Theme: Now or Never

We have asked the speakers: what springs to mind when you hear our theme: Now of never! What would be the first challenge you would address in your field of expertise? Why is it urgent? What are possible solutions? By starting from the same question, your ideas can inspire the audience and make connections between science and society.

TEDxOpenUniversiteitHeerlen
Smedestraat 2
Heerlen, Limburg, 6411 CR Heerlen
Netherlands

Gino Camp

researcher of effective learning and teaching strategies

Based on insights from memory research, Gino Camp examines how students and teachers can optimize the learning process in educational practice. Gino Camp is professor Effective Learning at the Open Universiteit. From the student's point of view, he examines how particular learning strategies can be used to enhance self-study. From the teacher's point of view, he examines how instructional strategies can help to improve learning results with students. He is committed to translating knowledge from lab research into practical applications and does this in face-to-face education, but also in online and blended learning environments. Besides producing various scientific and practice-oriented publications on this topic, he regularly gives workshops and lectures about effective learning strategies.

Jean Hugé

environmental social scientist

Having a background in BioScience Engineering and in Development Studies from the University of Ghent, Jean Hugé obtained his PhD in Sciences at the VUB and ULB universities in Brussels. He is now assistant professor in environmental sciences at Open Universiteit. His work is centred on human-nature interactions. Jean is a keen ‘environmental social scientist’ and enjoys working at the crossroads of multiple disciplines with a wide range of stakeholders. Having a strong international track record including multiple fieldwork missions in sub-Sahara Africa and south-east Asia, his current academic interests focus on the plural valuation of nature, on social learning in times of global change, and on sustainability skills & competences. He enjoys teaching and mentoring students and has worked on a range of policy-supporting research projects, in particular in the field of development cooperation.

Karen Maas

professor of Accounting & Sustainability

Karen Maas is professor of Accounting & Sustainability at Open Universiteit in the Netherlands. Furthermore, she is academic director of Impact Centre Erasmus (ICE) and conducts research in the field of impact measurement, impact investing and corporate social responsibility. Karen is also academic director of the executive CSR courses at the Erasmus School for Accounting & Assurance in The Netherlands. She serves on several boards in academia and practice. Her work has been published in academic journals, books, newspapers and other media.

Roland Klemke

professor of technology-supported learning and innovation in higher education

Roland Klemke is chair of the department of Technology-enhanced Learning and Innovation of the Faculty of Educational Science of the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands. Roland also holds a professorship for game informatics at Cologne Game Lab of Technische Hochschule Köln. His research topics include artificial intelligence for education, multimodal learning experiences, augmented- and mixed-reality, multi-sensor architectures, serious gaming, game-based learning, gamification, and mobile learning. Additionally, he is CEO of Humance AG, a Cologne based software development company specialized in mobile and web-based solutions, coordinating research and development activities. Roland is member of Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI), fellow of the Interuniversity Center for Educational Sciences (ICO) and fellow of the Dutch research school information and knowledge systems (SIKS).

Ron Meyer

union leader, director National Programme Heerlen-Noord

Ron Meyer was a city councillor and trade union leader. He is the director of the National Programme Heerlen-Noord in the Netherlands. This programme is a cooperation of the national government, municipality, housing corporations, educational institutions, health insurer, residents and many others. This cooperation aims to improve living conditions in one generation, so that it no longer matters whether a child is born in Heerlen or elsewhere in the country. In 2021, he published the book 'De onmisbaren' (The indispensable), which he himself described as an ode to his social class.

Sanne Gijsbers

street art lover, co-founder street art cities

As a hunter Sanne Gijsbers has been documenting the street art scene for many years. She soon found out that few people knew about the murals in Heerlen, a city in The Netherlands and decided to change that in 2011 with Street Art Heerlen. Besides mapping all the murals in Heerlen she also started to provide street art tours and, in the meantime she developed her own street art / city guide. What started as a hobby has become a mission: to make Heerlen's street art known and to bring it to the attention of a large audience. Sanne is also co-founder of street art cities, the biggest street art community in the world.