The TEDxAmsterdam Award team and partners selected 30 inspiring projects to be shared at an Innovation Workshop at VondelCS. The stage was set for idea sharing and connection creation that may not have ever occurred without the TEDxAmsterdam Award process. The air was electric! The people behind 30 projects had an opportunity to meet with and learn from each other and from the expertise of the TEDxAmsterdam partners and delegation members.
The key themes were networking and idea sharing and sharpening in preparation for the first pitch round on Monday 26th October 2015 at the Apollo Hotel. At that point, 30 will become 10. The 10 projects left standing will live to compete another day, specifically on the 6th November 2015 at the Andaz Hotel, where a jury led by Willemijn Verloop, founder and director of Social Enterprise and founder of War Child in The Netherlands, will select the top 3 projects to present on the TEDxAmsterdam.
We wish everyone the best of luck!!
The workshop in short
30 projects, a bit more than 30 award applicants & their teams, and our dedicated partners: KPN, ING, Essent and Clifford Chance, spread out into teams. They were accompanied by a delegation of scientists including Science Park Amsterdam and Nationale Wetenschaps Agenda (Dutch Science Agenda). In these teams ideas were shared and projects sharpened.
After the creative sessions, it was time to get down to business. Each project team received coaching from Michael Koenka and David Beckett.
What does Lodewijk Klein, the awards team leader have to say is the secret to the whole process?
“The TEDxAmsterdam potion: identifying project initiators who have an authentic and truly impact-full idea, a tireless drive to make it happen and who bring or are prepared to build the right team. Unearthing the best of expected skills and the most creative of unexpected skills in our partner community to help these projects gain momentum, scale and eventually impact. Many will fly. Many will fail. All will persevere. The teams enthuse through bright minds and original thoughts; our partners amaze through depth of experience and eagerness to share. We observe, in awe.”
And the 30 nominees are…
Machgiel Bakker – Radio Remember – the online radio station for people with dementia
After graduating in clinical psychology at the UvA, Machgiel landed in the music business. ¨Music is what drives me¨ he says.
After various jobs in the record business and 10 years at the Dutch Institute for Sound & Vision, where he was responsible for the exploitation of the music archive, he now applies this knowledge and passion to improve the quality of life for people with dementia.
Machgiel is a music therapist, a teacher ànd co-founder of the first online radio station for people with dementia, “Radio Remember.”
His favourite TEDx Talk: Jimmy Nelson – Before They Pass Away
A question that has always puzzled him: what makes people tick?
Michiel Rauws – X2AI: Mental healthcare accessible to everyone.
Today, mental illness affects one in four people at some point during their lives and is often ignored and stigmatized. For many of those in need, the cost of accessing such care is prohibitive. This is compounded by many mental health professionals who have limited capacity in treating patients in a timely manner. And, in developing countries, mental healthcare services are practically nonexistent.
Michiel:
“The seriousness of my chronic illnesses, the uncertainty of how they may progress and the resulting psychological and emotional impacts illustrates the necessity of having access to not only healthcare in general, but access to affordable, on-demand, quality mental healthcare services.“
Eugene developed pioneering emotion technology during his eight years of research in artificial intelligence at the University of Bath and while at his resea
rch firm, AEIR Limited. During this time, Eugene realized that emotion is key to creating and developing AI that will act in the interest of humanity, giving rise to moral AI systems that are able to empathise and form a strong connection with people. Eugene:
“The majority of startups focus on building the next ‘Uber for cats’, rather than focusing on achieving a positive, global impact on societal problems. X2AI’s mission is to change the status quo using emotion-based artificial intelligence, providing on-demand and accessible quality healthcare for everyone, regardless of geographic location or income level.“
This TED talk by Andrew Solomon clearly gives you a feeling how life is when dealing with a mental illness.
