Theme: Be Bright Together

As an initiator of mindshifts, TEDxSittardGeleen is the place where unexpected crossovers and unique collaborations come naturally. Co-founder Daphne Evers: “‘Be Bright Together’ suits the Sittard-Geleen region perfectly. Nowhere else in Limburg you can find such a concentration of innovative companies. Through TEDxSittardGeleen we want to contribute to the establishment of new, clever and unexpected connections. Whether it is about vision and insights on the future of Europe, the sustainable consumption of seaweed or how we can innovate healthcare.

Adviescentrum
Bergerweg 49
Sittard-Geleen, Limburg, 6135 KD
Netherlands

CIOS dance group

CIOS dance group

Azad Qazaz

Azad comes from the Islamic culture, specifically from the Kurdish Sorani culture in northern Iraq. This area is now known as the “Kurdistan Regional Government”. He has been living in the Netherlands since 1997. Like all Kurds he was affected by the Islamic ideology and was a follower of the Islamic movements in Iraq. But with the passage of time and at about the age of 30, doubts and questions had emerged about all Islamic constants. However, after a long time of reading, thinking, and studying at universities such as Radboud Universty Nijmegen and Zuyd University in the Netherlands in the directions of philosophy of religion and psychology Azad could solve these questions and doubts. He also studied at Baghad univesity in Iraq. His experience can be extremely valuable for western countries in coping with Muslims’ problems at the present time.

Bob de Graaff

Bob de Graaff studied history at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He worked successively at this same university, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the Institute of Netherlands History, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation and the University of Leiden. From 2005 till 2010 he was Socrates professor for political and cultural reconstruction after conflict at the University of Utrecht. From 2007 until 2009 he was professor for terrorism and counterterrorism at the Campus The Hague of the University of Leiden. Since 2010 he has been professor for intelligence and security studies at both the Netherlands Defense Academy and the University of Utrecht. He was one of the founders of the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association. He is also the chairman of the European chapter of the International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE). He has published extensively on (counter)intelligence, terrorism, radicalism, World War II and colonialism.

Daisy Janssen

Elderly care physician & palliative care physician @ CIRO

Daisy J.A. Janssen, obtained her medical degree cum laude in 2003. Afterwards, she completed her training in elderly care medicine and palliative care. She obtained her Ph.D. on palliative care needs of patients with advanced chronic organ failure Cum Laude in 2012 at the Maastricht University in The Netherlands. Currently, she is working at CIRO in Horn, the Netherlands as an elderly care physician and palliative care physician taking care of patients with advanced chronic lung diseases. Her research is embedded in CIRO and in the Centre of Expertise for Palliative care at the Maastricht University Medical Centre+ in Maastricht in the Netherlands. Daisy is a frequent lecturer. She is member of several taskforces of the European Association for Palliative Care and committee member of the Dutch ZonMw committee “Palliantie”. In 2014 her work was rewarded with the second price of the Early Researcher Award of the European Association for Palliative Care.

Dennis Frenken

contestent at the Prinses Christina Concours 2017

Donald Dingemanse

Donald Dingemanse is a young and ambitious student who likes to work with the latest technology. In 2016 he finished his bachelor Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. During his three-year study, he followed medicine courses to broaden his interest and knowledge. After these great years, Donald decided to exchange his textbooks for a tangible project and became the team manager of Project MARCH. The project develops an exoskeleton for people with a spinal cord injury. This project matches his interests for technology and medicine.

Eric van 't Zelfde

As a school director Eric van ‘t Zelfde had one goal: to proof that kids from lower classes can excel.

Firas Al Khoury

His name is Firas al Khoury, 31 years old. Iraqi in origin And living in the Netherland for 5 years now. He came here as a refugee and is now working as doctor at the Emergency Department of the Zuyderland MC.

Francine Recca

Francine had a successful business career, travelling the world for international companies. She worked hard, ignored the signs her body was giving her and had a burnout. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. It helped her completely change the direction of her life. She is now a professional singer and although there are still challenges, she is happier than ever.

Frank van Eerd

Frank van Eerd is a passionate baker and grain packer with deep roots in the world of mills and bakeries. He beliefs that his personal mission is to make consumers and other bakers aware of healthy food. He focuses on the meaning of grains and vegetables. Frank is the first 100% spelt baker of the Netherlands. He also supplies various old and new grains throughout the Netherlands. Frank shows how simplicity and returning to the essence of food result in baking irresistible bread and ‘vlaaien’ (sweet pies of Limburg). In his bakery, he uses sustainably grown materials from producers from Limburg that he personally knows. His chain is 100% transparent.

