Theme: Shaping Tomorrow

Shaping Tomorrow represents a contemporary theme that incorporates many valuable subjects of nowadays’ society related to well-being, sustainability, interaction/culture, and work/education.

TEDxVUamsterdam
De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, 1081HV
Netherlands

Ed Winters

Educator, Film Maker, Author, Public Speaker, Entrepreneur

Publically Ed Winters is also known as Earthling Ed. He is an educator, filmmaker, author, public speaker, and entrepreneur based in London whose work focuses on the environmental impacts and ethical implications of our diets. Ed has already spoken at various companies like Google and Facebook, universities like Harvard, Yale, and Cambridge, and co-working spaces like WeWork and Makers of Barcelona. He has also given two TEDx Talks and been featured by news outlets like the BBC, The Times, EuroNews, and The Guardian. In the fall of 2022, Ed co-taught a course at Harvard University that was led by Dr. Sparsha Saha on animals, politics and the use of media to promote animal rights.

Elske Doets

Entrepreneur, Business Woman of the Year (2017), Inspirer

In addition to being owner of Doets Reizen and initiator of the social startup BuddyBold, Elske Doets is founder of the Young Lady Business Academy (YLBA). With her high-profile vision of the future of society and economy, she is a welcome guest on programs such as Op1, WNL on Sunday and Nieuwsuur. Elske's core message is that we must collectively break free of old thinking patterns and reflexes. Where Elske appears, there is movement. And she shifts attention from disagreement to structural solution in a charming and nimble manner. Besides the conviction that we must collectively break free from old thinking patterns and reflexes, one of Elske's core beliefs is that a happy, clean and successful society benefits from (more) women in key positions. Elske has since written three books, of which "The Age-Free Society" (Atlas/Contact, 2023) is the most recent.

Jos Akkermans

Associate Professor of Careers and Organizational Behavior at VU University in Amsterdam

Dr. Jos Akkermans is an Associate Professor of Careers and Organizational Behavior at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In his research, he aims to answer questions related to how people can develop successful and sustainable careers. For example, he studies how career shocks, employability, and HRM contribute to shaping career success and sustainability. He also has a specific interest in early-career and non-standard workers. Jos is also actively engaged in various educational activities, for example, serving as the program director of the VU Master’s program in Business Administration. More information about his research and teaching projects is available on his website: www.josakkermans.com.

Marta Zaraska

Science Journalist

Marta Zaraska is a Canadian-Polish science journalist published in the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Scientific American, BBC, Financial Times, etc., and the author of two nonfiction books: "Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million Year Obsession with Meat" and "Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100," a Globe & Mail bestseller. Her books were translated into seven languages. Marta Zaraska has been interviewed by dozens of radio stations in North America and across Europe. She has given a TEDx talk at Bocconi University, Milan, and has been featured as an expert in several documentary films. She has visited over 80 countries around the world and lived in six of them. She has reported from Rwanda, DR Congo, Nicaragua, India, Togo, Cameroon, and many other places.

Mike Ligthart

Assistant Professor Social Artificial Intelligence at VU University in Amsterdam

Mike Ligthart (1988) is an assistant professor at the Social AI research group at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. In his research he investigates how social robots can support children in educational and healthcare contexts. He focuses on designing meaningful child-robot interactions and enabling the robot to adapt and personalize as the child grows up. Ligthart likes to collaborate with writers, artists, and performers to build a storyworld and shape the robot’s character and interaction content. It’s through the love and creativity the artists put into the design of the robot, the interaction between child and robot can become meaningful. Not everything has to be solved with AI.

Sophia Winter

Student Politics, Economics, and Philosophy

Sophia Winter is a 21-year-old student at VU Amsterdam, pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Politics, Economics, and Philosophy. With the world facing unprecedented challenges, Sophia is committed to creating a better future and believes in the power of taking action. Her passion for positive change is evident through her community engagement and volunteer work, which includes founding a platform for European exchange. In her TEDx talk titled "We Don't Want a Tomorrow That Ends Today," Sophia challenges the audience to stop justifying inaction with the inaction of others and start making a difference now. She emphasizes the urgency of political involvement and highlights the potential of politics, especially democracy, to be a tool for implementing change. Her call to action aims to inspire not only the general audience but also her fellow members of Generation Z to take an active role in shaping the future we want to see.

Thijs Launspach

Psychologist, Keynote Speaker, Author

Thijs Launspach (1988) is a Dutch psychologist, (TEDx-)speaker and (best-selling) author. He is a teacher at The School of Life in Amsterdam, and his book Crazy Busy: keeping sane in a stressful world has just been released at Capstone / Wileys. Launspach speaks and writes about how to improve and maintain mental health in a world that’s growing ever more complicated. The more challenging the times that we’re living through – both at our jobs and outside of our work – the stronger we have to be mentally, Launspach says.