Gert-Jan Gruter – Zambezi technology as first process to produce high quality, cost competitive glucose for food and non-food applications from forestry and agro waste
Humanity has to transition from fossil to bio-based resources in order to bring the human footprint to below 1.0. This is a huge challenge in view of a growing world population, 9-10 Billion in 2050, limiting how food crops and land-use can be used for making bio-fuels and materials. The “Zambezi Technology” can from all plant waste, produce high quality cost competitive glucose, the central bio-based starting material. However this Chemistry Holy Grail has been intensively researched for more than 100 years without commercial success to date.
Gert-Jan´s expectations for Innovation Day is thus: How can I get across my message in “Jip en Janneke” language, making it understandable for non-chemists and non-technical people?
Gert-Jan´s big Question is: “How to bring the human footprint down to below 1.0” or “how to transition to a circular economy”.
His favourite TEDx talk: Ellen MacArthur on the circular economy.
Jurre den Haan – Imaging the retina for early diagnosis in Alzheimer’s Disease (I-READ)
Jurre is a medical doctor and PhD candidate at the VUmc Alzheimer center. During medical school he became interested in neurology and thus decided to find solutions for brain diseases.
¨For example oncology research has shown that if we invest in research we can come up solutions. Dementia is generally regarded as a part of aging, but I want to take stand against that idea and raise awareness for dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease in particular. TEDx is a great medium or podium for that. I hope the innovation day helps me to fine-tune my pitch of a beautiful idea that should be the first step towards a world without Alzheimer’s Disease.¨
Eveline Ferwerda & Mereijn van der Heijden – Watson
Two years ago Mereijn came up with the idea for Watson because the Dutch film and broadcast industry couldn’t provide a proper solution for an audience with sight problems.
The Watson app enables people with visual impairment to fully enjoy film and TV programs, whenever and wherever they want, alone or together with friends and family. Users won´t have to lean on a seeing person to tell them what is happening on screen. With Watson the team has created a tool that enables people who are blind or partially sighted to participate in society as fully as possible; strengthening their independence and creating equality. Sam, a 15 year old blind boy, said after using Watson for the first time “With Watson I can finally watch a DVD on my own, in my own room, without any help”.
“A question that puzzles me is: What will be the social damage on society caused by the worldwide penetration of individual digital devices.“
Evelien’s favourite TEDx talk is; Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
Mereijn’s favourite TEDx talk is: Public service lawyers as pioneering advocates: Haben Girma at TEDxBaltimore 2014
Shayne Smart – The Geneva Convention in Pictures
What if we turned the Geneva convention into pictures, one common language that everyone can understand and share. It has already been signed, so we don´t even have to agree on it, we just have to convert human rights into pictures.
Judith Rietjens – SMARTCARE Patient engagement at the end of life: a 21st century myth or miracle?
“Last year my dear father-in law died, just 2 months after receiving a diagnosis of lung cancer. As a scientific researcher in the field of end-of-life care, I was struck with how little is actually known about how to improve the day-to-day experience of terminally ill patients and their family caregivers. Dealing with all the aspects–physical, emotional and practical–of his disease was like managing a huge crisis without any consistent guidance in how we should do this. It was then when my idea was born.”
Patients increasingly want and need to self-manage their disease, but are often unprepared, resulting in suboptimal quality of life, unnecessary and costly hospitalisations and overburdened family caregivers. New models of care are necessary to support people in self-managing their care. Self-management is aimed at providing individuals with skills to manage medical, role, and emotional issues related to their disease. It empowers patients to identify and express their needs and take appropriate decisions and actions, in partnership with their professionals caregivers. Self-management programs have been developed for patients with chronic, non-lethal diseases, such as arthritis. They are very effective in reducing symptom burden and avoiding burdensome and expensive hospitalisations. This project aims to transfer the concept of self-management from chronic disease to advanced cancer, which is urgently needed but unprecedented. This has the potential to substantially contribute to patient-centered and sustainable healthcare.
Ashley De Bie Dekker – Digital Dynamic Checklist in medicine
A new digital dynamic checklist can improve checklist compliance and focus on critical items in the medical world.
