open Biolab Graz-Austria', student of molecular biology and entrepreneur. He was born in 1988 in Graz, Austria. His university career startet with process engineering at the Technical University Graz, but after a year he was fascinated by biotechnology & molecular biology and switched to that study. Two circumstances influenced his later decission to independently develop a desktop bioreactor significantly: His part time work at Anton Paar - Center for Analytical Instrumentation / automatisation and his idea of a more self- reliant, open and scientific education, which he adopted during his attandence at student protests for open education in 2009. Soon two friends of him, Bernhard Tittelbach and Martin Jost, joined that project and their first company 'Briefcase Biotec KG' was born. In 2013 he was together with his friends Rüdiger Wetzels company 'Compuritas' the co-operator of an IT development project in Tansania, Afrika. Due to his work on the bioreactor at the local hackerspace 'realraum' he came up with the idea to found a biohackerspace in Graz, which is now the first biohackerspace in Europe to hold a GMO license. Their recent project 'KiloBaser' is an affordable DNA rapid prototyping machine and is currently developed at SynBio axlr8r in Cork, Ireland in cooperation with University College Cork.

### Bernhard Tittelbach

Bernhard Tittelbach is an tinkerer, maker, open-source advocate and solver of problems. Born in Vienna and interested in technology from a young age on, was originally schooled in humanities and languages. After military service in Austria, he finally went on to study a mix of electrical engineering and computer science at the Technical University of Graz, where he later specialized in satellite communications and cryptography. As part of the student union he he polished his people and organizational skills while as long-term teaching assistant he applied himself to becoming very good at cramping important facts into peoples brain. He cowrote SWEB, an operating system intended for education and is well known for his involvement with Linux, OpenSource and helping out in community projects like Funkfeur, GRML, Linuxtage or the Chaos Communication Congress. In the last 6 years he has worked on embedded systems, as a Consultant and Linux systems engineer, and helped construct a pico-satellite platform, working on the ham-radio part of art project mur.sat. His free time, when not backpacking in other countries, is spent either outside, hunting Tupperware in the woods, or inside practicing martial arts and managing realraum, Graz's local Hackerspace where he likes to give his imagination form or just improve stuff and learn new things. Interessted in synthetic biology as the next big thing early on, he brought the Open Biolab Graz-Austria to realraum and co-founded Briefcase Biotec.