Guest lecture - Harry Stokman

Agenda : Lecture on Entrepreneurship and DC Revolution

Harry Stockman comes from a family of Entrepreneurs, with an experience of almost 27 years. His passion towards the field of Electrical Engineering started at the age of 12 when he accidently found a power source while cleaning the roof of a school building, a fact that led him to join a Transformer manufacturing company when he was 16. 

With his early experience in music studios (as a technical expert), Freelancer during undergraduate studies and deep technical background that he gained during his undergraduate studies helped him to improve his entrepreneurial and technical skills and gave him the opportunity to take over Rectifier Control – a company, when he was just 23 years of age. In order to expand his business, Harry started a joint venture with Rectifier control and another company in 2005. In 2006, the company went bankrupt, which steered him to withdraw the company back from  joint venture and restarted again from beginning. 

Harry knew about the drawbacks of AC, so he started working on a DC Master plan in 2003. He proposed the DC microgrid plan to the Netherlands’s government in 2009 after his company which was initially working on AC products went bankrupt. The government was impressed by his proposal and granted him fund to do further R&D on DC master plan. At present, Harry owns a company which works extensively on DC and is focused on the development of “missing links” in order to make DC Infrastructure possible.

After the substantial financial support he received from the government, Harry started what is to be his future work on DC with a team of like-minded people. As a result, a prototype of public Lighting on DC and DC networks are already in use in the Netherlands.

Based on his research works, Harry proposes the following advantages of DC compared to AC 

  • Medium and Low Voltage Transmission is very effective in DC, with many benefits like meshing, decentralization.
  • Direct usage of DC in a greenhouse from PV (Photo Voltaic) was more efficient in power saving and it also improved the life of the equipment used.
  • Stabilization in the grid with the inclusion of renewable resources, which is very difficult using AC.
  • Back-to-back converters are more reliable, efficient and less costly compared to transformers. 

 What Harry’s company does:  

  • Hellas rectifiers: Production.
  • Direct current BV: Research & Development.
  • Amstel rectifiers BV: Trading.
  • Femtogrid Energy solutions BV: Renewable energy.
  • DOE-DC BV: Projects organization
  • DC grow light BV
  • DC foundation 

Advice to budding entrepreneurs:

1. Learn the value of money 
It is a product of sweat, tears and blood.
 
2. Never do business with a family member
It is a good idea to do business in an area which is not influenced by a family member. This way, relations are kept intact and one can always approach family for advice.
 
3. Entrepreneurs should be focused, positive and not listen to other people advice always.
 
4. Before starting a company get experience
It is good know what we are good at before starting a company, which can be evaluated  with the past work experience.
 
5. Learn whom to trust and whom not to 
 Experience leads one to understand whom to trust and whom not to. It is better to know what “not do" along with what "to do".
 
6. Use social Networking to expand the circle of influence
Linkedin and other business networks help in expanding the horizon for entrepreneurs. Also, somebody in a trusted person's network can be contacted with little hesitation.
 

If you are interested in working with Harry, please find the contact information below:

Email: harry@dcbv.eu

DIRECT CURRENT BV address:
Stationsweg 38 BB, 1431 EG Aalsmeer, The Netherland 
www.directcurrent.eu/en/