A 4TU.Alumni event organized by the University of Twente together with TU Delft, TU Eindhoven and Wageningen University & Research was hosted by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Berlin on Thursday 14 November 2024 with a packed room of local graduates.
Nearly 90 alumni of the four Dutch technical universities participated in the annual gathering in Berlin. With a theme ‘Local alumni, global impact’, the event attracted an eclectic audience from a range of studies and graduation years who enjoyed opening words by the Dutch Ambassador, two alumni speakers talking about their careers, and networking afterwards during the closing ‘borrel’ drinks.
The Ambassador of the Netherlands in Germany, Hester Somsen, opened the event hosted for the third time by the embassy in Berlin, highlighting the close ties between the two countries not only in areas like trade, defence and agriculture but also in education, science and innovation. She mentioned that in fact Germany is the third country Dutch researchers share scientific publications with, right after the UK and the USA.
In her first alumni event since being appointed as ambassador, Ms. Somsen also stressed the close connections between the four Dutch technical universities and German counterparts as well as with prestigious research organizations like Fraunhofer and Helmholtz. According to her over 9.000 local 4TU alumni in the country with their, “experiences in the Netherlands .. and connections” represent a highly interesting network – part of the ‘cement’ particularly during turbulent times for strengthening the relationship with Germany.
Local alumni, global impact!
Referring to the event speakers the ambassador said that, “successful graduates like these as well as many others serve as a powerful testimony of the global impact of Dutch education and research”. The speakers, WUR alumna Viktoriia Radchuk (Senior Scientist, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife) and TUD alumnus Sander Troost (Associate Partner, GMP Architects) shared stories about career paths, current work while also reflecting on their ‘TU’ education experiences.
Viktoriia Radchuk in her talk traced a journey spanning the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Germany. She obtained her WUR MSc in Environmental Sciences and while a student had a first experience working with butterflies which led to a PhD at Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. Her PhD thesis focused on population viability of two butterfly species under climate change.
In her current role as a senior scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Viktoriia continues working to understand how animals respond to climate change. She brought up an example of birds who due to global warming are laying eggs earlier since their food resource – insects – are also starting to appear earlier in the year. Through a review of published literature her team found that across vertebrate species on average responses are advancing. “This is good news for biology”, she said but added that, “this advancement is not fast enough in order to ensure a long-term population persistence.”
Sander Troost kicked off his talk with a picture of a football pitch from his childhood village in Zeeland which he and friends had designed! After graduating from TUD’s Faculty of Architecture he developed a passion for sport architecture. What makes stadiums so special? In Sander’s words, “Stadiums transfer people. You put 10.000, 40.000, 90.000 people in a space … airports, train stations may have the same amount of people coming in but here emotion transfers people into one big crowd. That’s very inspiring and that’s what we can guide as architects …. to enhance emotions. To make them stronger. To trigger them as well. And of course, to also make sure that people are there in a safe way”.
As an Associate Partner of the Berlin based GMP Architects, Sander’s current projects include the redesign and renovation of Real Madrid’s stadium Santiago Bernabeu, a new roof for the 1976 Olympic stadium in Montreal and a stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the 2034 World Cup. What impresses him with these projects is that you already work in big teams, then go to construction and that number explodes to three or four thousand people who are using your design, your engineering and building what was started with just a piece of paper.
After the talks two speakers from last year’s event Gigi Laan (Tesla) and Andrew Shamu (NeoCarbon) joined the stage for a short interview to catch up with their interesting jobs in electric vehicle manufacturing and carbon capture.
300,000 4TU.Alumni worldwide!
During the programme Maarten van Schaik, WUR Team Lead Alumni Relations also presented facts about the alumni footprint of the four Dutch technical universities that with over 300,000 graduates combined would represent the 5th largest city in the Netherlands!
Maarten mentioned that the biggest concentration of ‘4TU’ alumni outside of the Netherlands can be found in Germany with over 9.000 people and the largest clusters can be found in Berlin (1.500) and Munich (1.500). He encouraged participants to leverage their local networks while also remaining active with their alma maters in roles ranging from mentors, guest speakers, local volunteers and donors.
Joe Laufer, alumni officer from Twente, added that the 4TU.Alumni network now celebrating it’s 10th year anniversary of activities was a unique phenomena among universities. He also thanked alumni for their role in making the 4TU.Alumni communities a success not only in Germany but also in other places around the world like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Nordics, Spain, Switzerland and the USA.
Anouk Dijkstal from TUD alumni relations concluded the event by expressing gratitude to the alumni who took part in the programme: Viktoriia Radchuk, Sander Troost, Gigi Laan & Andrew Shamu, as well as to Ambassador Hester Somsen for being the gathering host, to the Embassy’s Science & Education Counsellor Ellen Ipenburg-Tomesen who provide invaluable backend support and to everyone else involved from the local staff.
Anouk Dijkstal, TU Delft alumni relations closed the event by thanking everyone who contributed to this event. She once again emphasized the importance of volunteer work for both supporting the 4TU.Alumni Network and giving back to the universities in the field of education, research or valorization. (for more details about volunteer opportunities click here)