Herman van Rompuy

Former president @ European Council

Elected as the first full-time President of the European Council in November 2009, Herman Van Rompuy took office when the Lisbon Treaty became effective on 1 December 2009. In 2012, he was re-elected for a second (and last) term. At the time of his first election, Herman Van Rompuy was Prime Minister of Belgium. A former economist at the National Bank of Belgium, Herman Van Rompuy began his political career in 1973 as national vice-president of his party’s youth movement. He was president of the Flemish Christian Democrats (1988-1993). He served in the Belgian Parliament, in turn as Senator (1988-1995) and Member of Parliament (1995-2009). He is now professor at the universities of Leuven (Louvain), the College of Europe in Brussels and Sciences Po in Paris and he is the President of the European Policy Centre.

Jaap Bressers

Jaap Bressers (1983) had one goal from childhood on: to get the most out of life. During a holiday in Portugal everything changes. Jaap was 21 years old at the time, when a dive in the sea turns into a spinal cord injury. Jaap is paralyzed from the chest down, can not move his fingers and will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. A heavy rehabilitation period follows in which he does everything to get back as much functionality as possible. ‘It is okay if something fails, but I really want to push the boundries of what is possible’, per Jaap. Humor and focus on the future appears a great way to put everything in perspective. After his first experience on stage, Jaap know where his future lies. At first as Sitdown Comedian and later as a professional speaker he performed in almost all major theaters in the Netherlands, at festivals such as Lowlands and Laughing Matters and at hundreds of company events where he performed as keynote speaker.

Linde Zhou

Linde Zhou is a young professional educated in the fields of medicine and technology. In her Master’s study, she specialized in biomaterials and tissue engineering in the group of Prof. Dr. W.F.J. Feitz and Dr. E. Oosterwijk at the department of Urology of the Radboud UMC, Nijmegen, NL. From this specialization, she has built up extensive experience in clinical research and the development of applications from the APonics™synthetic thermo reversible hydrogel. In 2014, she established the Novioponics company to develop and commercialize APonics™ as a new pesticide adjuvant that can decrease the pesticide usage with at least 50%.

Marc Sollet

Marc Sollet is 20 years old, he is a student at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in Sittard. He is in his first year of the Commercial Management program. Marc is an ambitious and entrepreneurial student, never shy to explore new avenues. Studying has not always been easy for Marc, especially if you run into the same problems over and over again. Often, these problems were recognized and acknowledged by educational policy makers. In his talk, Marc is going to bring these issues under the attention.

Martijn Aslander

Book Writer

Martijn Aslander is a thought leader, public speaker and executive sparring partner. His unique ability to challenge business leaders and help them to think outside of the box has landed him in boardrooms all over the world. As an explorer of the information age, his insights into networking and new technology help leaders of global brands future-proof their operations. By teaching them to think differently about sales and influence, Martijn helps prepare businesses for the new economy. He is an international expert in value creation, marketing 2.0, complementary economics, networking and life-hacking, with disruptive views on social and information capital. He is also an internationally sought-after public speaker with a reputation for captivating, confusing, entertaining, informing and inspiring audiences in The Netherlands, his home country, and abroad. For him, it’s not just about effecting a paradigm shift; it’s about a better world.

Martijn Lopes Cardozo

CEO BlackBear

Martijn Lopes Cardozo is the CEO of Black Bear, a circular economy company that retrieves high value materials from end-of-life tires. Martijn is a serial entrepreneur from the US West Coast who has built several successful companies in software, mobile and digital media. After he came back to the Netherlands he decided to focus his energy on transitioning the world from a “take, make, dispose” linear economy to a circular economy in which materials can be upcycled and reused. Martijn: “For each facility we build we save more CO2 than 1 million trees can consume – a huge positive environmental benefit” Black Bear has raised over Euro 10M to build the first facility in the Netherlands and plans to roll-out globally. The output of these plants is a high quality raw material (carbon black) than can be used for new tires, ink and coatings.

