EXPERTISE

PREVIOUSLY WORKED WITH

 

Bachelor Degree

During my bachelor studies, there were several main focus topics in my activities. I foremost focused on User-Centred Design, mobility as well as entrepreneurship. Whilst entrepreneurship is currently my main focus, it was not as prevalent in my bachelor’s. The bachelor in Industrial Design mainly focused on the development of my vision and identity. I explored a lot, by taking on different types of projects and courses to eventually be able to see what kind of an engineer I wanted to become.

Next to the major topics in my studies, I also followed auxiliary courses that were both explorative and deepening, to become a more multifaceted designer and develop my skills and competencies.

Instead of looking for an extracurricular learning activity in my third year, I decided not to and focus on a long-lasting project I had been working on for two years; the Rotterdam 2018 conference, which can be seen in my portfolio here.

User-Centred Design

A very major focus was the science of User-Centred Design (or Human-Centred Design [1])  and Computer-Human interaction. The sparked interest led me to follow a string of interlinked courses (USE-line) focused on this subject, which helped me to deepen my understanding of how to design for and together with users. The unexpectedness of a user’s interaction or behaviour is vital, as different interpretations of a system or product can lead to a completely different experience. To further understand theory behind behaviour, I also took on an introductory Psychology course, offered by another faculty, to further develop my knowledge.

Mobility

Mobility was the main theme of my Final Bachelor Project, which was in cooperation with the Dutch Railway (NS). Next to that, I also collaborated with Volvo to develop a solution for their unreleased autonomous vehicles. What I found fascinating about working on mobility, is the extremely wide user group that can be attained. Instead of working for a specific market segment, mobility can be used by all, making it a very interesting journey to devise an appropriate solution.

Entrepreneurship

As I mentioned before – although I touched upon the subject in several courses, entrepreneurship was not an integral part of my Bachelor Degree. However, outside my curriculum, I set up my first company with two study friends where we took on project work in filming. This was a very educative experience, as it allowed me to put my skills into practice and gave me a lot of responsibilities that I wanted to take on.

Before that

Before I started studying in Eindhoven, I went to a bilingual high school in The Netherlands, where we majored in both Dutch and English. Whilst taking joy in courses such as physics and mathematics, I also had a profound interest in more social sciences, where I could improve my rhetoric skills and worked on analysing parts of society. Apart from the regular curriculum, I also partook in extracurricular activities, such as joining several Science Olympiads, participating in the Public Speaking Contests, joining the European Youth Parliament, managing the 3D printing programme and briefly being part of the Student Council.

References
[1] Norman, Donald A. The psychology of everyday things. Vol. 5. New York: Basic books, 1988.

The Present

Currently, I am halfway through my master’s degree of Industrial Design and in pursuit of an internship between February and July of 2021 in the field of strategic design development or service design.

Within my studies, I have taken upon myself a focus-track called “Design Leadership and Entrepreneurship”. Within this track, I intend to expose myself to different styles of leadership and their applications, as well as analysing entrepreneurship in large and medium scale companies. With that, I want to further develop my style of leadership and become a more multifaceted leader – being able to apply methods corresponding to the right situations. Furthermore, I want to enrich my knowledge about entrepreneurship, study cases, and get involved. Therefore, I am currently working within an interdisciplinary team tackling key mobility issues around the Eindhoven Airport at TU/e innovation Space. My ultimate goal with this track is to become a multifaceted entrepreneur and leader.

Next to that, I am still the President of the European Youth Parliament in The Netherlands where I mainly focus on easing the organisation and its activities through the pandemic, as well as forming a structurally sound 5 year strategy plan for the organisations growth and development. More about that can be find in this portfolio entry.

The Future

After my Master’s degree in Industrial Design, I intend to follow it up with a Master’s degree in Innovation Management at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, as the study at this university opposed to the TU/e has a business background, rather than a technical one. Adding this study to my curriculum will allow me to reach my goal of becoming a multifaceted engineer and entrepreneur. by combining my knowledge of creative problem solving, user-centred design, technology entrepreneurship and leadership.

