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"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."

Sarah Wilton-Wels has been chairman of the Executive Board of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences since September this year. The world of education took some getting used to after her career in finance, but now she feels like a fish in Rotterdam's water.

Farshida Zafar (45) has an impressive track record as an education innovator. She is director of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, where she works on entrepreneurship quality scans, effectiveness measurements of innovation programmes and educational courses around entrepreneurship. "In multidisciplinary teams, I am at my best," she says.

Aniel Ramawadh was the first in his family to go to university, thanks to an elementary school teacher who encouraged him to pursue vwo. Now he is a member of the executive board of Zadkine in Rotterdam. "I hope that with the help of digitization we can make education accessible to everyone," he says.