Welcome to my website! Let’s give you some heads up below about my life and career. Perhaps I can be of meaning to you.
after I started as a misfit, became an activist and developed skills to become a practivist: “someone who sees problems as opportunities to tackle”. I have been awarded by Forbes to be one of the 1500 under 30 changemakers and 3 times T500 Young Digital talent of the year by The Next Web & Accenture, while I developed into a serial social entrepreneur. This rollercoaster ride was exciting and I would love to give others that have been in similar situation (feeling not understood and alone, coming up for their rights but not knowing how, willing to invent solutions and solving societal quests) the toolkits to do so as well. Now I am on the mission to train 1 million people before the age of 30 to turn their activism and insecurities into their skills to make a positive impact and live a life in abundance.
Here I am, returning the favour to you! I am here to help you make a bigger impact on society! Are you ready for it? Find out what I can do for you based on my own experiences.
Did you know…
…That I have spoken internationally on Innovation, Science & technology conferences in Brazil, San Francisco, New York, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Thailand & China so far. About the future of work, health, labor, banking, living, organizations and education. Pinpointing where micro-communities are shaping society towards, from transhumanists and biohackers towards digital nomads and conscious world citizens.
CHECK OUT MY RESEARCH – BOOK NICK AS YOUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER – GET A SUMMARY OF MY PRESENTATIONS – LEARN ME HOW TO PITCH TO FUND MY IDEAS
…I have organized and helped 85+ hackathons create innovative solutions for SDG’s, business challenges, schools, municipalities and the Ministry of Education since 2014. Check out my biggest hackathon event on Eduhack.nl & 27 hackathon challenges that I have coordinated on Campus Party Europe in the Netherlands where 1650 people from 52 nationalities worked together on SDG’s for one week. Want to know which challenges click here, and reach out to me if you wish to hear the results.
GET TO KNOW IF A HACKATHON IS SOMETHING FOR YOU – LET’S CO-ORGANIZE A HACKATHON – TRAIN ME IN ORGANIZING HACKATHONS
…I have directly coached over 30.000 people, indirectly around 85.000 to date since I quit video gaming back in 2012, and used my community management skills and game dynamics in shaping tools to enable teams to make an impact in society while following their passions and strengths. That is on average 16 or 46 individuals a day. Ever stuck with a question regarding your life, perhaps I can help you out!
CHECK OUT MY TOOLKIT4CHANGE – SIGN UP FOR BEING COACHED – SCHEDULE A COACHINGSCALL
…I lived together with 400 refugees/non-status holders from October 2016 until October 2018 in an asylum-seeker centre called Plan Einstein, an award-winning concept where 15 stakeholders help both formally and informally to integrate people with a traumatic background/out of war-situations on a human-way, creating equality by offering free classes in Entrepreneurship, Business English, Dutch and many more activities like neighbourhood festivals, cooking and singing together and learning how to bike. We influenced governments of the European Union, by how to improve their immigration policy in a debate day as shown here in the video and the local immigration law has changed so that new Asylumseeker centres are built on the same basis as a standard for integration. For more highlights of my contribution click on one of the following links below.
SEE THE TRAILER OF THE DOCUMENTARY – SEE MY IMPACT ON TV – STAY UPDATED ON THE PROJECT
…I have spoken on over 25 conferences next to giving 3 TEDxTalks about overcoming my video game addiction, pursuing a purpose and creating leadership to tackle SDG’s with serious games. Check out my TEDx talks via bit.ly/TedxNick – bit.ly/TEDxNick2 & bit.ly/TEDxNickinVR. It definitely describes how I have become who I am now. Underneath a video portrait and blog about my life in Dutch made by MaatschapWij. I would love to guide people to share their authentic story too, as its alot of burden of your shoulders once you have done that and everyone you meet afterwards you will have deeper conversations with.
Below you can find more activities I have done professionally. You can take a look at some of the presentations I have given as a speaker, innovation consultant, and trendwatcher. The foundations I have helped set up locally, the schools I have helped in changing their curriculum and way of working with students and stakeholders, plus several projects like setting up an escape room for primary school with new technologies. This by co-hosting Permanent Future Labs to enable more people to start working with technology, all open source, by sharing over 80 technologies in abundance.
