While working for a radio station, Andreas Heinecke, the founder of Dialogue in the Dark, had his first encounter with a blind person, who had lost his sight in an accident. At first, he felt pity and had no idea how to cope with the situation. But quickly he understood that being blind implies having qualities that usually are not seen be sighted people. Andreas trained his young blind colleague to work in the radio station while he was trained by him for life. Literally, a blind person opened Andreas’ eyes and encouraged him to think about how we can move beyond differences!

Even as an adolescent, Andreas had always struggled with his mixed Jewish-Nazi ancestry and somewhere it found an expression through his search for questions such as: Why do people marginalize others? How can one part of my family have killed another part of my family? On what grounds do we judge people and classify them as inferior or superior? And thus began his life quest for tolerance, open dialogue and respect, which took the form of Dialogue in the Dark in 1988.
Assessing the enormous potential of the concept, Andreas launched his first social enterprise in 1995. He has since devoted himself to finding new ways to bridge the gaps across human divide through direct human encounter.

Andreas holds a PhD in Philosophy and is a Professor for Social Business at the European Business School in Germany. He won numerous international awards and is recognized the world over for his work.

1998 Stevie Wonder Vision Award
2004 Best Practice in Universal
2005 Named first “Ashoka Fellow” in Western Europe
2006 “Deutscher Unternehmer Preis” by the Harvard Business School’s Entrepreneurship Club
2007 “Outstanding Global Social Entrepreneur” by the Schwab Foundation
2008 Nominated as member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Entrepreneurship 2009 “Global Award Winner for the best innovative and out-of-comfort-zone event” (Dialogue in the Dark and Dialogue in Silence workshops) by the YPO
2009 Dragon Award for the category “Business with Conscience”
2011 Deutscher Gründerpreis