Rainer Hirt, born in 1979, studied communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Constance. After graduating, he founded together with Michael Hoppe and Markus Reiner "audity", an agency that specialises in audio branding, audio interaction and audio experience. Back in 2003, he had already founded the corporate sound Internet platform audio-branding.de, a well known expert resource on the topic of sound branding. Rainer Hirt is, among other things, the author and co-editor of the "Audio-Branding" compendium. He is in charge of research projects at various universities and, in 2009, founded together with Kai Bronner and Cornelius Ringe the "Audio Branding Academy", the first independent institution for acoustic brand communication.