Orange Sessions

Van Leur studied at the Wageningen UR Soil, Water and Atmosphere. In addition to her work for television, she writes articles and columns about her knowledge and experiences and gives lectures about weather, climate and sustainability.

She has gained some special experiences, including camping on the (melting) ice sheet of Greenland, multi-accents with the World Solar Challenge in Australia (cars powered by solar energy), researching the primal forces of Iceland, hunting tornadoes in America and sailing with the largest Dutch scientific expedition ever around Spitsbergen.

Tessie Hartjes is board member of the Dutch start-up Lightyear. Lightyear aims to enable sustainable affordable mobility anywhere in the world. They do this by developing a commercial solar car. The first model, the Lightyear One is produced in Helmond (NL, Automotive Campus) and will be presented in 2019.

Tessie is also co-founder of Team Blue Jay Eindhoven, a student team of the Technical University in Eindhoven. The team has developed an interactive, autonomous indoor drone that can support those in need in their daily lives. The unique project has attracted worldwide media attention and was shown on Discovery Channel in Canada and RTL2 in Germany.

Thomas Rau is an entrepreneur, architect, innovator, inspirator and visionary. His motto is 'guided by the future'. He is guided in all his actions by what is needed in the future and not by what is currently feasible.

For years, Rau has been making a major contribution to the national and international debate on sustainability, the use of renewable energy sources in architecture and the question of how to act in the light of the current scarcity of raw materials. He also adds actions to his words; together with his architectural firm RAU, he has set up various innovations and new standards in the field of CO2-neutral, energy-neutral and energy-positive building, and recently also for circular architecture.

Thomas Rau mentions the tasks of tomorrow and with his enthusiasm, energy and humor he knows how to convince his audience and clients of the drastic steps that are needed to make the transition from sustainability to viability.

Rau shows that the energy problem is essentially soluble. Enough renewable energy, it is a matter of the right attitude. The rapidly growing scarcity of raw materials is much more pressing. As an entrepreneur, he sees this as not a threat but a challenge. Because waste of raw materials is a global phenomenon, he wants to continue working at the building level and has focused on closing raw material cycles.

Emmy is an international strategist with a passion for urban design excellence in the era of climate change. At Benthem Crouwel Architects she translates their mission to enhance urban quality, into tangible partnerships and projects. Benthem Crouwel is best known for planning and designing all five major transit hubs in the Netherlands, including the first airport city Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and the four largest multimodal stations. Recently, they delivered seven subway stations on the new Amsterdam North/South line fully integrated with housing, commerce, and the UNESCO heritage. They designed the first energy neutral station in Delft. Before joining Benthem Crouwel as Head of Business Strategy, Emmy lived and worked in Canada, Toronto serving the Dutch diplomatic corps. As deputy consul general, Emmy fostered public-private partnerships and knowledge sharing on the intersection of city planning, climate change, resilience, and design excellence. She worked at the Netherlands ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Embassy in New Delhi. She holds a degree in international and European law.