Date: 30 May 2017
Bright Richards from New Dutch Connection
About the speaker:
Our speaker, Bright Richards is a writer, actor and theatre maker. He came to the Netherlands in 1993 as a refugee who left his homeland Liberia due to the civil war at the time. He followed professional training at the Theater Academie in Arnhem. He is well known in the Netherlands for his theatre productions and for his engagement with (especially young) refugees. The organisation that he founded ‘New Dutch Connections’ works and engages in different ways for the integration of migrants into Dutch Society. In 2015 the foundation got the Royal award ‘Appeltje van Oranje’, an award of the Oranje Fonds, a foundation in the area of social welfare.
About the presentation:
Bright Richards informed us that the foundation tries to create a community with young refugees to get personal value and dignity again. They use interaction to re-discover who you are. The young refugees need caring and empowering which will help with their personal branding. The refugee image and label is not who they are as a person. Volunteers and companies help the foundation.
Bright showed us a movie telling and showing us what they do. One of the projects was at IT company Accenture. They help the young refugees with training and the refugees learn who they are, what they can do and who can help you to achieve your goal. New Dutch Connection connects to companies and approaches them.
Bright hopes that we as a Club and us as individuals with our network are able to get to know each other and help the foundation. Elisabeth will soon be in touch with him about possibilities and thoughts and Bright will think about what they do need and what we could do for them.
Date: 16 May 2017
Wilma Gillis – ‘Benefits for kids’, a mentoring programme for children and youth in Rotterdam.
About the speaker:
Wilma Gillis originally comes from Suriname. She did her studies in law at Leiden University and followed studies in public and business management. She worked and works in different functions as a manager, commissioner and advisor in governmental and business field. She is a part-time director and board member of the foundation ‘Benefits for Kids’ since the start in 2001.
About the presentation:
Wilma gave a presentation about the work of ‘Benefits for kids’, a mentoring programme for children and youth in Rotterdam.
Date: 2 May 2017
Stefan Urioc – Sharing a cross-cultural experience: perspectives on water and the society of tomorrow.
About the speaker: Stefan Urioc is a water and wastewater engineer by education, having completed his studies in Romania and the U.K. Stefan lived and worked in the UK and in Ireland before he moved to the Netherlands in 2016. He is a member of the Rotary Club International Utrecht since March 2017.
About the presentation: Stefan gave a presentation on his professional specialism in water and water management. He focused on the role of water in society and provided an overview of how people sees access to water as a right and its value. A central topic was the water-energy-food nexus, a theme linked to conflict in some areas of the world, but also an opportunity for interdisciplinary innovative research implementation. Some of the themes of the presentation were based on current research that Stefan is involved in, such as looking at the impact of research on civilization and the potential for water to become a central theme to further societal development. Access to water and the changes in water industry is also for Rotary one of the central realms of interest and engagement.
Date: 18 April 2017
Carlos Serratos – A portrait of digital transformation: how will it affect the European Citizen by 2020
About the speaker: Carlos Serratos was born in Mexico but have lived almost half of his life in Europe. He has both bachelor and master degrees in technology. Most of his professional career he has worked worked for Japanese companies in projects around the world. One year ago he joined a leading Dutch company in the area of Applied Cryptography for applications around managing and securing digital identities. Currently he is involved in supporting the digital transformation for sectors like health, finance and public services.
About the presentation: Presenting to government officials Carlos Serratos realized that there was a gap in the communication: Industry (technology) and lawmakers were moving at two very different speeds. The purpose of the presentation was to give a picture of how the digital transformation will affect the life of the European Citizens by 2020. Why it is necessary to close the gap between legislation and technology.
Date: 4 April 2017
Announcement
The biggest announcement this evening was the news that our global grant was approved! Great work done by the committee, especially Gerhard who has done a lot of work. Please check Slack for more information and updates.
Qing Wang – about the refugee crisis in Syria.
A subject which is very much into our news these days. Qing is a Chinese media professional working for Radio NL Worldwide.