“Four years ago I started in Catharina Hospital Eindhoven as a resident Internal Medicine to become an Internist. Inspired by Atul Gawanda with his book “the Checklist Manifesto” and his TED talk “healing medicine” about the great beneficial effect of medical checklists, he and a team of Dutch and Chinese scientists and physicians questioned themseleves: How can technology overcome the existing burden of bad compliance of clinicians for the nowadays static checklists? We invented the software Tracebook, that provides digital dynamic checklists that is connected to the patient health record and therefore patient specific and context aware. This way we hope to overcome the static checklist problem and avert hospital errors that are currently the third leading cause of death in the US. Today, I hope to get different points of view on how to collaborate between different kind of disciplines, and how we can turn our idea into a product that increases patient safety while the user satisfaction rate, and therefore checklist compliance, remains high.”
Natasja Snijders – Hand hygiene in healthcare
Natasja Snijders is a member of the Young Professional Business Advisory at KPN Consulting. After a Bachelor in Biomedical Sciences at Radboud University in Nijmegen, she achieved a Master degree in Health Technology Assessment.
“I believe that everyone needs healthcare, whether you are young or old, rich or poor, everyone should have access to healthcare. In this light, I am motivated to help people in the healthcare sector who are facing an increase in demand for care.
Therefore, I aim to improve quality of healthcare by developing a hand hygiene monitor system that stimulates healthcare professionals with direct patient contact to improve their hand hygiene. The system monitors and gives immediate feedback of hand hygiene to the healthcare professional.
If successful, the hand hygiene monitor system will increase hand hygiene of healthcare professionals, which will result in shorter hospital stays, a reduction in healthcare costs, and even in reduced mortality.With the development of a the hand hygiene monitor system, we want to make a difference in healthcare.”
Walter Dresscher – The transport transition
This project seeks to re-envision our mobility because the transport sector is responsible for 35% of global co2 emissions and our cities have become unhealthy places. Transportation takes a disproportionate amount of our public space and creates dangers for our public life.
Walter Dresscher says:
“The main question that drives me is ‘What kind of world could we create with all the technical solutions at our disposal today, and what would our cities look if we could start over?’
The Innovation Day can help me sharpen this message and find partners to start changing the world. Humanity has created an amazing pallet of opportunities that we can use for a more natural way of living. The TEDx awards is a possibility to show, that with imagination and persistence we can design a new framework for our cities that will enable a high quality life where transportation is unlimited and fossil free, and space and time get a whole new meaning.”
Tinca Polderman – Beyond Nature and Nurture! Genetic and environmental routes to psychiatric burden
The discussion about nature versus nurture is closed.
Tinca started her professional career as a teacher, got fascinated by individual differences between children (was this nature or nurture?), following up on this interest by studying biological psychology, and writing a PhD thesis on the influences of nature and nurture on children with ADHD and cognition issues. This is where her project springs from. She says:
“The question that puzzles me: why do we differ? (in behavior, IQ, personality, problems).
My favorite TEDx talk is from Frans de Waal: Moral Behavior in Animals.”
David Beckett – 100 Lives
“I am passionate about giving great ideas a voice, and have 23 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience doing just that.
A question that has always puzzled me is: Why is it so difficult to present ideas, so that people listen, and understand? That’s what my work is all about: to enable ordinary and extraordinary people to find their voice and be heard.”
Favourite TEDx talk: Amy Cuddy: he uses her advice for every presentation!
100 Lives is reliant on sponsors and evangelists, to inspire ‘normal’ people to allow their ideas space to live and breathe. The team believes it can drive it to success if it can win support form the TEDx Amsterdam network in sharing that idea, and draw local community ideas out of the crowd, to help 100 lives at a time.
It is worth mentioning, that besides being an award applicant, David is also a pitch coach. His 3 tips for us today:
Bring people into the story.
Think about the 3 things you don’t want people to forget.
The last things you say is what people will remember, it’s the feeling you leave people with.
Alexander de Groot – Sheltersuit – Build for Life
The team produces Sheltersuits (jackets with attachable sleeping bags) for the homeless, refugees and disaster survivors. The Sheltersuit is waterproof and windproof and can be used in temperatures below zero. Alexander says:
¨I find that a big question always leads to a series of smaller questions. For instance; “what is my purpose in life?” This would be one of those big questions that automatically leads to the following smaller questions; “What makes me happy? What am I good at? etc etc”
Favourite TEDx talk? Simon Sinek – Golden circle. “I think his views are very similar to our own.”
