Greenovator tour – students take the lead

She urged students to take the lead in inventing a sustainable future.

Over the years, TU Delft has nurtured its students to challenge the future through devising and developing sustainable ideas and products. Today, these lessons in sustainability are beginning to bear fruit in the form of the many new, innovative technologies that the university’s students and researchers are churning out with ever-greater frequency.
One of the many ways TU Delft has ensured this learning process continues is through hosting special events, seminars and open lectures on issues related to sustainability and socio-economic and environmental progress. One such event was held at the university last week, the ‘Greenovation’ tour, which, as the name suggests, focuses on merging ‘green’ issues with innovation.
On hand to shed light on this subject was Minister Jacqueline Cramer, of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. Resplendent in her crown of white hair, the affable minister – who previously was a professor of sustainable entrepreneurship at Utrecht University and professor of enviromental management at Erasmus University Rotterdam – called on students to ‘greenovate’, and thus contribute towards creating an innovative, green future for all of mankind.
To assess these developments and the progress achieved so far, Minister Cramer invited the audience, assembled in the Faculty of Architecture’s magnificent, orange-hued Oost Serra room, to witness firsthand how this TU Delft spirit is helping to shepherd in a whole host of sustainable technologies and inventions. More importantly, the minister was present to pledge the Dutch government’s continuing support and appreciation for the sustainable ideas being developed at TU Delft, and to encourage the university’s students to continue “thinking outside the box” for solutions to the many environmental problems we face today.
The Greenovation event was also graced by an impressive collection of prominent businesspeople, innovators, inventors and various other movers and shakers in the world of sustainability, including Ruud Koornstra (CEO of Tendris), Anne-Marie Rakhorst (CEO of Search BV), Han Brezet (professor of design for sustainability, TU Delft), and Pauline Westendorp (managing director of New NRG). Also in attendance to share their experiences were three TU Delft alumni and founders of hi-tech start up companies: Igor Kluin (Qurrent), Thomas van den Groenendaal (Evening Breeze) and Nils Beers (Czeers).

Human ingenuity
In her opening address, Minister Cramer highlighted the importance of sustainability and the need for mankind to protect the environment. Rakhorst and Koornstra then led a discussion aimed at underscoring the importance of how technological innovations can proffer solutions to our most pressing environmental problems. To reiterate his company’s commitment to sustainability, Koornstra discussed the variety of sustainable, environmentally friendly energy saving lighting devices and bulbs available today. Through innovation, Koornstra’s company Tendris aims “to promote a conscious use of our planet’s limited natural energy sources and, eventually, contribute to a world using only green energy.”
Rakhorst’s company, Search BV, is an international engineering bureau, research centre and education institute that promotes “socially responsible entrepreneurship and supports sustainable development,” especially as related to the building industry.
As the Greenovator tour especially urges students ‘to take the lead’, this event would not be complete
without a presentation of some sustainable, green innovations developed by TU Delft’s students. The series of impressive presentations began with a demonstration of an energy-producing fitness bicycle. The bike’s fundamental concept, according its inventor Remi Veenman, is that while users of the fitness bike are burning off the excess energy stored as fat in their bodies, they simultaneously produce energy that can then be fed back into the fitness club’s power system and re-used for other purposes.
Ideas, in the words of Ted Levitt, the late American economist and professor at the Harvard Business School, are the source of innovation, and “innovation is the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress.” Minster Cramer then called on Han Brezet, professor of design for sustainability, who shared his own perspective on how his students at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering are helping to further address the challenges presented by our urgent need to create a more sustainable world.
Next up was Pauline Westendorp, whose company, New NRG, is committed to creating “a world in which all energy is derived from sustainable sources, such as wind, water, plants, trees, the sun and geothermal sources.” With a clever charisma reminiscent of Anne Robinson of the BBC’s ‘The Weakest Link’ TV show, Minister Cramer peppered the New NRG director with questions about how the Netherlands was faring in its role as a proponent of sustainability. Westendorp was resolute in reiterating her company’s commitment to helping promote clean, affordable and sustainable energy for everyone.
It was then the turn of another student from the TU Delft think tank to take the stage: Arno Scheepens proudly presently his sustainable and innovative bicycle, called ‘ReBICYCLE’, which is made from wood and bio-plastics. He was followed by another student, Berend Jan Kleute, an MSc offshore engineering student, who presented his group’s ambitious plan to harness energy from the ocean, called OTEC, or ocean thermal energy conversion, which, Kleute said, is no different from the “principle of a refrigerator” and involves converting solar radiation to electric power. OTEC systems use the ocean’s natural thermal gradient — the fact that the ocean’s layers of water have different temperatures — to drive a power-producing cycle.
To answer the final question – can technological innovation and human progress be truly green and sustainable? –  Minister Cramer called on a trio of TU Delft alumnus: Kluin, Van den Groenendaal and Beers. These three young CEOs of hi-tech
startup companies born in the Yes!Delft incubator proceeded to win over even the most skeptical audience members with their thoughtful answers and convincing ideas for using technology to create a
genuinely green future for planet. The message here was, ‘dare to dream, be passionate about your dreams, and then the sky is the limit’ – an uplifting thought to take away from an inspirational evening devoted to using technology and human ingenuity to help save our planet from future ecological disaster.

I guess we all know the story ‘The Little Prince’, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. As a kid I used to watch the cartoon series all the time, always wondering about the home asteroid or planet the Little Prince used to live on. I used to wonder if it was possible to live on such a small planet and how its gravity would work. Not that I knew much about physics and natural laws then, but still I tried to imagine what life on such a small planet would be like. As I grew older I found out that within our imagination all is possible and we can break or distort all the laws of physics and nature. But what does my photo have to do with the Little Prince’s story? Well, the first time I came across this type of photographic processing, called ‘little planets’, it reminded me of the cover of the ‘The Little Prince’ book. I decided that this type of processing suits the greatness and beauty of old buildings with their magnificent architecture. And also the story of my life also resembles the Little Prince’s adventures, as I experience new cultures and see new and unique architecture, like that of the Markt in Delft.