A recap of the Lustrum Alumni Days 2026

+300 alumni returned to Drienerlo on 8 and 9 May for a programme built around the UT's four impact domains: health, digitalisation, sustainability, And engineering— with entrepreneurship and collaboration woven through everything.

The sessions, tours and demos ran in parallel — two or three at a time — so every attendee built their own weekend. The result, alumni told the organisers, was almost overwhelming. "We didn't know how to choose — we wanted to see them all."

The main venue was the UPark Hotel, once the EL/TN building — home to Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics. In the hotel  several of the original machines and instruments were even on display. Throughout the weekend, alumni could be found standing in front of the glass cases, nudging each other, trading stories.

Alumna Applied Physics and now Associate Professor at TU Delft, Liedewij Laan, captured it simply on LinkedIn: "Ik vond het heel leuk weer terug te zijn in 'EL/TN'."

On Saturday morning, a guided tour with the hotel director Sylvester Ponsen also took a group of participants for a walk from the roof to the basement  — to see what had changed, and what had stayed.

Friday's inspiration sessions were richly diverse. Twan Korthorst shared the stage with fellow alumni Maryam Dodangeh and Leontien Kalverda: three people, one campus, one story about chip technology, each at a different chapter. Jorg Wellink pitched again at Incubase — this time not as a student founder but as an alumnus — and reflected on LinkedIn: "Funny how some places never really leave you. They just become part of the story." Steven van Roon brought the journey of Mission I.AM. back to the people who studied in the same labs. Kisanet Haile Molla traced her path from the UT campus to the World Bank — where she now shapes infrastructure policy across multiple continents as a Transport Modeler.

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Photo: Marc Linares

Among the Friday sessions, Martijn Hoogesteger  drew some of the strongest feedback of the entire weekend. Now CTO at S-RM and known to many as a Digital Investigator from Hunted NL, he took the audience behind the scenes of a real cyberattack . The room was packed, the questions came fast, and the session ran right up to the last minute.

Closing the Friday evening programme, Femke Nijboer held nearly 200 people in the palm of her hand — a session that mixed humour and sharp thinking in a way that left the room buzzing long after it ended. The barbecue on the terrace that followed did the rest: warm evening, good company, and conversations that didn't want to stop.

Saturday carried its own energy — from awarded research to AI, sustainability, quantum photonics, and the role of STEM profiles in policy. One session stood out for the way it brought generations together in the room itself. Hosted by the Young Alumni Network Twente and welcomed by Koen Hasperhoven, it featured  Kevin Klein Gunnewiek moderating a sharp conversation with two fellow alumni: the same Liedewij Laan who earlier that morning had rediscovered her old building, and Miriam Luizink — scientist and a policy professional, each with a sharp vision on the role of science in governance and society. In a full room of around 80 alumni, sharp statements and recognisable examples quickly sparked a lively discussion, full of questions, reactions and recognition. The central theme: how crucial good stakeholder management is, and how bringing all perspectives together leads to better solutions. It was, in many ways, the afternoon in miniature — different generations, one shared language.

Do you remember the Bata-race?

The link to the Batavierenrace wasn't part of the original plan — it was born out of necessity. When the UT Alumni Office set out to find a spring date for the Lustrum Alumni Days, hoping for good weather, every option in May and June was already taken. The Batavierenrace weekend was the last one standing. "And then it quickly became obvious: this is actually the most iconic date we could have chosen," says project leader Magali Coello. The Twente and Nijmegen alumni offices had already been exploring the idea of co-organising drinks at both ends of the legendary relay route — but it was the prospect of the campus atmosphere that sealed it. The UT during Bata weekend is unlike anything else: electric, nostalgic, alive. And almost every UT alumnus, no matter what generation, has their own memory of it. What started as a scheduling constraint became the heart of the concept.