Shawna Snow – Mashup Academy, giving all students the skills they need
Shawna worked with enthusiasm as a science teacher in California. She earned her Master’s Degree in Urban Leadership and put classroom learning into action over the past two decades in urban and cross-cultural environments in the US, Europe and Africa. In 2008, she founded Stichting Reckoning, putting all her experience and expertise to use. MashUp Academy, the latest initiative, aims to expose students to technology/innovation by having local companies teach their area of expertise in 6-week modules. In one year, students exposed to 4 different companies with 4 different focuses. Imagine what a difference that will make for these kids?
Anne-Sophie Schurmann – &thijs | thuis in jouw situatie
Anne-Sophie is an child psychologist with her own practice. She always asks families the same question: How do you do it? How do working moms and dads do it? How can you be excellent at your work, raising two children, doing the practical ‘laundry-cooking-arrange everything for my kids’ things, do sports and have a wonderful relationship with your husband or wife? How?
Parents always give the same answer: “Because we love our children and we will do everything to give them a happy life.”
And that is why Anne-Sophie made it to TEDxAmsterdam’s Innovation Day. She aims to tell the story of 200,000 families in The Netherlands, families who need youth care to make their child happy again.
This summer she launched the platform &thijs, thuis in jouw situatie (www.enthijs.nl), a social platform where parents can find their own social worker for their child. Their mission is to fundamentally change the way people have access to care. They want to make a big social change within the care system, making access to care transparent. So children and families who need help finally know where and from who they can get specific help.
I look forward to today, getting help, advice and speaking to a lot of people from TEDxAmsterdam and hear their vision about our idea and talk. TEDx makes it possible to talk for a very wide audience, to present our vision, our idea, to the world. We are very grateful for an opportunity like that. And hell yeah to be a person speaking for TED, that’s like a dream come true! We see this as a change to tell the story of 200,000 children to Amsterdam, to The Netherlands, and give these children a voice!
In June the team won the Social Impact Lab of Price Waterhouse Coopers. This wasa huge step forward for us. Every week they get coaching from a lot of different people and has been the key to our success.
Favourite TEDx talk? Sex ed for adults
Joyce Lemmens & Josette de Vroeg – Greyziness
“We are Josette de Vroeg and Joyce Lemmens. We are the perfect mix of expertise in marketing and concept development, combined with a good sense of humour. We were always joking and making up stories about how we would turn out 40 years from now. And that’s how our inspiration started. We believe the healthcare sector needs impact marketing. Our drive is the personal contact with the elderly, it is truly overwhelming to hear their stories. At least our campaign already worked for us:)!”
In our youth obsessed society, age is often considered a handicap. This negative association is what the team wants to change. Greyziness is an extensive marketing campaign to create positive awareness about senior citizens through storytelling. By doing this the team believes they can make younger generations more enthusiastic about volunteering.
Martijn van Mourik – “Heart is where the home is”
With the aging Western population, the number of patients with cardiac diseases is increasing. To reduce the increasing costs on health care expenditure, health care has to become more efficient. For this purpose, the length of the hospital stay has to be reduced and the therapeutic capacity has to grow, while maintaining or improving quality of care.
Freek Geurts – Surgical Velcro for bone regeneration
Bone derived from animals or synthetic bone is either expensive or yields variable clinical results. 3D bio-printing is another option in which a personalized bone implant is printed. However, this is very complex, expensive, time-consuming and not compatible with most preferred bio-materials and surface treatments.
The team’s concept is to combine the best of both worlds in their stackable scaffolds. Each scaffold can be optimized to support the different cell types within bone tissue and be shaped with computer aided design to form a layer of an implant.
“Because our scaffolds are inspired by Velcro, they can be easily stacked together to create a personalized and load-bearing bone implant. The surgeon can either choose to combine the layers to upgrade autografting, thereby reducing the amount of bone to be harvested by more than 50%; or use synthetic bone particles in between the layers and improve the surgery even more.”