REQUEST A PRESENTATION – BOOK NICK VIA GASTSPREKERS
Ananda Sprint – Sasin School of Management – ExO Sprint Coach (Sept. 2019-Dec. 2019)
Coached the management team of the best business school in Thailand to develop exponential business initiatives that could disrupt the current educational landscape. As of 3 December 2019, after a 10-week sprint via OpenExo. I was invited as a head coach for the Sasin School of Management to train the top management in the mindset of a startup capable of disrupting current business models. They did an excellent job and tested 2 new value propositions positively. Now they are setting up resources with the board to make the solution available for the market. To be continued, do reach out to hear more. With our team at ExoWorks, we have helped the following multibillion-dollar companies transform the way they act to save our planet.
Hack het veranderend gedrag van kids! – Co-organizer (July-Sept. 2019)
We invited 30 persons to come up with innovative ways to get children not dropping out of school in a creathon of 12 hours. 6 outcomes are now being implemented into the schools and education eco-system of Epe.
Change Ahead Business event – Co-organizer (May – June 2019)
I co-organized the Change Ahead event initiated by Fountainheads and the Attention Group. We teamed up with Eric Mijnster and STUDIO.WHY give a present to our network in the form of a secret program. We entertained, educated and inspired 110 people to make the world a better place in Muntgebouw Utrecht.
Collaborator @ Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (Dec. 2017- Now)
This August 2019 I am visiting the factory in Toulouse as a R&D developer and Marketeer for Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. I have been actively educating others on how to organize businesses in a flat way cultivating digital collaboration tools. Now we have over 700 people working at Hyperloop, without having a standard paycheck every month, all based on a community of talents, like the inventor of the Vacuum tube towards employees of Tesla and Google joining the mission of bringing this new sustainable way of transport into reality. Check out our timeline and start believing in clean and superfast travel by levitating in vacuum tubes. See more at Hyperloop.global
Innovation Games Noord-Brabant (Sept. 2018)
Hosted technology inspiration shots to inspire both participants and personnel working at the province Noord-Brabant to change mindsets towards possibilities today. Showcased how everyone can start with building their prototypes with 3D printing, how everyone can train meditation and reduce stress using EEG (Brainwave sensors) connected to a drone and how to overcome fears with VR like fear of heights. Many of today’s consumer technologies are perfect solutions for problems in many industries, from further personalizing education or healthcare towards re-imagining the photo industry with 360 footage. 500 people enjoyed playing with technology and some of them are now taking action in using EEG scanners to improve healthcare for handicapped people.
‘Het Geheim van de Monnik’ is an escape room built together with the Religious Museum Uden to train 800 primary school students in Literature and new media. I took care of the project managing the new media part with design expert Luc Thijssen. We implemented VR, AR, QR, Gaming, literature but also math and storytelling in this temporary Escape room from February to June 2017.
We train teachers to organize their own alternative way of doing education, with hackathons, education tours and tools we develop mostly open-source. Organizer 2015/2016/2017/2018/2019 editions of the worldwide 24-hour Eduhack, an initiative launched by Presenté in 2013. Check out educationhack for our upcoming editions. Feel free to participate in hacking Education, here in the Netherlands with us or globally with partners. For updates join our community.
Co-Founder of Articulum, Writer Influencive & Startup Grind, I wrote over 200 articles around entrepreneurship, startups, purpose, management and cultural differences. I also wrote blogs to promote events and this brought me to become an experienced trendwatcher who now translates trends into keynotes and inspiration shots at hackathons for actionable output.
Co-organizer INNOVATIONHACK May 2015
Pressure cook for businesses and students to solve business cases within 4 to 6 hours. With teams of 4-5 multidisciplinary students and Studio Doon Innovation Cards, they learn how to work with a Lean Startup Method while they are helping a business further in finding new business models or a modern strategy approach.
RUUW & Misfits
Co-founder Foundation RUUW, Misfits member Jan 2014 – Jan 2018