The Asian activity and involvement in the crisis of refugees is small. Why is that? First the speaker told us more about the Middle East and the crisis itself, then we were told more about her personal story about how she got to be involved with the aid to refugees and lastly Qing gave us a personal reflection on human aid.
Asian countries like Japan donate a lot of money but are often not on the site itself in person. The Chinese are primarily focuse on building / infrastructures and not much with other types of aid. European involvement is expected to change now that we have had the elections and Brexit is coming. China has little experience with refugees so for the Chinese is it hard to respond to all the issues that arise.
A very interesting and personal story indeed, about something that is very much in the news and happening in the world these days.
Date: 21 March 2017
Pieter Schut – Visit by our Governor for district 1570 Midden-Nederland.
Prior to the ordinary meeting Governor Pieter Schut met with the Board and we had an open and frank discussion of challenges and opportunities for our club.
During the ordinary meeting Governor Pieter Schut gave a very interesting, interactive presention on past activities in the district and future objectives.
In addition we welcomed the newest member of our club, Stefan Urioc from Romania.
Date: 7 March 2017
Yvo Meihuizen – A building – what is it going to tell me?
About the speaker: Yvo Meihuizen is a building engineer. He worked for many years as an officer of the municipality of Amsterdam, department housing, heritage care and city planning. Additionally he has been a lecturer at the Dutch Academy for Public Administration. Nowadays he is active as a free-lance lecturer and author of different books.
About the presentation: The speaker made intersting connections between architecture, city planning and developments in Western societies. He showed examples of the influence of social political changes on the environment. A comparison with examples from history, architecture and city building showed that not all of it are new developments.
Date: 21 February 2017
Wahid Saleh – The journey of my life
About the speaker: Wahid Saleh is a well known personality in the Indian Community in the Netherlands since he came to the Netherlands in 1968. He plays an integral role in helping Indians to settle down into the Dutch way of life. He is a member of the Netherlands India Association NIA and a founding member of the Europe India Chamber of Commerce, Brussels.
About the presentation: Wahid Saleh gave an insight into his life and contribution to the Indian Community in India and in Europe. The initiatives that he built up, supported and mentored where mostly directed to structures like foundations or associations to give them a sustainable impact on a larger scale.
Date: 7 February 2017
Martha Mghendi-Fisher – The fascinating world of Payments.
Martha mentioned the projects she is involved with, like Women in Payment Network, Beyond Innocence Foundation, Wadiwa Education Fund etc. She is a certified accountant and administrator and now works for an acquiring bank as a director of scheme compliance.
She talked about what happens when you use your card. A lot of things happen! Not only different bank parties are involved but also provider parties. A lot of parameters and data elements are involved when you buy something. Your bank does know a lot about you and are able to decline and approve transactions and stores themselves have much data and know a lot about their client because of omni channel marketing strategies.
Martha talked about the different kind of cards you can use and that there are different types of payment. Cash is still dominant. But cash will disappear in the future since we are using it less and less and it’s safer to not use cash. Our paying systems we use in Europe are more developed that in the US.
In the banking business there is a lot of fraud. The chances your card number is known is huge! People use apps like the Apple Pay app. This is a safer way of paying since you are not using your own card and card number but you’re just a random number. Even Facebook now has a paying-method!
Date: 24 January 2017
Gerhard Blab – Nonomaterials: Should we be a little afraid of them?
First of all Gerhard mentioned risks and how people can perceive risks: perception (what one person finds risky is not for another) and assessment (measurable and objective). Tools for this are getting better.
Gerhard mentioned asbestos: a nano-material particle of this can come into the lungs and will never get out of there. You’ll die because of this. But what are nanomaterials? They are materials smaller than 100 nm. The factor is less than 1000th of hair thickness.
Nanomaterials can change into non-nano: it can dissolve, it can clump together and therefor get bigger etc.
