I founded Kollabora, a social community that offers fashion forward DIY projects in jewelry, knitting and sewing.

At Kollabora, you can find everything from idea to implementation: inspiration, instructions and shop supplies. Kollabora is funded by Khosla Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Allen & Co, Burda/DLD Ventures and 500 Startups.

Fast Company has called me a "rare leader who can pull together technology, publishing, and fashion, and inspire people".

Before starting Kollabora, I reinvented an old sewing magazine into the DIY fashion community BurdaStyle.com, with over 800,000 members, now an icon in the sewing community.

I began my career at German power-publisher Hubert Burda Media and I'm part of the founding team of the DLD-conference.

I've published two books and have been invited to share my experience at Picnic, FOO (Friends of O'Reilly Media), Parsons School of Design, Stream, the World Economic Forum Media Summit, and NY Forum and as a judge at the TechCrunch Hackathon. I contribute regularly to the WSJ Accelerators.

My work has appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Wired, BusinessWeek, Women's Wear Daily, and Fast Company. I sit on the board of the Craft and Hobby Association.

I grew up in Germany, live in Brooklyn, NY and hold a degree in Middle East Studies, Political Science and Philosophy from the American University in Cairo.

I made my first money sewing scrunchies as a teenager and never stopped making stuff.