Wilma Mulder – 360 Stories
“‘This world is a reflection of our actions.’ This is the quote I live by. What we think, say, and particularly what we do shapes the world around us. I am a practical idealist; embrace the think global, act local principle. Since 2014, I focus on my Taleswapper Publishing House and the international roll-out of the 360 Stories board game and the 360 Storycafés.
The question that has always puzzled me is why a lot of people just don’t see that individual happiness is directly linked to the overall wellbeing of other people and nature. How can I help spreading this insight?
Favorite TED talk: Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability
Ali Turaihi – Migrating Science
“Many of the new refugees in Europe are medical students and doctors and were leading a successful career in their home countries. It takes several months, if not years before they can enroll again in their profession as they must first learn the language of their new country. We often forget that many of the refugees speak English; the language of science is English. The concept is simple, stimulate these students to do internships in the laboratories where they can learn science. Not only we will stimulate their integration in the European society at a faster pace, but offering scientific internships for them will graduate medical doctors able of doing translational research in the future. These students will actively contribute to their new country and society as young professionals.”
Ali was forced to flee his home in Iraq because of war. In his introduction he says: ¨We tend to see refugees as a burden, so my idea is to look at what these people can do for our society.¨
Felix Spira & Tim Strasser – Green Office Model and Movement, supported by rootAbility
rootAbility exists because many students at universities around the world lack the abilities to respond to the profound sustainability crises humanity is facing today. rootAbility empowers, inspires and connects these students by supporting them to lobby for and set-up student-led and staff-supported sustainability hubs, called Green Offices. These Green Offices enable students to work together with staff and faculty in advancing sustainability at their university. Until today, already 15 fully-funded Green Offices in four European countries exist. The goal is to engage 10,000 students and staff in 100 Green Offices at universities across Europe by 2025.
Favourite TEDx talk is: Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability
We hope to use the TEDx award to get inspiration on how to scale the impact of the Green Office Model – Learn how to build a movement – Adapt the Green Office Model to other organisations – Get to know exciting people – Contribute to the projects and initiatives of others.
Max Kortlander – Proxenia.org – A network empowering peacemakers
We are continually reminded of conflict, yet it often seems individual citizens are unable to respond actively.
Proxenia.org is our proposal for an online peacemaking platform. Existing websites such as Twitter, Avaaz, and Reddit have proven to be effective spaces for social change. Proxenia is different in that it aims to be fully concerned with peacemaking. Its development, construction, and character are structured around this single purpose.
Robert Greene – HungerNdThirst
HungerNdThirst is about the pleasures of dining and how honey glazed memories can be created with the use of food. People treated for cancer often have a distorted smell and taste, which affects their ability to enjoy food socially, and can also affect the intake of food as a necessity and for their well being. Unfortunately people suffering from cancer or who are being treated for cancer can have a distorted scent and taste, which affects their ability to enjoy food socially, and can affect the intake of food as a necessity and for the well being.
We connect people 1 on 1 to offer give mental and practical support. We also want to work with restaurateurs to offer special menus which into account for the five primary tastes: sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness and umami.
I am always puzzled by the fact that we tend to forget ourselves so often and so easily. We are usually afraid of expressing our feelings, our needs, our desires and often quickly reply with the answer of “it doesn’t matter”, when asked to choose. We are often aware of the impact our choices can have on how we feel, our needs and desires; yet we quickly say “it doesn’t matter” when placed in a situation to choose (http://www.robertsgreene.com).
Favorite TEDx Talk: Ron Gutman: The Hidden Power of Smiling
Georgios Lazakis – School Of HeART Knocks
Georgios starts his introduction with a rap, and ends with the line “The most tragical and most beautiful things can happen at once in your life…¨
Georgios Lazakis is an autodidact. He is a rapper, producer and music teacher. As a formal member of Kyteman’s Hiphop Orchestra he performed at Lowlands, Pinkpop and North Sea Jazz. With his debut album ‘Life Story’, he toured all over the world. His greatest passion is to inspire and motivate people. At the moment he’s busy with establishing his own school; “School Of Heart Knocks’, where he wants to help youngsters with doing what they want to do.
