Theme: Emergence of Now

While we see the need to think deeply about the future, we also see bountiful technologies, human and material resources, and even financial capital in this time of crisis. What's needed more than anything else is to think about where we are now, and how we can make these significant changes with the plentiful resources we already have. We bring speakers together to talk about eliminating the concept of waste, community involvement in its own development, and creating robust local economies and infrastructure systems.

Junushoff
Wageningen
Netherlands

Adam Mathews

As a one-time crane driver, school manager, peach picker, international secondary metals trader and English teacher, my many experiences have taught me to question the world around me from a multitude of different angles. It was that inquiring mindset and a thirst for knowledge that bought me back into academia last year onto the Sustainable Development masters at Utrecht University, where I am currently writing my thesis on ‘The Impact of Excessive Speculation on Commodities Markets’.

Dominic Boot

I’ve worked 47 years in the oil industry, the last 12 of which as director of the VNPI (branch organiasation representing the 10 major oil companies operating in the NL). In 2002 we were confronted with a Brussels directive to introduce biofuels. We argued that biofuels introduced threats to world food prices, to biodiversity, to land use, and does not help in reducing CO2 output.

Stephen Sherwood

I am an organic farmer and food activist based in Ecuador as well as a lecturer and research fellow with the Communication and Innovation Group at Wageningen University. Over the last 25 years I have supported rural people’s movements throughout the Americas, seeking social change in favour of healthier, more sustainable living and being. The activity of my colleagues and I has contributed to major innovations in rural development practice, including: the introduction of farmer-led experimentation and farmer-to-farmer extension methodologies in favour of the sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture through the successful promotion of green manures and covercrops, Integrated Pest Management, seed management, and water harvesting

Patrick Wiebe

I’m a blogger, community gardener, seed saver and plant breeder. My garden, together with the network surrounding my blog, is a small scale alternative to modern industrial farming and commercial plant breeding. It’s a process that promotes biodiversity and seed sovereignty.

Ralien Bekkers

Ralien is a young activist in the field of environment, climate and sustainable development. Since an early age, she has being working in young movements in the Netherlands. She is really passionate about sustainability issues, and through the Dutch National Youth Council she is connecting people and searching for innovative solutions. Their aim is to look for new insights and ideas. In June 2012, she will attend the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio+20. They want to create and engage partnership between business, government, knowledge institutions and students/YOUTH, in order to prepare the young people for the future.

Alexander Heydendaal

As Wageningen Market Researcher, I worked and lived mainly abroad. Through my attitude as teamworker operating at international levels in Rome (FAO & WFP), Vienna, Damascus (agricultural attaché for Region Middle East), The Hague (Seeds Quality Control) and Montreal (UN Biodiversity Convention), I gained some experience in policy-making and intercultural behaviour at municipal, national, EU- and UN-level. I learned to go for a global vision in order to tackle the obstacles for implementation. My proactive abilities, participation in society gives me a balanced insight to act as a coach at various levels by asking more questions then expecting responses. My drive is to transform our complex society in a more sustainable one. With my creativity, musical gifts and questioning dialogues at regional (European) & global levels, I try to inspire all types of people.

Alexander Heydendaal

As Wageningen Market Researcher, I worked and lived mainly abroad. Through my attitude as teamworker operating at international levels in Rome (FAO & WFP), Vienna, Damascus (agricultural attaché for Region Middle East), The Hague (Seeds Quality Control) and Montreal (UN Biodiversity Convention), I gained some experience in policy-making and intercultural behaviour at municipal, national, EU- and UN-level. I learned to go for a global vision in order to tackle the obstacles for implementation. My proactive abilities, participation in society gives me a balanced insight to act as a coach at various levels by asking more questions then expecting responses. My drive is to transform our complex society in a more sustainable one. With my creativity, musical gifts and questioning dialogues at regional (European) & global levels, I try to inspire all types of people.

Barbara Putnam Cramer

Industrial designer discussing the relationship between food, sustainability and design

John Apesos

A LED expert, with an academic background in history, ecology, and business. He came to the Netherlands in 2007, to attend the Rotterdam School of Management following five years working in leadership development, environmental and social not-for-profit organisations. John has worked in clean-tech entrepreneurship, GreenGraffiti and Lemnis Lighting, ever since earning an MBA. A native of Ohio in the USA, John has travelled, worked and studied across the Americas, Europe and Oceania. Today, John is tackling climate change via urban agriculture in Amsterdam. John won the Tedx Amsterdam Ideas Worth Doing Award in 2011, and is working closely with the Amsterdam Municipality, Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM), and other innovators in the Netherlands to bring new innovations in the urban food supply systems.

Eva Gladek

Eva Gladek, a native of New York City, is an industrial ecologist passionate about sustainability. Her work integrates knowledge from across the natural and social sciences to develop innovative solutions in sectors as diverse as agriculture, electronics and information management. Eva began her scientific career as a molecular biologist, and continued on to work as a science journalist and television producer before developing her expertise in industrial ecology. She is an expert in technical environmental management techniques such as Life Cycle Assessment, Material Flow Analysis, and applying green design principles. Some of her recent projects include the conceptual development of Polydome, a high-yield greenhouse that functions like a natural ecosystem and offers the potential for net-zero impact food production. She also recently worked on optimizing the material flows in a social housing neighborhood in Rotterdam, developing guidelines for the production of greener chemicals for a large chemical manufacturer, and designing a financing platform for sustainable development.

