Good evening everybody.
I am Jan-jaap Aue, Dean of the Centre of Expertise Energy at Hanze University of Applied Sciences and host of this diner. I would like to welcome all of you, especially the Members of Parliament Lambert van Nistelrooij and Brando Benifei.
Also a special welcome to our students, who will be hosting the discussion at each table. Students from our master programmes on the Energy Transition, programmes we offer in close collaboration with the EUREC association for European renewable energy
research centers. In our programmes we host 18 different nationalities, much needed for a border crossing issue like the Energy Transition. Besides our students, we also have a colleague from the Energy College, giving vocational training, hosting one table.
Our students will lead each table in a discussion on future
leadership in the EU. Leadership needed to develop the EU into a guiding place regarding sustainable prosperity, based on the values of future generations. A Europe where the innovative potential is well used, where sustainable quality of life is ensured, where individuals ar challenged to develop themselves. Leadership that these young people need in THEIR Europe of tomorrow, because the future is theirs.
The moto of our university is ‘ Share your talent, move the world’ . That’s exactly what we plan to do tonight during this diner debate. And I would like to challenge you to share your thoughts and
talents regarding future leadership as well.
commissioner Moedas (amongst others) gave an inspiring speech on innovation in Europe. He made two statements on which I would like to elaborate a bit.
First of all he stated that getting out of our comfort zone is an
important boundary condition for innovation. And I can ensure you, our students really feel out of there comfort zone at this moment. And that is what we do at the the EnTrance facility at Hanze
university of applied sciences. EnTranCe, the Energy Transition
Center, is an open innovation facility where we work with students, companies and government on enabling the energy transition by creating flexibility along the value chain. It is the fieldlab of the Energy Academy Europe initiative in our hometown Groningen. In order to be able to do co-creation, all parties involved have to share, getting them out of their comfort zone. In this way we succeed in speeding up the process of innovation by involving all parties on the energy value chain.
Secondly commissioner Moedas stated that one of the blocking issues in innovation within Europe , is the fact that we have very fragmented discussions on integrated issues.
Stakeholders often oppose each other in stead of joining forces in creating new solutions. At EnTranCe, we developed an open stage were we host these kind of discussions. Where we organise the collision between bottom up and top down processes, where
energy cooperation’s by citizens (People in Power) oppose the large centralized energy companies. Where Renewable meets Fossile. Where new solutions get into the spotlight and can be launched. EnTrance came to life in a very short period of time, less than theer years. It has been a bottom up process from the start, where top down support has been realized on the fly. To me , this has been
the key element in this successful development.
And for this, we need people with special qualities. People who can guide us to the process of transition, transition not only on energy, but also on other societal challenges like healthcare etc. We do this by making young talented students part or even co-owner of the innovation process. Just as we do with company partners.
As a University of Applied Sciences, we see it as out task to educate and challenge young talented people in taking up these issues, starting as young professionals. Our three strongpoint Healthy Ageing, Energy Transition and Entrepreneurship combined, enable us to help young people becoming our much needed future
workforce. Cocreation, working in partnerships, understanding digitalization and having top notch knowledge and skills on the subject are of importance.
In 5 years time we hope to be part of a European network of EnTranCes, where we can work on border crossing innovation on the much needed energy transition. We will have enabled several communities in getting CO2 Neutral, as guiding examples for the rest of Europe. We will have inspired 1500 students to share their talents to the innovation needed for the energy transition and I’m asking you: are you prepared to share your talents with us ?
