From 2019 until 2022 at The Netherlands Red Cross my team and I have been developing the 121 Platform: a digital platform to make cash-based humanitarian aid programs easier, safer and faster. This post is a cross-post of the article “Cash assistance: restoring choice and dignity” written by Dirk Segaar, Director of International Assistance at […]
Can the Scrum Framework be effectively used to develop and deliver on a multitude of projects, with a larger team of 15+ people? In other words: can the adoption of Scrum alleviate some of the typical planning, collaboration and delivery issues encountered with organizations taking on complex challenges from multiple clients? To answer this question, […]
From 2019 until 2022 at The Netherlands Red Cross my team and I have been developing the 121 Platform: a digital platform to make cash-based humanitarian aid programs easier, safer and faster. This post is a cross-post of the Case Study “Next Level Integration with Financial Service Providers in Kenya and the Netherlands” which appeared […]
Relax, I am not talking about a new strain of the Corona virus. And if you are suffering from Bilateritis, you will probably survive. Maybe not even get sick. And it is definitely not your fault. Bilateritis is an ‘organizational culture disease’ that I see occurring at many of my clients, especially in smaller organizations […]
What is your Strategic Vision? What are the Strategic Goals? What is in the Strategic Plan? “Strategic” seems to be word to use to indicate that we are talking about The Most Important Thing for an organization. And when asking for specifics, nobody seems to know exactly what it means. When I was studying Business […]
This post could also be titled: How to avoid unnecessary risk. I encounter it with entrepreneurs more often than not: the willingness to take a leap of faith over doing the necessary ground work, or being reckless in the name of their “risk-taking confident” self-image. Eric Ries calls it “waste” in his Lean Start-up approach. […]
“You have to specialize in one thing!”, for years I have been hearing this from (mostly) ‘more experienced’ people. And I always struggled with it. I have many talents and interests. I do not have that intuitive feeling that I want to dedicate my energy on one thing only for the rest of my career. […]
Yes, there is! Is it a more convenient life? Well, no. Was it easy to get there? Hell no. More secure? Probably not. More privacy? Maybe. Feel Like a Boss? Oh, yeah! After years of wanting, thinking and hesitating: I am free of Google’s surveillance program. Maybe you can be too! In case you are […]
TLDR; Digital Social Innovation is innovation that is social in its purpose and digital in its solution. In other words: it makes the world a little bit – or a lot – better and ‘does something with computers’ to make it so. When people ask me: “What kind of work do you do?” I like […]
To make your social innovation succeed, you need to get these right: Value Viability Impact Scalability Feasibility The catch: I believe you need to figure them all out pretty much at the same time. If you leave one or more out, thinking: “I will figure that out later.”, you are probably heading for trouble. And […]
Are you a Social Entrepreneur or working on innovation at an NGO or Social Enterprise/Start-up? Then you know how important it is to get to ‘financial sustainability’, to make your initiative long-lasting, to go beyond grants and pilots and scale up. For you I created the Social Business Model Calculator! This Calculator lets you easily […]
A little while back one of my clients asked me to help them create a “solid project plan” for their innovative project. My simple answer: Don’t! Creating a “solid project plan” or any type of lengthy “plan” document will set you up for failure. It goes like this: you have had a brilliant idea for […]
What is the formula for successful digital innovation? How do we make sure that it delivers value, is (financially) sustainable, can scale up and has impact? And what exactly is ‘digital innovation’ anyway? To start with the last: I see digital innovation as developing a radically innovative solution that has a digital component for a […]
Do you want to work on stuff that matters? Since 2010 a group of people in Wellington, New Zealand have been organizing themselves to do just that. Now you can read how they did it!
This article originally appeared on thespindle.org about my presentation and workshop on Technology Trends, Open Source and Open Design for Humanitarian NGOs and other organizations: On November 27th 2018, The Spindle, in collaboration with HumanityX, organised a Future Session about global technological developments and open innovation & open design. Participants to this meeting came from various organisations, sectors, […]
Once we have come to realize that the Silicon Valley model of startup-based innovation is not for the betterment of people and planet, but is a hyper-accelerated version of the existing growth-based capitalist Operating System increasing inequality, destroying nature and benefiting the 1%, the question arises: is there an alternative?
Since June 2018 the state of Kerala in India has endured massive floodings, as you may have read in the news. This article contains a brief summary what the international Fab Lab Community has been doing until now (early September 2018) to help the people recovering.
Once upon a time hippies where roaming the world. They were a happy bunch, living in freedom and spiritual abundance. A small group of them lived in a place called California, or to be more specific, an area that had the appearance of a lush valley. In that valley life was good. A new kind […]
In short: yes, you should! If you are a regular user and can afford it. For the longer version: read on. In this article I will explain donating is not just “the right thing to do”, but also a practical way of supporting Open Source Software (OSS). I will show you a fair and pragmatic […]
Doughnut Economics is one of the best books I have read in the past few years. I believe it should be standard reading for any economics student and fills in a big gap in “normal” economics theory. Kate Raworth excellently points out how and why the traditional models and theories do not work (anymore) and […]
From time to time I come across news articles about Governmental bodies in Europe adopting the use of Open Source Software. This seems to be a slowly increasing trend. But if European Governments make software for themselves, or are having it made for them, do they publish that software as Open Source?
