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Personal stories about the impact of technology

  • "AI is a blessing, as long as we teach students to think critically"

    When Anna Posthumus Meyjes (42) talks about her work, her enthusiasm is unmistakable. The lecturer-researcher in Biology & Medical Laboratory Research at Leiden University of Applied Sciences radiates passion. "It makes me happy to show students what I have experienced myself in the lab. If you manage to convey that enthusiasm, something truly special happens."
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    Anna Posthumus zit achter een microscoop in een lab, ze kijkt lachend de camera in.

  • "Educational institutions can play a crucial role in sustainability"

    How do you get an entire chain or region to become more sustainable? And what role can technology play in this? Tackling big challenges like these energises Jacqueline Cramer, professor of Sustainable Innovation at Utrecht University. "I see so much innovation, that gives me hope."
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    Portret Jacqueline Cramer

  • "As a director, I want to show my vulnerable side"

    Sarah Wilton-Wels has been chairman of the Executive Board of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences since September this year. The world of education took some getting used to after her career in finance, but now she feels like a fish in Rotterdam's water.
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    Sarah Wilton-Wels met op de achtergrond de skyline van Rotterdam

  • "Innovation, diversity and inclusion are not separate"

    Farshida Zafar (45) has an impressive track record as an education innovator. She is director of Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, where she works on entrepreneurship quality scans, effectiveness measurements of innovation programmes and educational courses around entrepreneurship. "In multidisciplinary teams, I am at my best," she says.
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    Farshida Zafar in gesprek portret voor SURF Story

  • "Our biggest challenge is making sure everyone can participate"

    Aniel Ramawadh was the first in his family to go to university, thanks to an elementary school teacher who encouraged him to pursue vwo. Now he is a member of the executive board of Zadkine in Rotterdam. "I hope that with the help of digitization we can make education accessible to everyone," he says.
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    Aniel Ramawadh in de gang van Zadkine

  • Always looking ahead; what can we do with this technology

    Inge Molenaar is an expert on artificial intelligence (AI) in education. She is director of the National Research Lab AI and, as associate professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, contributes to many studies on the applications of AI in education.
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    Inge Molenaar: Altijd vooruitkijken; wat kunnen we met deze technologie

  • Expanding horizons in Earth Observation

    Serkan Girgin, SURF Research Support Champion 2022, built a data analysis platform at the University of Twente that provides researchers with easy access to compute resources and many open-source geographical analysis tools. "Compute resources should be a standard service at the university," he says.
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    Serkan Girgin in trappenhuis

  • Step into the mind of a cyber criminal

    How do you proceed when you want to steal someone's login details to access a secure system? That is one of the assignments of a workshop for VISTA College staff. Information security and privacy (IBP) coordinator Samantha Rodolf Lejeune creates awareness among her colleagues to reduce cyber risks.
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    Samantha Rodolf Lejeune achter haar laptop op het VISTA college

  • Democracy and the kingfisher

    With his fine suits and bow ties, he is a familiar and colourful figure in the world of research support. Marlon Domingus is Data Protection Officer at Erasmus University Rotterdam and chairman of the SURF Taskforce Beyond Privacy Shield. A conversation about the big and the small things in life.
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    Marlon Domingus