Joost Fluitsma

My father is a sculptor and my mother is a speech therapist. Somehow I mixed these two professions into my work. In Delft I studied Industrial Design Engineering and in Den Haag Art. From a distance they are almost the same, but I experienced two total different worlds. An engineer thinks in pressure and tension and thinks about the use an artist is making his work from a personal need and later looks back what the meaning is. In my work for RE*WIRE I experienced a nonconventional way of thinking. Working with wire I discovered thinking in tension en pressure doesn’t work and thinking in general is not the way. It is a lot about doing out of a personal need.

George Kowalchuk

I am an ecologist in the most important and promising area of ecology: microbial ecology. Microbes dominate our planet, and my research is principally dedicated to uncovering what microorganisms do in the environment and how they respond to, and impact, global change. In addition, I look toward microorganisms as a potential source of new and useful products and activities.

Eef van Breen Group

The eef van breen group, a dutch based group of musicians and a theatre director, was founded in 2007. Since their existence the group is experimenting with the emotional possibilities of a concert. Not only by writing compositions and performing them, but also by presenting their music in new ways. On their latest cd „changing scenes“ they started to implement life ambient sounds in the compositions.

Eef van Breen Group

The eef van breen group, a dutch based group of musicians and a theatre director, was founded in 2007. Since their existence the group is experimenting with the emotional possibilities of a concert. Not only by writing compositions and performing them, but also by presenting their music in new ways. On their latest cd „changing scenes“ they started to implement life ambient sounds in the compositions.

Thomas Rau

Thomas Rau studied fine arts and dance at the Alanus University of Arts in Bonn and architecture at RWTH Aachen University. He has been working as an architect in Amsterdam since 1990. He established RAU in 1992 and Turntoo in 2011. Thomas Rau is ranked nr 26 (and only architect) on the annual “Duurzame100″ a list of Dutch key players in sustainability, published by national newspaper Trouw and broadcasting corporation LLiNK. He is placed at number one in the ‘Green Building’ category of the Dutch ‘Green.200’ ranking by Green.2 magazine. Thomas is actively involved in the current international discussion on sustainability and in developing energy-saving technology and concepts for energy-producing buildings and a well respected (inter)national speaker on these topics.

Rudy Vandamme

Rudy Vandamme (1958) is a self-employed researcher and teacher, living in Oostende, Belgium (EU). As a psychologist he contributes to the ecologization of our present worldview, lifestyle and professional activity. His passion is to design communicative methods that help professionals to emancipate and educate their clients. He created the fork model as method to help professionals in this endeavor. He wrote eleven books, from which three text books are translated in English. He also contributes to the professional development domain by creating soulful businesses, like Ecologize (www.ecologize.net), Vandamme Instituut (www.vandammeinstituut.com), Coaching&Co (www.coaching-co.be), Mediation Instituut Vlaanderen (www.mediv.be), and School voor NLP (www.nlp.be).

Juul Martin

I want to solve social issues by connecting people, ideas and stuff we already have. I believe in the power of open organization forms, which I call in Dutch ‘Organizaaien’. What I see and makes me happy is that when people can realize their idea or dream within a larger perspective, they take initiative, get creative and work together really inspired. Currently I work on House of Plenty (Huis van Overvloed). We literally are building a co-working and meeting place in Nijmegen without money. We use materials that are abundant instead. Hundreds of volunteers, small and large businesses and the local municipality are joining in this worldwide unique project.

David Zetland

David Zetland is a senior water economist in the Department of Environmental Economics and Natural Resources at Wageningen University in the Netherlands where he is working on an EU-funded project, “Evaluating Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Water Management in Europe.” He blogs on water, economics and politics at aguanomics.com and is the author of The End of Abundance: economic solutions to water scarcity (2011). He is passionate about making it easier for people to accomplish their goals, improving the ways we interact with each other, and enjoying the beauty of the natural and human worlds.

John Liu

For 15 years, in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, I worked as a television journalist in China, for CBS News, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF German Television) and others. Over the years I had to do virtually every job in remote television production and gained some skills that were in demand. As I was growing in my work I was also observing as China emerged from isolation and poverty. It was exhilarating to see as China stood up but it was terrifying to consider the pollution and environmental implications of its rise. I would go to my office and think, “someone should really do something about the environment”, but what I meant was “someone else”. After some time I began to feel that my own attitude was part of the problem. If I was unwilling to change my life, why would anyone else? At this point I decided to found the “Environmental Education Media Project for China (EEMPC) and to devote my energies to understanding and communicating about the environment and ecology. Since the mid-1990’s, the EEMPC has distributed hundreds of existing films in China and I have made dozens of environmental and ecological films in China and around the world.