re:member: Robin Meyer-Lucht (1973 – 2011)

In the run-up to the 10th re:publica, we're looking back at past years gone by. So far, we've been featuring our big #rpReview, a shared look-back at past re:publica incarnations. However, the last years have also given us moments for pause and reflection. Along with celebrating, the re:publica community has mourned untimely losses.

On 21 September 2011, blogs and papers began reporting the death of Robin Meyer-Lucht, who had gone missing several days prior. Robin died on 16 September 2011, at the age of 38.

Journalist, media scientist, founder, blogger, internet activist, consultant – Robin was active engaged in a long and diverse list of projects and professional fields. He earned his PhD in economics at the University of St. Gallen in 2005 and, shortly afterwards, founded the “Berlin Institute”, a research and consulting organisation for media, the media revolution and economics in media. In 2008, and along with a team of authors, he founded the carta.info online magazine, which won a Grimme Online Award the following year.

Robin became involved in the heated debate on increasing contributions to the radio and television licence fee by German internet users in 2010. He responded by publishing a petition calling for the safeguarding of net neutrality. He also took part in the panel discussion “Leistungsschutzrecht - Let's screw up the entire internet to save newspapers” at re:publica 2010.

Robin Meyer-Lucht and his insightful commentary is dearly missed to this day.

Photo credit: Mario Sixtus (CC BY 2.0)