Jury

Gigi Wang (chair of the jury)

Ms. Gigi Wang runs, MG-Team, LLC, which delivers entrepreneurship and innovation training programs globally.

Since 2012, she has been teaching science & technology boot-camp twice a year at ACE Venture Lab at Amsterdam Science Park which has spun out top Dutch start-ups including Lumicks, Scyfer (acquired by Qualcomm), and Metrica-Sports (expanded to US market).  She has worked with the Dutch Consulate SF and the Amsterdam Business School.

She is also an Industry Fellow & Faculty at UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology where she chairs the Berkeley Method Entrepreneurship Boot-camp and teaches Berkeley executive innovation workshops.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Wang was on the executive teams of a number of tech start-ups in Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia.  As an Internet pioneer in the 90’s, she started up Pacific Internet in Singapore (IPO on NASDAQ in 1999) and launched the internationally re-knowned TRUSTe (now TrustArc) Internet privacy program in the ‘90’s.

Gigi holds BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.  She is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world including the Chief Innovation Officer Summit, Asian Leadership Conference, World Investment Conference, IBM Global Start-Up Camp, Global R&D Conference, and HighTechXL (Eindhoven).

Annemarie van Wezel

Prof. Dr Annemarie van Wezel (1968, MSc Biology UU, PhD environmental chemistry and toxicology UU) has long experience as scientist in water quality, risk assessment and risk mitigation, environmental toxicology and chemistry, and environmental policy evaluation.

She was granted many projects in the field of chemicals of emerging concern and water quality, examples are the European projects FP7 Solutions, ITN ECORISK2050, ITN PERFORCE3, and Dutch NWO funded projects such as Shale gas & water, TRAMP (Technologies for risk assessment for microplastics), EMERCHE (Effect-directed Monitoring tools to assess Ecological and human health Risks of CHemicals of Emerging concern in the water cycle) and RUST (Re-USe of Treated effluent for agriculture) and PsychoPharmac’eau (Psychopharmaceutical Prevention & Pilots to Reduce Effects in the water cycle).

She is interested in the science-to-policy interface, in scientific outreach and has ample experience in media appearances. She is a member of the Dutch Health Council and the Dutch Board on authorization of plant protection products and biocides CTGB. She holds the chair Environmental Ecology and is Scientific Director of IBED (Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics) at the University of Amsterdam.

Roel Bulthuis

Roel Bulthuis is a Managing Partner and head of Healthcare investments at INKEF Capital. Roel combines close to 20 years of experience across venture capital, pharma business development and healthcare investment banking.

Prior to joining INKEF he was SVP and Managing Director of M-Ventures which he created and developed into a leading CVC platform. Prior to that, he served in senior positions in global business development and M&A at Merck Serono and in the healthcare investment banking team at Fortis Bank.

In ‘16, ‘17 and ‘18, Roel was selected by GCV Magazine for its list of the world’s most influential corporate VCs. Roel is a Kauffman Fellow and passionate about continuously improving the role VC’s play in supporting entrepreneurship. Roel’s favorite place away from business is de Nieuwe Meer for an early morning swim.

Ruben Brave
Ruben Brave is a Dutch internet pioneer, board member at impactful tech or media-related organizations such as Internet Society Netherlands (ISOC), Open State Foundation, the Dutch Review of Books Foundation and the Dutch Startup Association (dSa).

He is a media professional and a serial entrepreneur in technology, media and telecommunication (TMT) and stood at the cradle of leading Dutch online initiatives of some of the largest companies in publishing, sports, telecom and travel. Since 2004 founder of academic business incubator Entelligence b.v. for pre-seed financing, (valorisation) mentoring and coaching at start-ups in the field of Online Media, ICT & automation, Health & Life-Long Learning.

Recently Ruben was asked by the Directorate of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate to advise on an extensive Exploration of how to increase diversity and inclusion in the Dutch Startup ecosystem, with the aim of improving Access To Entrepreneurship in the broadest sense of the word. This current collaboration with the Ministery aligns with Ruben’s continuous effort to guide scholars in their personal transformation into an entrepreneur and enable societally relevant university spin-offs.

At the SciLink Foundation, which focuses on transversal and research career development skills and was managed by the University of Amsterdam, Ruben was appointed as the single external coach for academics who mentors in: startup initiation & upscaling (the “what”), professional effectiveness & networking (the “how”), business spirituality (the “why”).

Ruben loves to collaborate with inquisitive and committed people, to solve complex and societal impactful issues with entrepreneurship, science and technology.

Jill Coster van Voorhout
Jill E.B. Coster van Voorhout is a lawyer and a sociologist, with a PhD in criminal and human rights law.

She is an Associate Professor in the Criminal Law Department at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She is also the Academic Director of the (partly new) Master’s programme on International Criminal Law (LLM),  Track 1: International Criminal Law – Joint Programme, with Columbia Law School and  Track 2: International and Transnational Criminal Law at UvA.

Additionally, she is a research fellow at the Amsterdam Center on International Law (ACIL) and at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). For more information, click here.

In 2019, she won the Amsterdam Science & Innovation Award in the category Alpha/ Gamma. She received the Award for her innovation of combining various research methods to trace criminal money in bank data. With this innovation, tracking down crimes like human trafficking, money laundering and corruption becomes more effective and secure.

Wridzer Bakker
Dr. Ir. Wridzer Bakker studied Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology and holds a PhD in the field of Industrial Catalysis. Bakker graduated at the INSEAD Executive MBA Education Program in Fontainebleau, France. Bakker has a proven track record in bringing new technologies and products to the market.  For example, as Co-Founder and owner of NedStack Fuel Technology BV and Business Development director at AkzoNobel.

Bakker was previously CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT), specializing in Technology Development and Implementation Platforms for the Process Industry. In this role, Bakker managed over 60 partners, a program budget of ~100 million Euro’s and over 300 people actively involved in project execution. At AkzoNobel, Bakker demonstrated experience in R&D Management and led large projects in the Business Innovation Unit, later returning to the company as Business Development Director. Furthermore, Bakker served for over a decade on the Executive Board of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering, and as Executive Vice President for four of those years, representing ca. 120.000 Chemical Engineers.

Since 2017 Bakker is CEO and co-owner of the UvA spin-off Plantics. This company aims to provide game-change material solutions that help to solve the world’s plastic and CO2 problems. It develops new, completely circular biobased composites, foams and coatings. In close collaboration with partners, these biomaterials are used to develop high quality, circular and CO2 negative products for a variety of applications. The Plantics Biomaterials are based on a revolutionary invention by the University of Amsterdam and have recently been elected as “Renewable material of the year 2021” in a global competition.

Prof. Jaap Bonjer
Chair Department of Surgery Amsterdam University Medical Centre / CEO Amsterdam Skills Centre for Health Sciences