Meet the Speakers

Suze Gehem - Entrepreneur with a green mission

Suze received her cum laude master's degree as Industrial Designer at TU Delft in 2011 and also became a 'Fellow in Management' through her participation in the international management program UNITECH.
The pursuit of an ideal world was instilled in Suze at an early age, through her grandfather, who devoted himself to peace, security and sustainability until his death. During a study project in the South African townships, she expanded her sustainability ambitions. In 2012 she met Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels and together they founded De Groene Grachten with the mission: ‘If a centuries-old canal house can be sustainable, then it can be done anywhere!’. 

Suze is co-founder of Rooftop Revolution, a foundation that develops nature areas on rooftops, she is member of the Board of Directors of the Nationaal Groenfonds and is also chairman of the Gilde van Verduurzamers. In recent years, Suze has received numerous awards for her contribution to making the Netherlands more sustainable, including the Sustainable Construction Woman Award. 

Maarten Hajer - Utopianism and the Drama of Environmental Politics

Maarten Hajer (1962) holds MA degrees in Political Science and in Urban & Regional Planning from UvA as well as a D.Phil. in Politics from Oxford University. He became professor of Public Policy at UvA in 1998. After a spell in government leading PBL, the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, he moved to Utrecht University in 2015 where he is now distinguished professor Urban Futures and Director of the Urban Futures Studio.

Over the past 50 years, environmental politics has operated based on the premise of a vulnerable planet, an interconnected system to be addressed using technocratic expertise. In this conception, the future consistently features consistently as a warning. Prophecies of doom, of imagined and expected degradation, act as the primary motivator for a politics of environmental transformation. This is not just a rhetorical theme but also an epistemic configuration that structures environmental politics – from the Limits to Growth report to the more recent ‘planetary boundaries’ concept. It has animated both the discourse and the dramaturgical regime of environmental politics. Strikingly, environmental politics lacks a debate on alterative futures while images of aspirational futures may be necessary for the major cultural shifts implicated by the environmental crises. Hajer argues for more utopian environmental politics, with more aspirational and democratic conceptions of the future that will open up political space for alternative discourses and interests. Drawing on discourse and dramaturgical analysis, he argues that such utopian environmental politics requires a reappreciation of which political stages and what forms of political expression matter and why. 

Tim van Hattum - Head Green Climate Solutions programme

Tim  is the initiator of the Run4Climate climate marathon. He works as Head of the Climate Programme at Wageningen University & Research. He recently published his book Only Planet Climate Guide for the 21st Century with 7 routes to a hopeful future. He wants to show that it is not too late to take action and that we can create a greener world together. His starting number '2120' is a nod to the inspiring vision of the Netherlands in 2120.

Angelo Vermeulen - Researcher of Bio futures and space systems 

Angelo is a space systems researcher, biologist, and community artist. With his multidisciplinary background, he collaborates closely with practicing scientists, while also creating multimedia art installations, and building communities through design and co-creation. In 2013 he was crew commander of the NASA-funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawaii. Currently he is doing research on interstellar travel at Delft University of Technology. He has lived in many corners of the world, is a TED Senior Fellow, and loves computer games.

Andy van den Dobbelsteen -  Director Sustainable Strategies TU Delft

His work focuses mainly on the field of sustainable construction and sustainable energy systems for the urban environment. The key concept here is 'smart & bioclimatic design': hereby the local conditions are optimally used in building designs, in order to achieve sustainable use of resources.

From 2021 onwards, van den Dobbelsteen became Sustainability-coordinator for the Delft University of Technology. From this position, he will develop a sustainability vision and program for the university campus in the near future.

• Olivia Guerra-Santin - Department of the Built Environment at Eindhoven University of Technology
• Natalia Herrera  - TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering
• Abhi Singh - TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering
• Ingrid Mulder – TU Delft- Industrial Design Engineering
• Frank van Bergen - TNO – Geothermal/ATES well research centre
• Phil Vardon – TU Delft - Subsurface urban energy lab
• Korneel de Jong – CruX – Energy quay walls
• Sabine Jansen - Ministry BZK - Policies and goals for the energy transition of the built environment 
• Arnold Spek – Eneco - Collective heating systems
• Frank Agterberg – Bodemenergie NL & Vereniging warmtepompen Individual heating systems
• Evert van Beek - TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering
• Udo Pesch - TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management - Justice in the urban energy transition
• Thomas Hoppe - TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management - The role of energy communities in transforming urban energy systems
• And more!