Story

Dr Melanie Rieback (46), co-founder and CEO of Radically Open Security, is known for her unique approach in cybersecurity. At the Open Source Leadership Summit on 13 December, she will share her views on non-profit entrepreneurship, transparency and the power of open source. Her life path proves that bold choices can lead to a whole new movement.

Read the SURF Story with Bob van Luijt, CEO of Weaviate, a rapidly growing and successful database company where - through an open source cloud platform - the focus is on developing AI-native applications.

How to create a believable virtual human? That’s the research focus of Zerrin Yumak, assistant professor at Utrecht University and director of the Motion Capture and Virtual Reality Lab. Zerrin is a keynote speaker at the XR Day on 3 July.

"I can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in language," says linguist Antal van den Bosch. "It is an instrument with wondrous properties. When I learnt a new language in high school, it gave me a kind of key to another world." Nowadays, he finds the magic in artificial intelligence.

Tenders tedious? Not for Monique Pellinkhof. She is senior procurement manager at GÉANT, the European association of research and education networks (NRENs). Currently, Pellinkhof is extremely busy with OCRE2024, the European tender for cloud services. "The international collaboration is hugely rewarding," she says.

As a new member of the Scientific Technical Council (WTR), Ana Varbanescu looks back on her move from Romania to the Netherlands. Now fully settled in, Ana works diligently to create a better world for future generations.

Professor of transition management Derk Loorbach is the authority on transitions, such as digitalisation in education.

How do you get an entire chain or region to become more sustainable? And what role can technology play in this? Tackling big challenges like these energises Jacqueline Cramer, professor of Sustainable Innovation at Utrecht University. "I see so much innovation, that gives me hope."