Opening Day
WED28MAR
Find all the interactive content and see who of your friends is attending on the Facebook event pageA new kind of experience
Do you remember the feeling you had when a new world opened its doors to you? The feeling you are discovering things you had never imagined they existed, feeling like some kind of evolution of your former ignorant self. You might have had this feeling when you moved out of your parents’ house, when you fell in love for the first time or when you met someone so inspiring he changed your vision of the world completely. Giving you this extraordinary feeling is what we aim to do on March the 28th. This year it’s not called the Opening Day because it’s the kick-off congress of the EFR-Business Week, it’s called the Opening Day because being there will open up your mind.
To reach this, we ask you to come with an open mindset and a motivation to interact with people you have never met. This event is not about consuming ideas. This event is about using the creativity of those we have selected to fuel your own imagination. It’s not a stage where existing ideas are presented, it’s a platform where new ideas are born. This is how it works:
1. Buy your tickets. Only €5 for all students and entrepreneurs.
2. Fill in what you will do to make a change
3. Come to the Aula on March the 28th with enough energy and lucidity to process the insights you will encounter
Stunning visuals and high interactivity
What will be waiting for you is a spectacular mix of great ideas, wonderful people, groundbreaking art and good food all covered with stunning visuals and high tech interactivity. To start with the latter: Sendsteps will help us during the entire conference to turn every visitor into a potential actor. By logging in once on a website with your mobile phone, you will be able to interact all the way by sending in your questions, feelings or just simply reacting on a multiple choice statement and seeing the statistics flying in live from the public onto the main screen. Most of the speakers will get an overview of the reactions that were sent to them and are staying for break, dinner and drinks so it’s a great way for you to pitch new spin off ideas! Next are the visuals we would like to tell you about. This year we are going to show you something you have never witnessed before at any university in The Netherlands. After having amazed the visitors of Solar, Extrema and Feed Me what they were capable of, we are very proud that Sober Industries made the commitment to spend a limitless amount of time on the Opening Day project. They will be video mapping the entire Aula and making your sweaty backs stick to the back of your chairs with one move of their fingertip.
The speakers
Now, let’s bring on the very essence of our mission to trigger you to think out of the box: the content of the conference. To start with our host of the day: Mister Pep Rosenfeld, who has specialized in making you laugh through his comedy shows at Boom Chicago, is ready to put all his skills in service to the Opening Day to deliver you a highly interactive and entertaining event. The first part of the conference will focus on how ordinary people can reach extraordinary success by putting into practice their ideas. In order of appearance we will welcome Victor van der Chijs, managing partner at OMA who is charged by minister Verhagen to explore ways of stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship for the creative industries in the Netherlands. Victor is followed by Mike Lee, who developed the Obama ’08 app and is making Amsterdam the world capital for mobile app development. Next on stage is Bas Haring, who can teach a 10 year old exactly how Darwin’s theory of evolution made us who we are and is going to show us a philosophical approach on out of the box thinking. Justus Bruns, who will explain how his crazy idea led him to global exposure. Together with some surprise elements we are convinced that this part will fuel your imagination and open a world of new possibilities to you. At the break you will get a refreshing soda made possible by Oggu, a new Dutch organic brand you need to taste.
The second part will mainly bring extraordinary people on stage and let you judge if their ideas match their status. To start with Christian von Koenigsegg, he will receive the EFR-Business Week award for his commitment towards his product. Next we are bringing together four successful CEO’s with four completely different career approaches at the same table. We are proud to announce the presence of:
- Dick Benschop, President-Directeur Shell NL:
- Vincent van Zon, Marlies Dekkers Group:
- Dick Boer, Ahold:
- Timo Huges, FloraHolland:
Through a panel discussion hosted by Diana Matroos you will find out what their views, agreements and disagreements on out of the box thinking are. They will focus on what personally drives them instead on the company they are representing. Once you have been enlightened by the vision of these captains of industry Daniel Knoop will take you to the basis of economic thinking: food production in Congo and show you how to add real value to using an out of the box approach. He is replacing Ankur Jain who isn't able to make it from Los Angeles anymore. Finally, to wrap it all up and introduce you to the 150 young entrepreneurs he brought with his sparkling network clean drinks along Aart van Veller, one of the most promising entrepreneurs of our generation is going to tell you how he plans to make a brighter future.
Dot-connecting dinner
To facilitate the exchanging of ideas between speakers, entrepreneurs and students we included a dinner. The ingredients will be 100% organic and supplied by our friends from Nature & More and we will provide you with an award-winning rosé de Provence generously supplied by AIX Rosé. In the end, all visitors will come together to have a final drink and enjoy the feeling they are experiencing. The feeling a new world has opened its doors to them. The feeling they can start changing it as they walk out of the door. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the feeling of the 28th EFR-Business Week.
