Alexa Champions

Tim Kahle is a digital marketing expert with a strong background in digital media and music entertainment. As an early adopter of new technologies, he discovered business opportunities in the fast-growing web of the early 2000s – in mobile apps when the first iPhone was introduced in Germany and in social media when it was used primarily to promote businesses and products.

Tim's mission is to convince other people and businesses of the game-changing improvements that voice technology will bring to our lives, now and into the future.

A couple of months before Alexa was introduced in Germany, he and Dominik Meissner found themselves impressed with the new technology. Convinced voice would be the next big thing, they founded one of the first voice assistant agencies, 169 Labs, so they could be a part of this new era from the very beginning. Now, they are recognized as leading experts in creating voice-first experiences for Amazon Alexa.

Tim co-hosted the Cologne Voice Interface Meetup and Voice Meetup Cologne and runs the podcast All About Voice. He interviews other developers, companies, and voice enthusiasts to share knowledge and insights from different perspectives. In addition to running his agency and doing work in the community, Tim travels around the world to speak about voice at events and meetups (such as Voice Summit, Adobe MAX, Project Voice, OMR Festival Hamburg, Voice Meetup London, Voice Meetup Berlin and UX Day Mannheim). He also mentors students who are writing theses about digital assistants at RFH Köln, the Cologne Business School and Popakademie Mannheim.

Since 2018 he has hosted Europe's largest Voice Assistant Conference “All About Voice” in Munich, Germany. This B2B event for international leaders in digital marketing and voice technology is recognized as a platform to discuss new developments and future scenarios of the voice-first ecosystem.

In 2019 he wrote the first German book on Voice User Interface Design for Voice Assistants called All About Voice – How to design for Voice Assistants such as Amazon Alexa. He also joined the Adobe XDI International team to facilitate workshops for Fortune 500 companies. In these workshops XD Tim engages attendees to use XD as prototyping software for voice assistants.

• Tiergeräusche (Animal Noises): This skill entertains kids with animal sounds. 169 Labs’ first skill is part of the Alexa Developer Rewards program and frequently featured in the German Alexa Skills Store.
• Sehtest (Eye Exam): Eye Exam allows you to measure your visual acuity on Echo Show or Echo Spot. The test consists of a series of Landolt rings (incomplete circles) and telling Alexa the location of each ring's opening. With this information, the Skill can estimate your quality of eyesight and whether you likely need glasses or whether your current eyeglass prescription has changed. 
• Vogelstimmen (Bird Sounds): Designed in partnership with a German bird expert, this skill teaches the sound of dozens of popular birds.