What do you want to achieve with the title Engineer of the Year?

Besides the fact that the title Engineer of the Year would be an insane honour for me as a person, I would also like to use this opportunity to further help and inspire others. My answer to the question of what I want to achieve with this title is twofold. On the one hand, I want to show younger tech enthusiasts, from primary school to the first years of higher education, how much fun engineering is. This can be done partly by showing that engineering does not always have to be difficult and complicated. I myself have always believed that even the most difficult subjects are often easy to explain. By this simplicity, you keep technology accessible and you can feed interest in it. For example, I always notice a very positive reaction when I start my lecture on robotics with that a robot is actually nothing more than a moving electric motor with a stick. On the other hand, I love getting into in-depth conversations and discussions with other engineers so that both parties learn from them. Through the title 'Engineer of the Year', I hope to interact with other specialists in their fields so that we can challenge each other to take the field even further. By linking these two sides of the engineering world, I want to both inspire new engineers and excite the establishment.

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How would you interpret KIVI's mission statement 'Engineer your Career - Improve our Society'?

KIVI has a very beautiful and comprehensive vision with its mission 'Engineer your Career - Improve our Society'. Using engineering to advance our society is a mission I can fully support. Over the last few years, I have also tried to contribute to this from our family business. First of all, I have been working on the electrification of the Netherlands for a long time. For this, I am working with the AE Group on various projects, ranging from batteries to robotics. I have also been working on the AE-WaveHexapod for several years. The WHP is an innovation to extract sustainable energy from waves. Secondly, I really enjoy being involved in the education of upcoming engineers. Besides enjoying lecturing, I am also much involved in supervising PhD, PostDoc and other graduation projects and research. On top of this, I supervise a number of student teams such as the Solarteam in Delft and the Superbike team in Twente. For me, the best thing about the technical world is when theory and practice come together. My entrepreneurial attitude has made it possible that a lot of electromechanical theory has now become reality.