Concluding my education-career, I aspire a management/leadership function in a technological development firm. I see people such as David Kelley as a huge source of inspiration, looking at their contributions to the field and style of innovation development and management. By getting the industry’s knowledge in my bachelor’s degree and Industrial Design Leadership & Entrepeneurship as well as Innovation Management in my master’s degree, I would be well prepared to take on such a role.

Secondary to that, I still want to be able to have an impact. I want to stay involved in society and be able to contribute to the development of my surroundings. This does not necessarily have to be politics, but rather staying involved in things I feel passionate about and using my experience to help that development.

Vision

When looking at my past activities, my vision can be divided into three separate pillars: mobility, entrepreneurship and societal impact through education.

Mobility

At the moment, mobility is often seen as a way to get from A to B. Whether by public transport, personal vehicle or a shared vehicle, the ultimate goal is to get to the destination. For the most part, that is true – although a very abstract definition. However, the detail that is often omitted is that mobility can also be a pleasurable experience. 

My vision for the future of mobility is not to strive to make mobility more efficient. We see trends around the world where metropolitan areas want to put a heavy focus on shared vehicles, but I strongly believe that the future of mobility is not only more efficiency. What I want the focus to shift towards is to make mobility even more enjoyable. The idea that mobility results in ‘time lost travelling’ is out of date – moving from one place to another can also be an enjoyable, productive or entertaining experience.

Impact

Having been involved with the European Youth Parliament since 2014 has shown me the deep roots informal hands-on education can have on people. Although I have never been fully interested in politics, I always admired the way this extracurricular organisation has been using problem-based learning. When I started working at TU/e innovation Space, I saw other ways that challenge-based learning can have a great societal impact.

Knowing and connecting these two organisations, I wholly believe that the role of education is shifting – it is no longer the source of knowledge for young people, it is becoming a way for young people to get involved in society and contribute. Education is already starting to shift away from standard classroom-settings and I envision this to happen more. Growing up won’t mean acquiring all the knowledge before an impact can be made – growing up will mean an iterative process of gaining knowledge and applying it directly in a hands-on setting, such as with challenge-based learning.

Entrepreneurship

The power of Industrial Design is that we devise systems and products that are intuitive to use; that engage you, that give you feedback or feedforward. I believe that the same kind of thinking that we use in these design processes can definitely be beneficial in the management of companies, even if they are not involved in Design.

By regarding the company as such a system or product, I believe it is possible to apply certain frameworks [1] that we use in design to iteratively improve the processes of the company itself, its hierarchy or even it’s work-ethic.

Identity

I have always had an intrinsic curiosity to explore. Whether it was to see the world, or by taking apart almost all electronic devices to see how they work inside. Next to that, I have always been a creative individual; from a young age I was already building websites, or simply solving everyday problems in creative ways. All of this, paired with a passion for technology and innovation, was the reason why I also chose to become an Industrial Designer.

User-Centred Design is a large aspect of my identity; in all concepts and ideas, I aim to include the user as much as possible. Paired with my vision, this an important aspect, as intuitively relates closely to usability, which is defined by the user. Through iterative design processes, such as the Reflective Transformative Design Process [1] or the Double Diamond process [2], I aspire to develop concepts which are intuitive and enriching to use.

I flourish as a team leader; not only in my studies, but also in professional circumstances I am comfortable and capable with taking the lead in the process. Managing tasks, managing team morale and taking on the responsibility are roles that I assign to naturally, which is why I aspire a master’s degree in Innovation Management, too.

I have an entrepreneurial mindset. I always seek new opportunities and challenges to be able to reach my goals. I hold a position in several different types of organisations where I can use as well as develop all of my professional skills, such as my team leading skills, project management as well as developing my sense of cooperation, communication and strategic development.

References

[1] Hummels, Caroline, and Joep Frens. "The reflective transformative design process." CHI'09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2009.

[2] Nessler, Dan, and Dan Nessler. “How to Apply a Design Thinking, HCD, UX or Any Creative Process from Scratch.” Medium, Digital Experience Design, 19 May 2016, medium.com/digital-experience-design/how-to-apply-a-design-thinking-hcd-ux-or-any-creative-process-from-scratch-b8786efbf812.