In short: wipe Mac OS and install Elementary OS. In some more words: read on. If you are thinking: “I am feeling happy using my MacBook, what is he talking about?”, then open your calendar and make an entry for in 2 years to come back to this post. See you then! Yes, in time […]
How are we going to feed 9+ billion people by 2050? Last week this question was at the heart of the Thought For Food Summit in Amsterdam and I had the honour and pleasure to be giving a Clinic on Opening Business Models and being invited to co-judge on the special Open Business Model Prize […]
In the past months I have started to explore and getting myself involved in Humanitarian Aid organizations (NGOs), from an innovation perspective. What I find striking is how many times I read and hear about the goal to “End Poverty”. Besides the problematic term ‘poor’, which can mean to have no money for a prolonged […]
Do you want to get rid of privacy-invading centralized Silicon Valley Cloud services like Dropbox, Google Calendar and Google Documents? Me too! However, that is easier said than done.
Last week I had the privilege and pleasure to do a talk at the Open Source Software and Hardware Congres (OSSH Event) in Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Since I got some positive reactions on this talk, I decided to write this Blog Post about it, containing the main points. The organization asked me to talk […]
I met Jesús Pérez, a friend of my wife, while on vacation on Tenerife. He invited to guide us on a trip on the island, driving up the 3000+ meters tall volcano El Teide. While enjoying the amazing Mars-like views up the mountains, we got talking about the things that really interest us.
CWI, the Research Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, did a whole day of lectures on Quantum Computing and I was fortunate to be able to attend these lectures. This post contains some notions I picked up during the day, mainly from the practical applications and impact perspective, as these topics are most […]
Over the past years I have been using various models, methods and frameworks while developing innovative products and services with clients, for our own initiatives and as mentor or participator at hackathons. These have become like a ‘toolbox’ that I always have with me and can use whenever necessary. This post gives an overview of […]
Recently we applied for UNICEF’s Wearables for Good Challenge and I read some interesting pieces on NGOs and innovation. Since these gave me the impression that NGOs could benefit more from innovation and new technologies, I decided to offer my expertise and part of my time to help NGOs innovate, or at least to assist […]
By: Diderik van Wingerden and Mirjam Bekker While we are developing our own Open Products we also always keep an eye out for cool Open Products that are out there. And once in a while we like to get our hands on one of these products, test it and learn what we can. A few […]
What happened in a year of “free and open technology”? This post highlights the main “open” tech and digital moments in 2014 for you. This top-10 is the “open” alternative specifically to The Guardian’s “Top 10 tech and digital moments in 2014”, as well as to countless other 2014 top tech lists.
Being one of the partner organizations of the “Open Data Estafette” conference on Renewable Energy, my client Enexis together with Grid Operator Liander had the idea of organizing a hackathon on the subject. Meaning: going beyond the talks of the conference (mainly public servants) and towards creating innovative solutions with open data. For this idea […]
It is not hard to see that many things have fundamentally gone wrong in our world. Just think of how rapidly we are: destroying nature, depleting natural resources and using nonrenewable fossil fuels. Furthermore, so many of us are living in complete and increasing poverty, war, sickness and just utter misery, while so many others […]
Having witnessed the first Rockstart Smart Energy Accelerator Demo Day in Amsterdam, I can conclude only one thing. Are these guys (yes, not a single girl, how unfortunate) rock stars? Well, their stage performance can lead me to only one conclusion: no way!
Free software is a requirement for a modern free society. At least, according to the theme at the LibrePlanet Conference this year in Boston. I attended this excellent conference and had a great time, meeting lots of great people, listening to interesting speakers and learning a lot about what free software is about, and why […]
Do you want your laptop to free? Well, ‘free’ as in ‘freedom’ that is. If you looking for ‘gratis’, then this is not the article you want to read (or is it…?). But if you are fed up like me with Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS with their increasing restrictions, Planned Obsolescence, selling your […]
Are you becoming more and more aware and concerned about your on-line privacy and related security of your digital data? I have… Of course due to the media attention to Snowden and related news, but also because of some very good documentaries on Tegenlicht and documentairenet.nl. “it just not seems feasible to really be in […]
This post contains some of my random thoughts about a subject that has been going through my mind for quite some time now. It is coming from my deep inner conviction of optimism about our future as humanity, when we shed ourselves from our limitations and live up to our full potential. It is about […]
Late last year I bought a new Apple MacBook Pro. An amazing device that I love to work with every day. The design, the feel of the keys, the clarity of the screen are simply great. Mac OS is pretty good as well (not as good as it was apparently, but that is another story). […]
In this post a crash course in business networking: 10 tips and tricks I have learned over many years and that still help me in every networking opportunity I get!
The idea: a really original business card that people would remember.
This post is in Dutch. You can use Google Translate to read it in English. *** Update van de initiatieven in Nederland dankzij David Demper van Snappcar.nl op 12 maart 2012.