Biographies

Hande Ayanoğlu has been working as an Assistant Professor at IADE, Universidade Europeia and giving classes in undergraduate (Interaction Design and Ergonomics) and graduate design degree (Master in Interaction Design and Master in Product and Space Design). She is the coordinator of Master in Product and Space Design. Also, she is a researcher in UNIDCOM/IADE Research Unit since 2014. She has been actively collaborating with researchers in several other disciplines, namely computer science, psychology, architecture, ergonomics and design. She’s been part of research projects concerning Product Design, Interaction Design, Smart Environments Emotional Design and Human-Robot Interaction.

Annelies graduated in product development in 2013. She continued her path at Samsonite where she designed hard case luggage. In 2016 she won a red dot award for one of her designs. She moved to P&G where she is currently working as a product designer and design strategist for homecare brands like dreft, mr. Clean and Swiffer. Her work focusses on ecology and consumer experience.

Filip Fransen, Design Director.

Filip brings 17 years of inflight experience to the table working for deSter.
DeSter is a industry market leader creating and producing cpmfort and meal concepts onboard airlines.
Having worked in Asia since 2007, he has been involved in major airline projects such as Singapore airlines, Cathay Pacific, Kingfisher, Thai airways, China Southern, Air New Zealand, Jetstar, as well as retail electronics projects such as Philips.
Since 2018 he works again in Belgium leading targeted design projects with a focus on service design.

Filip holds a Master in product development and is PMP certified.

Industrial designer JanWillem Hoftijzer (MSc) worked for several design agencies in the Netherlands. Today, he teaches and manages design drawing education and staff at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, and he is a chair of the international Special Interest Group ‘Design Sketching’.

JanWillem believes that sketching is a crucial competence for all designers, even more so for design students. Citing John Ruskin (1856): “the discipline of drawing tunes the sensitivity of the drawer to a higher pitch, it refines the drawer’s vision”, he believes you need draw to be able to see. Next to his job that concerns the design drawing discipline, JanWillem works part-time on his PhD research project called ’Designing for Do-It-Yourself’.

www.delftdesigndrawing.com

Instagram: delftdesigndrawing
Instagram: designsketchingSIG

Lori Maes is Research & Innovation coordinator at Love Tomorrow, the sustainability program that sprouted out of the festival Tomorrowland. She is responsible for the cooperation with universities and coordinates diverse sustainable and innovative projects, including The Recycle Club (which focusses on waste from consumption) and Camp2Camp (a game changer when it comes to camping gear at festival campsites). She has a background as a psychologist as well as an environmental scientist and uses psychological insights to involve people in more sustainable behavior.

NYA-EVO Adventure Camera Bags (www.nya-evo.com) - Co-founder & Designer Boomworks SWEDEN - Design, Sourcing, Manufacturing

Shortly after completing my MA in Product Development in 2004, I took a position as industrial designer for the internal design team of a large bag manufacturer with several factories in China and design office in Hong Kong. Here I learned the the basics of technical bag design as well as production working closely with the factory sample makers while being exposed to every step of the bag production process form idea to prototyping all the way to mass production. 

In 2010 I joined Pacsafe (a well established brand focusing on anti-theft travel bags) where I worked as Head of Design for six years. 

After a brief stop-over at another company I decided to start NYA-EVO together with my good friend Mario. NYA-EVO focuses on making performance adventure camera backpacks which we are selling worldwide with regional offices in Belgium and Japan. During the same time together with my wife we decided to relocate from Hong Kong to her home country, Sweden, where I started a second company, Boomworks SWEDEN, which is a consulting office offering design, sourcing and manufacturing of bags and luggage to established companies and brands such as Eastpak, Catalyst Lifestyle and more recently Cabin Zero.

Sofie Platou is a senior graphic designer currently working in the Norwegian design and architecture firm Snøhetta. Through her years in the design field she has been leading major many projects with a wide range of clients. She is dedicated to working across the design disciplines; graphic design, product design, exhibition design and digital solutions, with a big curiosity for the impact design has. After educating from Westerdal's School of Communication and a period in the internationally recognized design company Anti, she became a part of Snøhetta in 2012. Sofie is now committed to multidisciplinary working method with a deep passion for using design as a tool for improving social interactions.

Margaret Rynning is an associate professor of graphic design and administrator of the Department of Graphic Design at the Faculty of Communication and Design in Kristiania University College in Oslo. She is trained as graphic designer and has been working as a designer for more than 20 years within design agencies in Oslo, Norway, mainly focusing on visual identity and graphic communication. Rynning’s research interests are related to identity design within critical design exploring visual concepts communicating issues of social and political character. Another area of interest is Nordic design and regional culture.

Concept Designer / Art Director

If you watched a movie in the last two decades interrupted by a commercial and thought the hell with it I'm going to play a game now, there is a fair chance you would have come across some of Gert Stevens' concept designs in all of them. It's the result of his passion caught while studying Product Design and playing truant during the cumbersome ergonomics classes whereby he ended up in the local comic book store to be paralyzed by a 'Making of' film book.

After his first project for the King Baudouin Foundation in Design for the Enterprise (not the Starship) he specialized in an MA Design for Film in England. Taking the British film industry by storm at the beginning of the new century as one of the first digital 3D designers in a pre-production film art department he collaborated on Harry Potter, Star Wars, Charlie and his Chocolate Factory to name just a few. In between film projects Gert diversified in other areas of design for the entertainment industry. In 2017 he was honored with an award nomination by the Art Directors Guild of America for his collaboration to excellence in Production Design as a Concept Designer for the fantasy film Wonder Woman. He's now a member of the ADG of America Local 800.

Info SolarBoat Team

In 1996 I graduated at the faculty “Product development” in Antwerp.

I worked in different company’s as a mechanical designer: www.theo.be, www.dupont.com, alcatel-lucent, verhaert.com, niko.eu.

Since 2009, I have worked as an independent consultant in product development for various companies. My main focus as a professional designer is mechanical conceptional design and materialisation of ideas in high volume markets.

In my spare time I like to make stuff and spend time on the Tatami or in the snow.

Now committed to facilitating the transition to a sustainable society, Ief has started (and sold) a VC funded ICT company in the mid-nineties and eventually transitioned into venture capital. Currently, he is founder of Impact Vista, which evolved from the Ocean Impact Alliance. In the past, his exciting business journey led in 2008 to the start of yachting company Yuwen Marine in China. Until it's acquisition in 2014 the company introduced China's leading entrepreneurs to Business, Investing and Leisure in Europe via the world of luxury yachting. Furthermore, he also established the European network for Huawei Technologies as Sales Director Europe. As an entrepreneur and investor he believes in human ingenuity and in our ability to transform challenges into opportunities.