Joop Roodenburg welcomed 13 young engineers to him at the Buccaneer Delft 'tech campus' on 27 August for a very inspiring talk.
The audience listened attentively as the smooth-talking entrepreneur took them through a life characterised by marvelling at problems and then tackling them in an innovative and results-oriented way. Joop fears that the Dutch manufacturing industry is being driven away to other countries. 10 of the 13 engineers present support him in this. Since 80% of them think that an excess of Dutch bureaucracy is to blame, including Joop himself, the need for an Industry Management Team (IMT) was raised. Compared to corona's Outbreak Management Team, a team of experts providing life-saving information to politicians.

Inspiring talks, "at Engineers at the Working Table"

KIVI gives young (prospective) members the chance to talk to CEOs, top officials, top scientists and politicians "at the working table" about current social developments and their organisation's involvement in them. This dialogue provides insight into how engineers look at general situations with their technical gaze.

From technician to entrepreneur

Joop Roodenburg

Joop Roodenburg (1950) is president of Huisman in Schiedam. After graduating from HTS Mechanical Engineering in 1971, he graduated from TU Delft (Measurement and Control Engineering) in 1977. After more than seven years of development, he delivers the world's first "heavy lift mast cranes" in 1983. Many mast cranes follow in the following years and by now almost 100 have been built!

This year, Huisman is delivering the world's largest cranes; the capacity per crane is 10,000t @ 48m. Building such large cranes is truly an "engineer's dream" for Joop.

Joop has brought Huisman where it is today: pioneer in the world of heave compensation systems, frontrunner in the design and construction of pipeline systems and active in the "next generation" drilling systems market, both onshore and offshore. In addition, the focus is of course on renewables. Innovation is of paramount importance to Joop: "innovation never stops".

In 2006, Huisman received the IRO "Award of Excellence" and in 2009 Joop was awarded the KIVI Maritieme Techniek / Offshore Techniek Medal of Honour. In 2015, Joop was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau, among other things for his technical contribution to the Dutch maritime sector and his valuable contribution to the Dutch economy.

In September 2015, Joop started 'Buccaneer Delft' on the Paardenmarkt in Delft, an 'accelerator' for young technology companies active in the energy and offshore sector. With this accelerator, he aims to transfer his innovation drive and entrepreneurship to the new generation of young -and ambitious- entrepreneurs. Buccaneer aims to connect industry, TU Delft and young entrepreneurs.

In 2018, at the Buccaneer Delft complex, he opened restaurant "Kruydt": a beautiful restaurant to complement the Buccaneer but also a place where everyone is welcome

Joop Roodenburg will be interviewed by Toon Buddingh' to explain his life from techie to entrepreneur. Important choices he made and insights young engineers can learn from. Participants will be heavily involved in this interactive session.

  • Joanne Meyboom's question to Joop Rodenburg
  • A look at today's agenda, culminating in the 'big ongoing issues of the day'
  • A reflection of the major social events and his/her work on them.
  • The question to the speaker after him/her and the reason why that person was chosen.

Time
Thursday 27 August 11:00 am to 12:30 pm. A lunch will be offered by Huisman Equipment afterwards.

Location
De Buccaneer Delft, Paardenmarkt 1 in Delft

Number of participants
To keep the meeting interactive, participation is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, of which at least 10 are KIVI members plus the speaker and facilitator. If this ratio is not correct, you may be excluded. Of course, you will be informed in good time, via e-mail.

Registration
As the number of participants per session is limited, participants who have not attended a session before will be given priority. If there are still too many participants, a draw will be made among the remaining registrants.