Daring, having guts, pushing the boundaries, amazement and cooperation: these were the key words during the Opening of the Academic Year at the University of Twente. The University of Twente celebrated the start of the new academic year with a spectacular programme, which comprised contributions by Minister Jet Bussemaker and artist Daan Roosegaarde, award ceremonies, dance music and a theatre performance. The highlight of the day was the opening of the new Design Lab.
The festivities were kicked off by Victor van der Chijs, President of Executive Board of the University of Twente. When he visited the Technische Hogeschool Twente (Technical University of Applied Sciences), UT's predecessor, as a young boy, he already knew that something special was happening at the campus. Now, forty years later, the sense of amazement has stayed with him, explains Van der Chijs. "Amazement, surprising combinations and guts is what we need today, maybe even more than ever."
Van der Chijs roughly outlines the challenges faced by society today, for instance in the field of energy facilities and mobility. "The answers to the grand challenges are not found by researchers working on their own, but by multidisciplinary teams creating crossovers." And that's exactly what the UT's new Design Lab stands for. "UT's new Design Lab is an international work and meeting space where researchers, students, entrepreneurs, business developers, governments and artists together work towards creative out-of-the-box applications of new technologies."
Minister Jet Bussemaker
Jet Bussemaker, Minister of Education, Culture and Science was one of the special guests during the ceremony. Her story, entitled Pushing Boundaries, fitted closely with the ideas behind the new lab. "In our day and age we have to learn to look beyond the boundaries of our field of vision, in order to make surprising combinations possible." During her speech the Minister also spoke directly to the students. "We cannot predict your future, but we can prepare you for it. By sending you into the world with the right tool; an excellent education."
Where in the past technology was developed solely by technologists, it nowadays becomes increasingly important that people from wholly different disciplines learn to work together, in order to find answers to the questions of the future, explains Bussemaker. "We are confronted with complex problems that have multiple causes, which means that the solutions have to come from various directions as well. And all this while boundaries between countries, people and events are disappearing."
Award ceremonies
Traditionally several awards are presented during the opening of the academic year. The best graduates of the six UT faculties of the previous academic year received a certificate, a cheque and bouquet of flowers from the hands of Rector Magnificus Ed Brinksma.
Jurnan Schilder, the winner of the Central Education Award, was lauded next. Schilder may call himself the best teacher of the UT for a year. Lastly, Sophie van Baalen was presented with the TGS Research Honours PhD Award for Twente Promotion Top Talent by the Rector.
Daan Roosegaarde
Daan Roosegaarde was the second special guest during the ceremony. Earlier that day, the 'hippie with a business plan' had already given a well-visited lecture to first-year students and to part of the class of '64, the first group of students to attend the Technische Hogeschool Twente.
Roosegaarde's inspiring speech also centred around having guts, daring to think differently and taking the initiative. The artist, who closely works together with academia and the business sector, provided the listeners with several successful examples of what 'thinking differently' can lead to. For example, in Beijing, China, he is battling the smog together with scientists. The smog that he collected is not thrown away, however, as 'there's no such thing as waste'. The smog is pressed and processed into rings. Roosegaarde: "We have to be willing to make connections and seek new correlations. Creativity should be our main export product."
Sven Figee
The various contributions were given in between musical interludes by producer Sven Figee. Everyone could supply a piece of music or sound by means of Cut the Track. The contributed music and sounds were incorporated into a track. Figee showed how he merged all kinds of sounds, from musical contributions to sounds from the lab and the gym, together into a dance track. This track was performed live later on. A swinging finale with which Figee managed to get everyone, from student to professor, to bust a move.
