Theme: Mind Blossom

As we are all been born we go through the different stages of our life. Stages in which we are not only physically growing but also in which our minds develop. Our environments influence how we think, what we like and what we know. From our everyday life we take away new experiences, new knowledge and process these new data. We even continue processing these new information and create new ideas. This is how our world functions, this is how technologies develop, this is how our minds start to blossom.

All this is not only transferable to us humans but also to plants, trees and flowers. As a flower blossoms every spring and shows its unexpected beauty, our organisation team wants to let your mind blossom and perceive the unexpected. By organising this event, we want to open up your mind and plant a seed in it, which will grow, develop and finally, blossom, introducing you to the new world and its perceptions. The TEDxStendenUniversity2017 organisation team wants to highlight the importance of openness to new approaches and in this way show you the world from different angles. We are not pointing out the right way of perceiving things, but we do want to show that the other side is existing as well.

Being open to the world, to the changes that happen, facing developments, future innovations and working with them, enables us and our minds to blossom just like the seed blossomed to a beautiful big tree.

Stenden University
Rengerslaan 8
Leeuwarden, Fryslân (fy), 8917DD
Netherlands

Emma Simpson

Emma Simpson is an environmental activist, LGBTQ rights campaigner and educator (www.simpsontraining.org). Emma has spent the last 6 years embedded in European social justice movements, working on issues ranging from fracking to LGBT youth homelessness. For the last two years, Emma has been delivering training and creative facilitation on conversations about gender, climate and intersectionality. Emma has worked with Friends of the Earth, the BBC and third sector organisations across the UK to understand trans rights in a changing world, and is proud to be a member of the Young Friends of the Earth Europe (http://www.foeeurope.org/yfoee) network.

Jacquelien Willemse

Jacquelien’s passion is helping others to share their expertise in such a way that this expertise is fully understood. Understood not only on a rational level, but also on an emotional level. She gives workshops and training on how neuroscience can help us in learning, development and change processes. Besides group sessions Jacquelien provides live and online individual support to those who want to learn how to share knowledge. The brain architect combines scientific knowledge with creativity and the element of surprise.

Katrin Bünker

The 23- year old Katrin Bünker, also known as “Bünki”, humorously says she loves to complain: “There has always been something in my life I was upset about and I expressed it. Loudly! My teachers had to suffer from it, my family, my friends.” After finishing school, Katrin lived in London for one year and got to meet people from many different cultures, which already changed her to be more open. One year later, she started studying Media and Entertainment Management at Stenden and by now she is nearly done with her second year. Over those last 4 years, Katrin’s perspective has changed drastically; she turned to be a lot more positive than she used to be. “Bünki” is now at the point that she realised that “complaining does not make much sense; unless you know what you can do about it and you do it!”.

Lena Olivier

Lena believes it is important to also put her talent outside of work to help others. Therefore she is actively involved in Amref Flying Doctors and member of the supervisory board.Her personal brand statement is "Inspire others to live their ambitions."​ If you can dream it, you can do it". Besides that she is a top manager and experience a broad social responsibility.

Patrick van Hoof

Patrick van Hoof is a product strategist, design thinking practitioner and digital interface futurist. He is currently a faculty member at SingularityU and has worked in innovation at Huge, Parsons, IDEO and MIT, where he completed the MBA program and published on the future of human-computer interaction at the Media Lab.

Victoria M. Thomas

Victoria M. Thomas claims that her personality is as vibrant as her hair and describes herself as “a self-proclaimed fiercely weird earthling who enjoys blogging, singing at the top of [her] lungs and the human psyche”. Victoria was born and raised on Aruba; she loves to travel and speaks an impressive amount of five languages. When Victoria is not exploring the world or working on her novel, she is a regular senior student majoring in Media & Entertainment Management at Stenden University.

Wang Jia

Wang Jia, originally from Beijing, has lived in Europe for 16 years. He is passionate about connecting people across cultural and psychological boundaries. He holds a Ph.D. in engineering and works in a multi-national company. He gives regular workshops and provides coaching on communication skills.