In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Van Nelle Fabriek
Van Nelleweg 1
Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, 3044 BC
Netherlands

Arleen van Londen

Arleen van Londen is a born entrepreneur with a hunger for adventure and has dedicated her life to connecting people through celebration and live experiences. She has lead award winning teams and is privileged to have worked with many talents, including President Bill Clinton, Morgan Freeman, Mumford and Sons, and many top class DJs. She has orchestrated events as large as 500,000 people and as intimate as 50 people. No matter the size or the talent, she bases events’ successes on the power of participants’ experiences, because it’s the moment that matters. In 2012, she left Rotterdam for New York City and she is embracing the adventure boldly and (almost) fearlessly.

Duzan Doepel

Born, raised and partly educated in Johannesburg. In South Africa, a circular and inclusive approach to design is a necessity. Circular because resources are scarce. Inclusive because the building process and operation should empower people with poor labour prospects. Climate and resource efficient design are a basic part of the education as an architect in this context. This approach to design is what Duzan Doepel has brought into his practice in Holland. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Bachelor of Architectural Studies (cum laude) Rotterdam Academy of Architecture, Masters Diploma, (cum laude).

Henry Sung

Henry Sung is currently a Master student of Media, Culture & Society at Erasmus University Rotterdam. On his free time he is a (short-)film-maker, blogger and singer-songwriter.

Jan-Kees Schakel

Next to being the CEO of Sensing Clues Jan-Kees Schakel works at the Dutch Police as senior researcher in the field of organization and information science. In both positions he focusses on complex collaboration in action, early warning and fast response.

Jennifer Baarn

Jennifer Baarn is the Deputy CEO of the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor (SAGCOT) Centre Ltd in Tanzania, a public private partnership, with close to 100 partners. SAGCOT partners pledged over USD 1 billion to build inclusive and sustainable agriculture value chains and align this with infrastructure investments, with the aim of bringing 350,000 Ha into profitable production and create wealth for 2 million small farmers.

Kiel Berry

Kiel Berry attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a degree in Economics. Upon graduation, Kiel joined JPMorgan’s Investment Banking Division focusing on mergers and acquisitions. After 4+ years with JPMorgan, he applied his skills to his entrepreneurial passion, joining Team Epiphany in 2008 who was recognized as one of Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies for 3 consecutive years under his leadership. In May 2011, Kiel relocated to Los Angeles to join Creative Artists Agency, one of the world’s largest entertainment and sports agencies. In 2013, Kiel became Executive Vice President of the Grammy-award winning rock band Linkin Park’s proprietary company, Machine Shop, where he focused on restructuring, rebranding, and re-launching the business to effectively leverage Linkin Park’s global reach of over 65 million Facebook fans. More recently in 2016, Kiel has joined Viacom Labs as a Senior Vice President based in New York City.

Luc Manders

Rotterdam, entrepreneur for 10 years now, founded different companies, all in the social area, first freelance after which it became my profession: creative solutions to involve and incorporate/include ‘forgotten people’ Before that I was a commercial manager at a stock exchange company (Yacht/ Randstad).

Maria Anne van Dijk

Maria Anne van Dijk is head of Environmental & Social Risk Advisory and Monitoring. She is responsible for ABN AMRO’s world-wide sustainability risk policy and the bank-wide human rights programme. With 25 years in the financial sector and 13 years in the ‘sustainability space’ Maria Anne is a firm believer that banks can and should contribute to a better world. She has a master’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Amsterdam and a Post Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business from Cambridge. She loves, mountains, movies and fashion.

Marieke Keijser

At 19 years old, the Netherlands’ Marieke Keijser has competed at three World Rowing Junior Championships. She raced twice in the women’s single sculls, first winning a bronze medal in 2014 and then going on to claim the title of World Junior Champion the following year.

Michael O'Connor

Michael O’Connor is currently the CEO of Rainmaker Worldwide Inc. RWI is an international water solutions provider using proprietary renewable energy technology to produce water from the heat and humidity in the air or alternatively to purify salty, brackish or contaminated water. Prior to Rainmaker, Michael O’Connor was a CoFounder of WIND Mobile Canada in 2008 and was a founding Executive of Orascom Telecom in Cairo, Egypt that grew from 125,000 to 125 million mobile subscribers from 1999-2011. He began his career at the Economic Council of Canada/ School of Policy Studies Queens University in Canada and went on to be the founder of the Center for Economic and Financial Analysis at Science Applications International Corporation, one of the largest consultancy companies in the United States. Mr. O’Connor is an active entrepreneur locally and internationally and holds many corporate and philanthropic board and advisory positions across a range of sectors.

Michèle Sparreboom

Born and raised in this beautiful city of Rotterdam. Michèle Sparreboom travelled all over the world. When she got stuck and left without a job, the story of her hometown became the kick-start of a new adventure that would change her life forever and for the better.

Rinske Brand

Rinske Brand founded BRAND The Urban Agency in 2007 with the vision of helping businesses, brands, organizations and local governments to create impact in the city and its communities. With unrivalled insights into the preferences and needs of urbanites, the BRAND-team delivers compelling campaigns, events and actions that have a lasting effect on those communities. The work is broad and varied, and includes (re)branding, activation campaigns, place branding, events and conferences and brand urbanism. But whoever BRAND works for, profit or non-profit, they are all driven by the same passion: the love for the city.

Sjarel Ex

Sjarel Ex (1957) studied art history in Utrecht (1976-1983, cum laude). He specialises in the early Dutch avant-garde and the artists and architects around the magazine De Stijl. 
 Working freelance between 1982 and 1987, he initiated and organized exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. in Amsterdam’s city center as part of Amsterdam Cultural Capital. In 1988 he was appointed director (artistic and financial) of the Centraal Museum Utrecht, the Rietveld Schröder House and Landhuis Oud-Amelisweerd. In June 2004 Ex was appointed director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and since then has taken ultimate responsibility for the museum’s artistic and financial policies. Ex has revived the museum’s partnerships with private collectors and patrons and has given a new direction to its educational program, with positive results. The museum has become financially independent under his directorship.

Stephanie Bartscht

Having spent the last 10 years exploring the complexity of sustainability, Stephanie has worked as Marketing & Communication manager at Except Integrated sustainability, Sustainability specialist at IKEA and currently as communication specialist on the IKEA expansion Agenda. Born (1987) and raised in London, Stephanie has been living in Rotterdam for 6 years. She is of German nationality, speaks 5 languages and has a Bachelor degree in Interdisciplinary Art & Design from Leeds college of Design. Everything Stephanie does starts with people and ends with a positive impact.

Volkert Engelsman

Volkert Engelsmans studied economics and business and worked for Cargill USA, a key player in the industrial global food market, travelled the world extensively and saw the impact of food production on society and the environment. Founded Eosta, providing organic fruit to supermarkets and developing a food transparency scheme called Nature & More - convinced that there can be no sustainability without transparency. Eosta is now Europe’s leading distributor of organic and fair trade food and a trendsetter in sustainability issues.

Wouter van den Berg

At the Erasmus University, Wouter studied Economics (cum laude), and Neuroscience (cum laude) and found an opening into answering the question of the drive of professional empowerment during his PhD project on neuro-economics.