Theme: Back in the Future

At TEDx the future is on stage. This year, with our 5th edition, we will show you a glimpse of the future with speakers who are ahead of their time, with ideas that you had not thought about before.

The future is so important because the choice criteria will change considerably in the coming years. Why is that so certain? You could say that the whole world is getting smarter. The future is smart. Products become smarter, services become smarter.

Everyone in the coming years will be dealing with people who renew themselves, improve and experiment with new possibilities, even smarter techniques and ground-breaking methods.

That future, is on the red dot at TEDxVenlo. Because we want to show everyone a glimpse of the future, want to get acquainted with it

But while our gaze is pointed firmly into the future, we cannot forget the past. We will bring you ideas that we rooted in our past, have been re-evaluated and redesigned. Because as the saying goes: without the past, there is no future.

Theater de Maaspoort
Oude Markt 30
Venlo, Limburg, 5911 HH
Netherlands

Charlotte Hendriks

Marketing and Communications Specialist

Charlotte Hendriks, 28, alongside Loes van de Laar, is the co-founder of ‘A pin for your thoughts’ foundation that was established in 2016. The initiative encapsulates the world-wide phenomena of infertility and addresses the taboo through raising social awareness in active civic engagement. It poses a defiant question on the difficulties of getting pregnant.

Daniëlle van Went

Projectmanager

Daniëlle van Went is a 42-year-old projectmanager of an expert center for victims of human trafficking; also known as modern human slavery. She started as care coördinator human trafficking and went under the radar to get a more clear picture of all the hidden cases of human trafficking. Driven to help victims and create a safer environment for our future, children and environment, she gives victims a voice to tell their stories.

Hans Lenders

Creative Entrepreneur

Hans is a creative entrepreneur. He creates concepts with a passion for design, art, culture and LGBTI-related projects. He is one of the organizers of the Dutch event, Pink Saturday 2019, the oldest gay-pride in the Netherlands. As a volunteer organizing LGBTI-activities/ lectures/ collaborations in Venlo (NL) and the region.

Jeroen Burks

Entrepreneur

Jeroen grew up in the south of The Netherlands. As a kid he was always fascinated by natural phenomena and the workings behind them. The choice for a technical education in physics was there for no surprise. During the studies he discovered that the link between technology and its usability in society was the field to excel in. The switch to Business administration is made with this in mind. At the moment he works at a startup, Blockheating, where they use residual heat from a datacenter as a heating source for greenhouses. On one hand a technical engineering challenge and on the other hand a search for business opportunities.

Malou Beemer

Fashion Designer

Malou Beemer is a human centric, dutch, designer and researcher. She focusses on working with the body and personal space around it. In her work she is fascinated by human behaviour, psychology, movement and the way this translates to non-verbal communication. During her Master of Arts, in fashion communication design, she developed a view on design approaches that is still fundamental to the way she works today. Start designing with the body instead of on the body. She does so by integrating the knowledge on non-verbal behaviour in the design process. Approaching wearables as interactive second skins, by using new technologies and materials. After working in the retail and entertainment business she currently has her own studio. She works in different fields such as, consultancy in art directions and concept development, costume design, coaching of models and teaching body awareness classes.

Marc Pruijssers

Industrial Design Engineer

Educated as an industrial design engineer and with 15 years of international experience in design and innovation in the packaging and food industries, Marc works as a Food Innovation program manager, lecturer and consultant, at HAS University of Applied Sciences in Venlo.

Menno Lauret

Mechanical Engineer

Menno Lauret has a background in mechanical engineering and a PhD in control of nuclear fusion plasmas. He worked on fusion plasma physics in Europe and the United States and is currently working on developing applications of plasmas that can replace polluting methods.

Nicole Vernhout

Health and Nutritional Scientist

Nicole is a marathon runner and mountain biker with a backgrond in health and nutritional science. She combines sports and science as part of her own life experiment.

Peter Broekmans

Social Entrepreneur

Peter Broekmans was born in Limburg (a province of the Netherlands) and grew up in Maasbree, a small village near Venlo. He is a social entrepreneur and co-founded the social enterprise Rendiz. Rendiz supports homeless people and refugees. Due to the lack of good housing for homeless people and refugees Peter started a special program to develop tiny houses together with them and professional staff. Peter is a creative and socially active entrepreneur that wants to take on the housing problem. As an out of the box thinker he thinks and proves that this is the perfect opportunity to work on this unique project and to help society as a whole.

Rob Collin

Associate Professor and Principal Investigator

Rob W.J. Collin is an Associate Professor and Principal Investigator within the Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He heads a research group that focuses on the development of genetic therapies for specific subtypes of inherited retinal dystrophy. After his PhD study on exploring the role of proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease (graduated in 2006), he switched gears to the field of Human Genetics. As a post-doc, he was primarily involved in the identification of several novel genetic causes of hearing impairment and (vitreo)retinal dystrophies. In 2009, when he was awarded a prestigious ‘VENI’ grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), he initiated his own research line on genetic medicine. He visited the lab of Jean Bennett at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, for a period of 6 months in 2010, after which he continued establishing his own research group on this topic.

Sophia Gruner

Mental Trainer

After graduating in Logistics Management she first worked as a junior consultant. Then she decided to become a lecturer since the passion for coaching and mentoring young people has always been part of my life. I did my MBA in the field of social entrepreneurship. Now she works as a lecturer for the Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Venlo, the Netherlands. She lectures principles of Logistics Management. Furthermore here focus area lies on relationship management with companies, alumni and international higher education institutions. Since coaching and “psychology” has always been my passion, she decided to become a Mental Trainer. In her work as a Mental Trainer she supports people in shedding what is holding them back. Mental strategies can support in changing patterns and supporting individual goals.

Toine Sterk

Lecturer

After his MA in Dutch literature he started teaching and training in Arnhem Business School (ABS), mainly in (intercultural) communication and management skills trainings. In the course of his work for ABS he picked up on personal management trainings and teaching ethics and when the school grew, he felt he could not be the added value he used to be in teaching and trainings as he developed: pioneering in the field of sills trainings and coaching. The opportunity came along when HAS University of Applied Sciences decided to start with a couple of study programmes in Venlo and he is happy to work there as a teacher/trainer and student coach since 2015 and he can be of added value again. He is married and has two adult daughters who are in University and also are developing. In his spare time he is a taster of good scotch whiskeys and he likes to play the piano. He also is a volunteer in his community, supports and coaches people in their search for themselves.