Opening of the 2024-2025 Academic Year on 2 September
Our Opening Academic Year 2024-2025 is a wrap! For those who joined us in the celebration, a very big thank you for your presence.
With the theme 'Engineering the Future', this year we are looking at the building blocks of our sustainable future.
Mobility, food supply, healthcare, energy supply and the way we use raw materials: all will change dramatically in this century. At TU Delft, we can help shape these transitions. What we do here can influence how businesses as well as end users behave. Take our smartphones, most of whose gold and lithium still ends up in landfill after a few years. If you design them differently from the start, you can achieve 'zero waste' at the end - and this is just one example.
Our guests include Michiel Langezaal, alumnus and CEO of FastNed, the company building a network of fast-charging points along Europe's motorways. We talk to Dream Team Epoch, which aims to use AI to contribute to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. We also welcome Irek Roslon, alumnus and founder of SoundCell, the startup developing a screening that allows doctors to choose the right antibiotics for patients at lightning speed. They will talk about their paths to the future, the building blocks they need and the obstacles they face. How they are shaping their own and our future, and who they are working with.
Music and dance will also be part of this festive gathering. And at the end, we will all raise a glass to the new academic year!
TU Delft Aula Conference Centre
Auditorium, 2nd floor
Programme
15.45 – 17.00
Rob Mudde
Our Vice Rector Magnificus/Vice President for Education traditionally welcomes us all at the start of the new academic year, with a special warm welcome to our first-year students as they begin to build their student career.
Ode to the Mind
Reprising our very own TU Delft rap song
Michiel Langezaal
The CEO of Fastned and TU Delft graduate talks about his journey from mechanical engineering student to founder of the company that is building a network of EV fast-charging stations across Europe.
Albeda Dance College
Special performance by students of dance from Rotterdam
Epoch IV
Artificial Intelligence Dream Team Epoch looks back on a wonderful year and the remarkable results they achieved in top AI competitions - all with the aim of contributing to the positive development of AI.
Feven Desta and Reza Sabsevari
While the demand for critical raw materials continues to grow, their extraction is problematic in many ways. In this video, Feven Desta and Reza Sabsevari show how collaboration between very different scientific disciplines could provide solutions.
Irek Roslon
As CEO of SoundCell he is bringing to market the technology he worked on as a PhD researcher: graphene membrane sensors that can detect bacterial activity. Hospitals can use these to determine whether antibiotics are needed and/or if they are working in a mater of hours.
TU Delft Student Council
The Central Student Council represents the interests of all students at the university. Its members advise the Executive Board on all kinds of student matters. Being part of the Student Council can also contribute to a student’s personal development. So, what has their year on the Council brought them?
Drinks in the foyer