.
Axel Schultze is the founder and CEO of BlueCallom Corp., an AI-driven Neuro Innovation Management platform. He has exceptional entrepreneurial experience and is one of the rare entrepreneurs who founded two billion-dollar companies. Recognized as a visionary thinker, Axel often defies conventional rules and demonstrates a knack for disruptive business models.
“I enjoy the fact that I have no more than 7 years’ experience in anything. More would cause too much effort to re-train my neural connections.” 🙂
For the next seven years, Axel is exploring Neuroscience. Much like the technology revolution before, recent discoveries about how our brain works will once again redefine the way we live – more radically than anything we have seen so far.
Speaking Engagements
Axel Schultze has delivered numerous keynotes and participated in various TV interviews. Below is a sample of his speaking record:
- Keynote, Generative-AI in multi-tier Sales at GSFT24, Barcelona, 2024
- Keynote, AI based innovation at Swiss Inno Forum, Basel, 2023
- Keynote Innovation Roundtable Conference 2022
- TEDx Talk, Wonders of the innovative mind, 2020
- Opening Keynote at Techfest Vietnam, 2019
- TEDx Talk, University of Arts and Applied Science Lucerne, 2019
- Keynotes, at various entrepreneurship events in Asia, 2018
- Keynote, World Tourism Forum, Lucerne, 2017
- Keynote, HighTech Venture Days, Dresden, 2015
- Panelist, Munich Startup Festival 2015
- Panelist, Capitals Business Circle, Berlin, 2014
- Keynote, Thought Leadership Live, Palo Alto, CA 2014
- Keynote, IOT Conference, San Francisco, CA 2014
- Keynote, Silicon Valley Crowdfunding, San Mateo, CA 2013
- Keynote at Digital Agenda 2012, Brussels – European Commission, 2012
- Keynote at ITAC 2010, Melbourne, Australia, 2010
- TV Interviews at Bloomberg, 1998
- Keynote at Microsoft Partner conference, 1997
Countless speeches and keynotes at tech conferences worldwide.
Speaker Introductions
Speaker Introduction
Axel Schultze is the CEO of BlueCallom and chairman of the World Innovations Forum. He founded two highly innovative multi-billion-dollar companies: the world’s first digital stock exchange in 1997 and a leading enterprise-grade SaaS company in 1999 in Silicon Valley. Later, he advised startups on developing innovative businesses through the World Innovations Forum.
In 2020, Axel created an innovation framework and AI-driven software for Disruptive Innovation and Business Transformation, aiming to help leaders build continuously innovative organizations. Today, he focuses on GenAI, Neuro-AI-Fusion, and Human Intelligence Augmentation. He was recently nominated for the German Innovation Award.
Alternative Speaker Intro
Axel Schultze is the founder and CEO of BlueCallom Corp., concentrating on Innovation and Transformation through Generative AI and Neuro-AI-Fusion. Notably, he is among the few entrepreneurs who have established two multi-billion-dollar companies. With most of his career spent in Silicon Valley, Axel is also a published author, patent holder, and nominee for the 2024 German Innovation Award.
In 2015, he was named one of the world’s most influential startup accelerators. He earned the SF Entrepreneur Award in 2008 and served as an early advisor to LinkedIn. Axel began his career as a software engineer at Rockwell International, contributing to Space Shuttle projects in California.
Areas of Expertise
APPLIED GENERATIVE AI
Axel’s AI journey began in the mid-1970s with Eliza, an early natural language processing program created at MIT in the 1960s. Researchers designed Eliza to act as a psychotherapist; people would “talk” to her, though she was rudimentary by today’s standards. Over the years, Axel kept track of the alternating “AI summers and winters,” until 2016, when DeepMind’s AlphaGo famously defeated the world’s best human Go player. Soon after, OpenAI was founded.
During his Neuroscience studies (2017–2019), Axel connected the dots between technical and biological neuronal networks. After completing an AI for Executives program at MIT, he developed several concepts, one of which grew into the Neuro-AI-Fusion model. Neuro-AI-Fusion now stands at the core of his work on Human Intelligence Augmentation and underpins his efforts to make it a practical reality.
Eventually, Axel and his wife, Marita, co-founded BlueCallom, a Generative AI Management Platform. BlueCallom offers prompt and agent development, testing, deployment, library management, and a user workspace within a single integrated solution. Moreover, independent partner organizations primarily develop prompts, agents, and applications, while large language models are provided by companies such as OpenAI. To decentralize power and democratize knowledge, Axel created an AI-Network that fuses AI and Web3 technologies. Additionally, the business model uses a token-based system to enable sub-cent payments without incurring high transaction fees.
