next layer - Das Team

Das Team

Unsere Mitarbeiter

Georg Chytil
CEO

Born 40 years ago in Bad Aussee and raised in Upper Styria, Georg Chytil was exiled to Vienna to study computer science as a contrast to his earlier humanistic secondary school studies. His first encounters with the Internet occurred in 1987 through part-time work at the data processing center of the Vienna University of Technology. As of 1991 he was made a technical associate, later becoming Technical Director of the newly founded EUnet. Following the merger with KPNQwest he was named as Director of Operations and Engineering, responsible for technical operations throughout Austria, and was actively involved in international strategy formulation for the IP sector and in various steering committees. As of June 2001 he became Chief Technology and Operations Officer with Vianet Telekommunkations AG, a business ISP and Internet pioneer in Vienna, where he remained until the sale of company. In this capacity he was also extensively involved with commercial and financial matters. As of October 2002 he was named Chief Technology & Operations Officer/CTO of EUnet AG, which developed from KPNQwest (technical and operational consolidation and fusion with Tiscali ÖsterreichGmbH), and finally Managing Director of Technology & Operations. Since the year 2000 he has held various honorary functions for the national provider association ISPA, as well as coauthoring the TKP-Expertenblog. The co-founder of next layer has been actively involved in the company since March 2005.

Ing. Rene Avi

With eight years in the service provider sector, the 29- year-old counts among the Austrian Internet community's veterans. After his studies and a sideline in building and maintaining business networks Rene Avi joined EUnet GmbH in 1998, at the time the leading business ISP. Fascinated by learning and adapting technologies and innovations, he was soon placed in charge of network design and support for selected enterprise clients. During the transformation from EUnet to KPNQwest, the startup of the first 2.4 Gbps IP line into Austria as well as design and implementation of the Vienna SDH ring were among his professional highlights. Following the technical and organizational challenges of the re-established EUnet AG, he also applied himself to the area of strategy and product management in the connectivity sector, which saw its realization in the first connection by an Austrian ISP to LINX, AMS-IX and DE-CIX, as well as to the Tiscali Ethernet Metro Ring in mid-2004. More than 20 businesses have placed their trust in his experience and competence in designing and implementing their IP redundancy BGP multihoming needs; in addition, he has also helped develop numerous fiber and unbundling networks. This resulted in his current focus on the physical layer such as cable routing, fibers, and above all C/WDM. In January 2005 Rene Avi founded Next Layer GmbH, which took on its current form in June 2005. He is an active member of RIPE, ISPA and the IETF community, and can regularly be found in working groups and mailing lists.

Mag. Martin Dirnhofer

Martin Dirnhofer completed his natural science studies in Salzburg prior to entering the rapidly expanding Internet business, joining EUnet GmbH as a technician in 1997. Until 2001 he was responsible for technical customer service at KPNQwest "Central Europe," switching thereafter to the Network Engineering department with the newly founded EUnet, where, in addition to technical operations, he was also responsible for network design and development of the service portfolio. Active in the technology of the IP world, especially in the network sector, he was also responsible for consultation, calculation and execution of projects in the business customer segment. At the end of 2004 he transferred to UTA Telekom, where he served as sales consultant in the key-accounts department.

Ing. Andreas Schoder

Born in 1981, Andreas Schoder joined KPNQwest Austria GmbH in the position of systems engineer after completing his technical studies. Among his duties were the operation and further expansion of the server landscape. During the re-founding of EUnet AG he played a significant role in the reestablishment and redesign of customer services. As a specialist for highly available server solutions he participated in numerous customer projects. After leaving Tiscali he transferred to UTA, where he worked in project management. Among his primary responsibilities was the supervision of major projects in the business customer sector, particularly in the area of VPNs and Voice over IP. His duties included customer support activities, from cost accounting to bid proposal management to project monitoring measures during implementation. After the takeover of UTA by Tele2 he switched to the Fabalabs, where he was employed in the research and development department as a Linux software engineer. In this capacity he was significantly involved in the development of enterprise-capable system management solutions.

Ferdinand Leitner

Born in 1946 in Vienna, Ferdinand Leitner completed secondary school at the Realschule in Vienna's 7th district, followed by studies at the Hochschule für Welthandel. He received additional training as organizer and project manager in Germany in the early 1970s. 1969 marked the beginning of a 35-year career in the IT and later in the Internet industry. In the last 15 years he has been Managing Director of DATASERVICE, Managing Director of EUnet EDV DienstleistungsGmbH, Executive Chairman of VIANET, and Executive Chairman of EUnet AG. He has taken part in continuous further training, not only at Austrian institutions, but also at the Management Institut St.Gallen, in Fontainebleau and in Lausanne. His experiences concentrate primarily on distribution and marketing, all aspects of solution- and project-based business, as well as general business management. Since mid-2005 he has served next layer in a consulting and supporting capacity. In his free time he rides his Kawasaki, his three mountain bikes, and sometimes even his son's scooter.

Ing. Wolfgang Powisch

Born 1981 in Horn, Lower Austria. After he completed his technical education in communications engineering and informatics in St. Pölten, he was responsible for operating and extending the IT infrastructure of a international technology venture. From 2003 he was participating in operation and development of server-based ISP services at EUnet AG, later Tiscali Austria. Also involved in several customer projects, one of his special subjects was automated network- and service monitoring. His strengths are particularly focused in developing scalable high availability solutions based on OpenSource software.