Governance

Sabine Plattner

Sabine Plattner is a permanent member of the Foundation Council of the Hasso Plattner Foundation. She is the Founder of Sabine Plattner African Charities (SPAC), a charitable subsidiary of the Hasso Plattner Foundation and a Founding Director of the Leadership for Conservation in Africa (LCA).

After her career as a teacher in Germany and the establishment of SPAC gGmbH in 2008, she focused her attention on the protection of biodiversity in Africa. She is firmly convinced that a balanced coexistence between people and nature is desirable and possible, which can only be achieved through education, empowering especially the younger generations through knowledge, to make sound decisions for their own future.

The impact areas of her work as a conservationist and pedagogue include the Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs and curriculum enrichment by embedding conservation knowledge into the programs of primary schools in Africa, referred to as EduConservation. The latter is now also planned for secondary schools. At tertiary level she supports international scientific research focused on primatology and forest elephants within the Congo Basin.

Within the context of the protection of nature, her primary focus is on the African rainforests, especially in the Congo Basin, investing time and resources in, and for, the ongoing protection of the Odzala Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo. She views the engagement with and inclusion of the local population as crucial for conservation success, which is evident in the work that she supports in the region. Attending to the livelihood needs of the local people and the importance of sound income streams, she founded and is subsidising Kamba African Rainforest Experiences (formerly Congo Conservation Company) in her private capacity. In doing so, she aims to support the region’s socio-economic development and to draw attention to the value of these ecosystems through eco-tourism. These private initiatives combined with her philanthropic engagement in the Odzala-Kokoua region, contribute significantly to a balanced coexistence between people and nature.

As one of the Founding Directors and former Chairperson of the Leadership for Conservation in Africa (LCA), Sabine Plattner encourages and supports the principle of Public-Private Partnerships. Through example, and in her regular public appeal as keynote speaker, she influences business leaders to become involved in conservation, by investing time and money in conservation-led socio-economic development programs.

In 2019, Sabine Plattner received the Medal de Chevalier from the President of the Republic of Congo and in 2020 the Bundesverdienstkreuz from the President of Germany in acknowledgment of her contribution to the conservation in the Congo Basin.

Dr. Kristina Plattner

Dr. Kristina Plattner is a permanent member of the Foundation Council of the Hasso Plattner Foundation. She serves on several advisory boards of the Foundation’s initiatives, focusing her efforts on projects related to the African continent and on the topics of education, environmental protection, and nature conservation.

Her interest in the natural sciences has played a key role in her academic choices: In 2002, she received her Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Biochemistry from the University of Cape Town, as well as her honors degree, a Bachelor of Science in Medicine. In 2011, she completed her PhD in the fields of Exercise Physiology, Human Biology, and Neuroscience. As part of her academic work, she has published various articles on sports medicine and neurology in scientific journals and portals – for instance in the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology (2011), the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2012), and in Science Direct (2014).

Kristina has lived in South Africa since 1998. Due to her deep connection to the African continent, she has been a driving and decisive force behind the Foundation’s philanthropic projects in Africa since the early 2000s. She is particularly committed to sustainability, future-related issues, and social responsibility. In this, she considers education – the essential motor of development – to be key.

Accordingly, one of the projects closest to her heart is the Hasso Plattner d-school AFRIKA at UCT in Cape Town which opened in March 2017 – the first HPI School of Design Thinking on the African continent. Kristina is very closely involved with the school’s strategic management. Sister organizations at Stanford and at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam served as models for the school. She is enthusiastic about its pragmatic, user-oriented approach: The focus of product development is less on extraordinary design and more on a precise understanding of what the customer wants and needs.

Her passion for the African continent and aspiration to preserve African nature and culture for future generations are traits that Kristina shares with her mother, Sabine. To raise awareness for sustainability, she is also involved in her mother’s extensive environmental protection and education projects within the scope of SPAC. This includes, for example, concepts for the increased integration of Africa-centric content into school curricula. As a biologist, nature conservation research projects, such as in the Republic of the Congo, are particularly close to her heart. She is, for example, committed to making communities aware of the value of their resources and working with them to develop prospects for sustainable income from nature conservation rather than rainforest deforestation. This includes Kamba African Rainforest Experiences (formerly Congo Conservation Company), an environmentally conscious tourism project for the Odzala-Kokoua National Park, which offers visitors the extraordinary opportunity to experience gorillas and chimpanzees in a single nature reserve.

Another focus of interest for Kristina is Data4Life. Data4Life’s goal is to create digital solutions to improve global health.

In Kristina’s experience, the essential prerequisite for getting things moving is to build trust-based relationships: “To convince many people of a good idea, it is necessary to first win over the individual.”

Stefanie Plattner

Stefanie Plattner is a trained actor and worked for several years in theater and film productions. She is a film director and producer, and the Managing Director of Storming Donkey Productions, a company she founded in 2012. Storming Donkey Productions developed the feature film Hördur, directed by Ekrem Ergün, which won the Best Children’s Film at the Berlinale in 2015 and the German Critics Film Award in 2016. Several other feature and documentary films by Storming Donkey Productions have been screened at international festivals such as the Berlinale, the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, and the SXSW Film Festival in Austin.

Stefanie founded the non-profit organization TALES, a multimedia storytelling initiative that seeks to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation for the world’s many diverse cultures and their associated mythologies, and thus contribute to the preservation of our environment. The first installment in this series, the book “Congo Tales” (Random House/ Prestel, 15 November 2018) was featured on the front pages of major newspapers, such as the New York Times. The second entry, the short film “The Little Fish and the Crocodile,” was screened at various film festivals and won the main prize at the 2018 Chicago Film Festival. With TALES, Stefanie is currently producing the World of Us, a metaverse that combines cultural exchange, interaction, and inclusivity through an immersive, digital platform that connects young users from around the world.

Stefanie is a permanent member of the Foundation Council of the Hasso Plattner Foundation. She was involved in the conception of the new exhibition space DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam and continues to be involved in the conception and the program of the museum, which shows contemporary and GDR works. In addition, Stefanie is the co-chair of the Advisory Board of WPI, a non-profit organization dedicated to the digitization of catalogs raisonnés and modernization of archival research in art.