What is the good about nanomaterials? Well, Gerhard explained: they are pretty and they are useful! Gerhard showed us a few picture of beautiful opals, peacock feathers, structures in plants etc. They are all because of nano-size particles. Nowadays nano sized particles are used in technology like chip-making. So they are pretty and useful but how come they can also be dangerous?
This has a more scientific reason: chemical reactions speed up if the surface area gets bigger. This happens when the size is smaller. That’s why nanomaterials can be dangerous.
Thank you Gerhard, for your interesting and informative speech.
Date: 10 January 2017
Welcome back!
Our first meeting in this new Year. We had an informal meeting and a good dinner from Coffeemania. The group was small and we didn’t have an official program today.
Date: 13 December 2016
Christmas dinner
It was a fantastic Christmas Dinnner with some exquisite wines and a quiz during the desert. Unfortunately we also had to say good buy to Peter who attended his last meeting. We wish you all the best.
Date: 29 November 2016
How data fication transforms society by Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Big data promise to render public administration more efficient and cost-effective. But what happens when everyday life is translated into data? This talk presents examples from three years of field research in the public management in the Netherlands. It argues that data literacy will be essential for an informed electorate.
About the speaker: Mirko is assistant professor at Utrecht University, faculty of Humanities.
His research interest revolves around the socio – political impact of media technology. He is co-founder and the project lead of the Utrecht Data School.
Date: 15 November 2016
Smart Cities; a step towards a smarter, innovative and sustainable world by Ingeborg Koning
Ingeborg Koning shared her knowledge and experience about smart cities with the group. Smart cities affect us all, especially the next generations. Maybe we can inspire each other by sharing ideas and getting more involved in our cities and our future. After all; the cities are ours.
As a business consultant Ingeborg has seen a lot of different organizations struggling with implementing good ideas. She has been a member of the jury for the smart city contest of the Netherlands 2015 and 2016.
Date: 1 November 2016
Brainstorm and ideas generator workshop by Sonia and Elisabeth.
Purpose of the workshop:
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To generate, plan, realize two fundraising activities for our international project “ a shelter home for children’ in Kenya.
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Ambition is 3.000 euro.
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Deadline December 20th 2016.
The club chose and worked out two activities.
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Whiskey-/wine tasting evening ca. Dec. 10th (target 500 euro’s)
· Price per person ca 40 euro. Costs max 15. Revenue 25 euro. -
Fundraising-letters to companies (target 2.500 euros)
· Target companies/organizations: Sustainability-driven, Water-companies, financial institutions, Kenyan organizations in NL. Any amount of money is welcome (10 up to 200-500 euro’s).
Date: 18 October 2016
Cybercrime – The modern day risks of being online
Our speaker today was Steven Ryder, theme: Cybercrime and other fun frauds… The modern day risks of being online. Since everyone is online and privacy is an issue nowadays we were all interested. Steven spent 6 years in public defence in the United Kingdom, attending thousands of interrogations, he moved on and joined the European Union’s efforts in combatting organized and cross-border crime, first from a judicial and then from a police level. He has been active in the setting up of the European Cybercrime Centre from a legal side, and is now educating companies and individuals on the risk of cybercrime to them and their companies, testing them and their responses, as well as providing trainings.
Date: 4 October
Utrecht – our city.
Our guest today was our member Sonia spoke enthusiastically about the city Utrecht, the 4th biggest city of the Netherlands! Sonia works at the department of Cultural Affairs of the Municipality of Utrecht. Her presentation was informative but also tested our knowledge.
Date: 6 September
Welcome from our new president Steen
Welcome to the First Meeting of this Rotary Year! We had fun at the social time and we had a lovely meal of mussels and other lovely small dishes aside. A post-card was passed on: one of our members had a baby! Our new Club president Steen took the opportunity this first meeting to tell us more about the plans for this year and guidelines. The board has had a meeting recently. We’re a social Club but for the Club to run and expand we need everyone to be involved. As a Club with many stories and cultures we should exploit our differences and use each others knowledge. We now have the Global Grand project going which is progressing.