APPLIED NEUROSCIENCE IN INNOVATION
After a few years of research, Axel Schultze recognized a link between recent neuroscience discoveries and the unanswered question: “How does the human brain create disruptive ideas?” He realized that the brain composes new experience models by combining elements from past experiences. This realization prompted him to devote extensive time to understanding how the brain behaves while generating breakthrough concepts.
He compared his own ideation processes—as well as those of the startups he guided—with modern neuroscience findings. Through this comparison, Axel developed a behavioral pattern that led to the Deep Innovation Design method. Recognizing that the field of neuro-ideation is only beginning to unfold, he still considers this method a remarkable starting point, already producing tangible results. Today, Neuro Ideation forms the backbone of a core methodology used to generate new ideas in just three to five weeks. Although this seems lengthy compared to a quick brainstorming session, it is far more effective in producing genuinely disruptive innovation.
INNOVATION & DISRUPTION BACKGROUND
In 1983, Axel disrupted the global distribution business model by exclusively selling through authorized sales partners—an approach deemed impossible at the time. Despite having only $25,000 in seed capital, his startup, Computer 2000, surpassed multimillion-dollar international distributors. Within ten years, Computer 2000 grew to $5 billion in revenue, becoming Europe’s largest technology distributor and the third-largest worldwide.
By 1996, Axel founded Infinigate, the first “Value Added Distributor.” This hybrid model blended high-volume product distribution with a service and education component for complex products. Although considered unfeasible in the beginning, Infinigate later became Europe’s premier cybersecurity provider in its segment.
In 1997, Axel created the world’s first digital stock exchange, disrupting the financial services industry. He sold it to Germany’s largest brokerage firm to concentrate fully on Infinigate. Four years later, in 2001, he launched BlueRoads with what was then a disruptive Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. He also architected the first “multi-tenant networked architecture,” setting the stage for multi-channel SaaS solutions. After exiting BlueRoads in 2007, he retired and focused on helping young entrepreneurs succeed.
In 2016, Axel dived deeper into innovation research to help startups develop more disruptive business models. He launched methods for fostering revolutionary business concepts, and in 2019, he and his wife founded the World Innovations Forum. By 2020, BlueCallom was applying neuroscience to the act of innovation, further advancing the field.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Throughout his career, Axel founded, scaled, and successfully exited four companies, one of which surpassed $5 billion in revenue. All four ventures were highly innovative and leveraged disruptive business models. Afterward, he and his wife helped hundreds—if not thousands—of entrepreneurs from over 30 countries master fundamental concepts of entrepreneurship, build dream teams, create unique solutions, bring those solutions to market, and contribute to their nations’ economic prosperity.
During his time in Silicon Valley, Axel became known as a top expert in entrepreneurship. His practical insights and disruptive approach shaped the successes of many emerging companies.
MULTI-TIER-SALES-OPERATION
Axel pioneered what is now the largest multitier sales organization, involving hundreds of thousands of independent business partners. In 2006, he published Channel Excellence, which remains a relevant read for sales professionals worldwide.
Axel Schultze – Biography
Axel Schultze
Axel Schultze is the founder and CEO of BlueCallom Corp., an AI-driven Neuro Innovation Management Platform. He is one of the rare entrepreneurs to have built two multi-billion-dollar companies. These include Computer 2000, the world’s largest tech distributor, and Webstock, the first digital stock exchange. Axel also established Infinigate, now the world’s second-largest cybersecurity provider, and BlueRoads, which became one of the most successful enterprise channel sales SaaS solutions.
After delving into neuroscience, Axel discovered how the brain composes ideas and how external stimuli can enhance creativity. Drawing on his own experience of building disruptive companies, he and his wife founded BlueCallom in 2020, enabling visionaries to create not only breakthrough innovations but also bring them successfully to global markets.
Axel spent much of his business life in Silicon Valley. Following his retirement in 2014, he supported emerging startups, helping them optimize innovation and maximize their entrepreneurial potential. Over the years, he published various works and received U.S. Patent 9,514,997 for a sales lead management process. Recently nominated for the 2024 German Innovation Award, Axel was named one of the world’s most influential startup accelerators in 2015, and he won the SF Entrepreneur Award in 2008. He also chaired the SaaS Channel Committee at the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and served as an early adviser to LinkedIn in 2003.