Full Alumni House At The Dutch Embassy in Berlin

A vibrant 'full house' of 4TU'ers

Nearly 90 local alumni of the 4TU universities in Berlin participated in the Dutch Engineers Alumni Network's (DEAN) first event of 2023. With a theme "Alumni Shaping the Future", the gathering attracted a mixed audience from a range of TU studies and graduation years who enjoyed hearing three speakers talk about sustainability and innovation in their work, and catching up afterwards with old classmates as well as new contacts during a networking reception.

Deputy Ambassador of the Netherlands in Germany, Mira Woldberg, delivered the event’s opening words and in it stressed the importance of alumni networks not only to the alumni themselves in their professional lives, but also for society. She stated that, “By opening up new opportunities for collaboration, inspiration, innovation and growth. Your alumni network can be seen as an important

Alumni speakers abouth their career path and jobs

The evening’s three alumni speakers shared their respective career paths since graduating from the TU's while speaking about their innovative work for pioneering companies in their sectors. WUR alumnus Pavlos Kalaitzoglou (MSc, Plant Sciences 2010) VP Science at Infarm, one of the leading vertical farm companies in the world, spoke about his time studying in Wageningen where he made many ‘friends for life’ and his career journey since then. The successes and challenges he has faced along the way and how his friends have always played an important role in this. He proudly spoke about the start last year of Infarm’s collaboration with WUR to study and evaluate how to optimize production while maximizing flavor, nutrition and yield of vertically grown hydroponic tomatoes.

Other speakers were Gigi Laan (alumna TU Delft) a 25 Guns Taskforce Engineer at Tesla’s Berlin’s Gigafactory and Andrew Shamu (alumnus TU/e & UT) Head of R&D at NeoCarbon, a startup reversing climate change by capturing C02 through retrofitted industrial cooling towers.

Gigi Laan

Andrew Shamu

Pavlos Kalaitzoglou

Participants during the talks were able to get a glimpse into new sustainable technologies being developed or already deployed. The evening’s moderator Joe Laufer (Alumni Officer, University of Twente) in his earlier introduction said that the alumni speakers as well as the audience in the room represented just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the amazing people making up the 8,000+ member strong alumni community in Germany, of whom 1,500 are located in the greater Berlin area. Aside from Mr. Laufer, the universities were represented at the event by Denise Spiekerman (WUR), Mechteld van Beijeren (TU Delft) and Yongwei van Bussel (TU Eindhoven).

Follow up events

Follow up events in Berlin are now being planned and will be hosted by a team of local alumni volunteers. Graduates of the 4TU's in Germany can keep up to date with news and upcoming alumni activities by joining one of a number of dedicated DEAN country Linkedin groups via this link. The group is also a useful platform for networking and sharing local information between alumni.

4TU DEAN alumni network

4TU DEAN alumni communities were first launched back in 2014 and today are active in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Nordics, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. This unique network encompasses over 33,000 engineers and is a testimony of the global impact and reach of the four technical universities of the Netherlands.

In 2023 DEAN alumni events will also take place in Finland, Switzerland, the UK & the USA. Gatherings are organized by the WUR, UT, TUD and TU/e alumni offices, often in collaboration with partners like the 4TU Federation, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.
For more information about the DEAN alumni network visit the website.