Jacob Bilabel (DE)

Jacob is the founder of the pan-European Green Music Initiative (GMI), an independent cross-industry think-tank to inspire people in the music festival and events industry to run their operations greener and smarter. The non-profit-organisation brings together more than 350 festivals and 500 venues and reaches out to more than 3 million young Europeans through its activities. GMI acts as cross-sectoral innovation and research agency for Europe's music and entertainment industry. As project leader of the EE MUSIC project, he was responsible for a series of more than 60 workshops which took place in 27 European countries to encourage and equip festivals, clubs, and venues with key knowledge and tools to begin understanding and improving energy efficiency. In 2018 he got appointed as part of a research consortium developing off-grid hydrogen generator sets for festivals and events. Both projects received funding for the European Commission’s research and innovation programs.

Prior to that Jacob Bilabel worked in the management of Universal Music Germany. In the following years, he set up MySpace’s operations in Germany. He is a mentor at the Akademie der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin and founding member of the ReDesign Deutschland initiative. Besides that he is a board member of Berlin's Chamber of Commerce for Creative Industries. Jacob Bilabel is also serving as a part of the German Technical mirror committee for the new ISO 20121 standard for Sustainability in Event Management. In the year 2015, he helped to set up Festival Kombinat, a network of more than 30 independent festivals. In 2016 he got appointed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as an expert for innovation processes in the creative sector. In 2017 he became an ambassador for the European Take A Stand network, promoting cultural values to young Europeans.