Martijn Wismeijer

Cryptocurrency specialist

Bachelor in computer science and business studies, internet architect, blockchain enthusiast and part-time biohacker. Helped an airline transition to e-tickets, secured multiple home-banking systems, protected thousands of laptops against data-theft, created a new way to store Bitcoin inside a chip implant and created new applications utilizing its underlying blockchain technology.

Raymond Heunen

That Raymond Heunen would enter the world of spectacles seemed inevitable. His parents were both opticians with their own business in Geleen. Young Raymond started down the ladder by polishing of glasses and developed himself into measuring eyes for glasses and contact lenses. His own health problems put him on a new track that turns out to be innovative within the optician’s trade, in the first instance. He unravels the mystery of seeing -or as Raymond calls it ‘you are as you see’- and develops a new type of therapy that leads in 75 out of 100 cases to a significant improvement of physical and mental problems.

René van Alphen

Based on his own frustrations with impatience and endless amount of non-functioning medications, driving instructor Rene van Alphen invented a complete new idea, in his spare hours, that really relieves patients from their annoying feeling in their legs caused by RLS. As RLS patient himself, Rene is driven to help patients getting their life back by starting his own innovative company to help people overcome the symptoms of RLS. In his personal story, he will take us on the journey he is currently taking to change healthcare bottom-up, from his own garage.

Rob van Loevezijn

After his study of mechanical engineering Rob worked for several years in the glass industry. He enjoyed doing projects with a team and build impressive glass furnaces. After a few years, a vacancy at a high school gave him the opportunity to work with young adults and work with their unprejudiced minds and creativity. About 8 years ago, Rob got the opportunity to switch to the Zuyd University and take care of the courses and projects for students. My world expanded to the max: the possibilities for project are endless. These students are very eager to build, learn and work together creating working items as cars. Since several years Rob and his team has been building cars for different competitions. At this moment they are preparing a car for Formula Student, a race that will be held in July 2017. They secured the support of over 35 companies, four educational institutes and the interest of the council.

Simone Buijzen

In her role as cross-cultural trainer and executive coach for over 12 years Simone has worked with leaders and their teams at multinationals and NGO’s all over the globe. She has also taken on the role of Advisor to the My Shining Star Foundation in Malaysia and has since made the Eastern Hemisphere her second home.

Toine Wilke

Entrepreneur

As a surfer and a biologist, Toine has a strong connection with the ocean. Since he studied and experienced the health benefits of seaweed, he does everything possible to bring it back into our food chain: from creating seaweed foods to lecturing and blogging about ‘magic macro-algae’. That’s probably why people now start calling me ‘the seaweed-man’…

Wim Steenbakkers

Ir. Wim Steenbakkers studied Chemistry at the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands) and the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). His experience varies from (fundamental) research, innovations, product development, market development, Marketing and Sales, General Management to entrepreneurship. After his career at DSM he became entrepreneur, founding and managing a wide variety of innovative companies such as Terreco (soil remediation) , DuraCar (electrical cars) and Mezuro (Big Data). His drive is to convert innovative ideas into profitable businesses.

Wout van Wengerden

Meet Wout van Wengerden (29), a former professional athlete and now entrepreneur, although he rather calls himself a fulltime life discoverer. He is a multiple Dutch champion in pole vault. When he ended his sports career in 2012 Wout had no clue of who he was without doing sports. He struggled with my own dignity and self-image. Driven by fear of not being enough and a constant desire to be free he started his own life-laboratory called ‘Kwetsbare Held’ (Vulnerable Hero) to find answers to his innermost questions of life. He interviews all different kinds of people, has many unexpected encounters and transforming experiences which he shares online in video’s, blogs and offline in speaking events and adventures coach sessions. He believes there is a huge disarming magic in being sincere, to oneself and the world, and by discovering this time and time again, and seeing loads of people struggling with this, he feels a strong desire to inspire people with this magic.

Xuanxuan Keijzer

Hi everyone, my name is Xuanxuan. I enjoy playing the piano very much, i started at the age of 3. I was born in Shenzhen China, and lived most of my life in Xi’an China. My mom is Chinese and my dad is Dutch. I live in Maastricht The Netherlands since February 2014 and have my own music room so I can practice my piano. Before I was 6 i started volunteer work on weekly bases at elderly care centers in Maastricht, soon after for many goodwill organizations. Still today i continue to play the piano at many elderly care centers in Maastricht, its a joy to bring happy faces with music and it feels like having hundreds of Grandma’s and Grandpa’s.