His favourite TEDx talk is: Amy van Son at TEDxGroningen.
Michel Taal – Failure targets: success through practiced failure
“Do you ever regret something you ended up not doing; like talking to the fascinating person next to you? I used to. All the time!
12 years ago I decided to ‘fix’ my risk aversion. However, just as you cannot decide to be fit, you cannot decide to be fearless. Risk appetite is like a muscle you need to train. Today, I’d like to share my own risk appetite exercise regime: ‘failure targets’ – or how controlled repeated failure can fuel success.”
Michel Taal (35) is driven by curiosity and loves getting into trouble, preferably while trying new things. Michel is serial entrepreneur and was trained as a theoretical physicist and a former consultant with McKinsey & Company.
A question that has always puzzled him: How much potential would be unleashed if people weren’t so afraid to fail?
His favorite TEDx talk is: Deb Roy: The birth of a word
His expectations for the innovation day? Be inspired, and inspire (and perspire).
Petra van Vliet – Energently – improving life knowing & using your own gentle energy
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
The idea behind her project is to develop a sensor/device that detects the gentle energy of a person, situation or field. We know that energy comes from wind, the sun and from our electricity provider. But we humans also produce subtle energy. By knowing our energy level we know the effect our thinking, other people, food, exercise, work or any situation can have on our energy level. This will significantly increase life value. In fact it will change the world because people will only choose that what energizes them.
Favourite Ted Talk: Simon Sinek, Why good leaders make you feel safe
Tanneke Meijers – In the Making
¨Burnouts, stress are all common terms, the pressure is high and we all have to make compromises.¨
We believe that living life to the fullest is only possible if you know where your strength and passion lies. We call this the personal why. This sounds very easy but in this current society the search progress can be a real struggle. It’s very important that people have the right tools and environment so they can be vulnerable and can explore their talents in a safe setting. We offer people free events that help with their personal development and eventually finding their why. We’re also developing an online platform where people can find inspiration and tools that are meant to help forming development goals and finding their why.
Ellen van Haastert – BottleMail
“I wonder why we, including myself, are often measuring ourselves against the ‘perfect’ pictures shown on social media. Are we really as happy as we portray?”
Her concept?: BottleMail – writing old-school letters to complete strangers, with the objective of sharing real stories – for the fun, the adventure and the realization that we all struggle in our own ways!
Favourite TEDx talk is: Isabelle Allende: How to live passionately no matter what
“It inspired me! Now, I embrace this great opportunity to participate and share my ideas in the TEDx Amsterdam award rounds, and I am honored to learn from experts how to scale up www.BottleMail.club.”
Rob Breed & Changfang Luo – buildify – unlock the potential of bottom-up architecture.
In 2011 they launched their website Architecture in Development; an online platform with user generated content. The goal is to shift the focus from glossy architectural for only a few to afford, towards an architecture that is driven by the needs and aspirations of communities.
“Four years later, we’ve engaged a community of more than 35.000 young professionals worldwide. We asked ourselves, what can we mean for them? How can we use technology and social media to inspire a new practice that serves the majority of people who have otherwise no access to architecture?
This is why we are launching Buildify, an award challenge to demonstrate how we can systematically change the architectural status quo, by harnessing the potential of the crowd. Buildify is also our test case to develop a strategic business model, based on our data and network.
Our big question is: How can we systematically empower architects to do something meaningful and really make a difference in peoples lives?“
Favourite TEDx talk: Alejandro Aravena: ‘My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process’
Maarten – Dubio
Now we connect to people with same interests through hashtags but I believe we can connect in 3D. Instead of only connecting on one level we connect on 3, 3D. This all happens on the platform Dubio.
That was all folks, but stay tuned as we cover the next months of sweat dripping efforts on and off stage. We wish everyone the best of luck, but as you know, there can be only one award winner! But there can be many who benefit from the process.
Untill the 26th October 2015!
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