Time for change

On June 1st I will be handing over my position as managing director of AMS Institute to Zwanet Van Lubek , see post. Very exciting! Zwanet, together with Stephan van Dijk , Eveline Van Leeuwen and everyone at AMS Institute, will surely take AMS Institute to new strategic directions and societal impact.?

I have had the absolute privilege to be part of AMS Institute right from the start. I believe deeply in its purpose, its partnership model and its endless potential. However, after more than 11 years it is time to step back. I intend to return to 荷兰代尔夫特理工大学 after summer and be part of the wonderful Impact and Innovation Center.?

But first we will celebrate AMS Institute’s 10-year anniversary, on June 6th. To mark the occasion, we will share our insights after 10 years of institute building, in the forthcoming ‘AMS-Playbook’. Over the next few weeks, as we move towards that anniversary and the launch of the Playbook, I will be posting a few of my personal anecdotes of my wonderful years at AMS Institute. It will do no justice to so many contributions, so many perspectives, ... but I guess this is self-therapy… Here’s installment 1.

#1 - YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT IS AROUND THE CORNER…

Early 2013, I had my first appraisal as executive secretary at the amazing Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft . Dean Karin Laglas, wrapped it up by casually saying “you and me have been working together for a year now, but it would be nice to have a job we?really?do together”.?

Just a week later, vice mayor of Gemeente Amsterdam , Carolien Gehrels , dropped by. Her question: would TU Delft consider participating in a design competition for an institute of applied technology for Amsterdam? The title of the competition: Amsterdam Metropolitan Solutions or AMS. (Please note that the A in AMS Institute stands for Advanced and not Amsterdam. I will get back to that in a later installment). Our future friends at town hall, including Ger Baron , Lizann T. and Sjoerd Arlman , had already been working on this competition for well over a year. Having been inspired by Bloomberg and the NYC development on Roosevelt Island with Cornell Tech and Technion, they put together an incredible piece of policy and action.

After the visit the then president of TU Delft Dirk Jan van den Berg and Karin instructed me to draft a decision memo for the executive board. I sketched out a number of reasons for TU Delft to participate in the competition, ranging from big opportunities to the downside risks of not participating. It was a pretty rigorous memo. But most likely I could have saved myself some time for in hindsight I don’t think there was the slightest hesitation: Delft would indeed participate. And so the executive board tasked Karin with drafting the first plan and provided a little pocket money to help us do so. Time for change? I had no idea what was around the corner.

Next post: A first-round proposal with WUR and MIT