Meet our Speakers for the 2026 event!
Rewriting the narrative
This year’s edition of the TEDxWageningenUniversity event will feature several speakers from different backgrounds and areas of expertise. We invite you to read more about them below!
Dr. Schelto Kruijff
Dr. Schelto Kruijff is a surgical oncologist and Chief Green Officer at the University Medical Center Groningen. He is a leading advocate for sustainable healthcare, showing how medicine can protect both people and the planet.
His talk will explore the paradox of modern medicine: while we’ve built some of the most advanced healthcare systems in history, we’ve lost sight of what truly creates health. Today, healthcare itself has become a major source of pollution, waste, and burnout — harming the very planet that sustains us. The talk calls for a radical rethinking of medicine: from treating disease to healing systems, it reminds us that the essence of care lies not in technology, but in humanity.
Farai maphosa
Farai Maphosa is a dynamic leader dedicated to people development, knowledge sharing, and transformational leadership. He is the Food Safety Director at Danone and holds a PhD in Microbial Ecogenomics. He is also a pastor at Amazing Grace Parish in Wageningen, where he supports individuals and communities in navigating change with purpose and confidence.
His talk will show that culture can facilitate transformation. Migrating from Zimbabwe to the Netherlands was more than a geographic move - it was a deep cultural shift, where faith anchored him. Exposure to diverse perspectives reshaped his career and personal growth in ways unimaginable. Transformation is never romantic; it’s layered with discomfort, resilience, and reinvention.
Jilde Garst
Jilde Garst is a researcher at Wageningen University & Research whose work explores how sustainability ideals become embedded in business practices. She studies how abstract concepts such as “healthy,” “sustainable,” or “responsible” are translated into rules, labels, and reporting frameworks that shape the behavior of companies and consumers.
Her talk will examine whether these systems truly drive transformation or merely create symbolic compliance. Through cases like Nutri-Score and EU sustainability reporting, Jilde aims to reveal how regulations can move beyond good intentions and lead to real, meaningful change in business and society.
Yvonne Knap
Yvonne Knap is devoted to bringing ancient meditative wisdom into the hands of children and their families. Combining biology, science-based insights, and over 2,000 hours of meditation, along with a decade of training with Buddhist monks, she translates timeless teachings into simple tools for modern life. As CEO and co-founder of StarKid Universe, she speaks about the future of our world, one that is quietly being shaped by the emotional resilience of the next generation.
In her talk, she will highlight how we live at a strange crossroads: our devices grow smarter every year, yet staying calm, focused, and fulfilled as human beings feels more difficult than ever. She will talk about what she believes is the single most important skill young generations need to learn from an early age to access their full potential.
Bas breman
Bas Breman is a researcher and teacher at Wageningen University & Research whose work focuses on future-oriented, nature-inclusive thinking. He explores new nature narratives and scenario development to help society better understand biodiversity loss and the deeper questions behind today’s environmental challenges.
In his talk, Bas will show that in our urge to find answers and solutions to some of the biggest challenges, we are often not asking the right questions. Although there isn’t much time to waste, being able to slow down might actually be one of the most important skills we have to develop. Because slowing down makes room for much bigger awareness, and from there on a deeper understanding of what our real challenges are, and what our own personal contribution can be.
DAAN BUIJS
Daan Buijs is an educator at Wageningen University & Research, where he has found his calling in creating spaces for young people to live their existential questions within educational settings. Starting his PhD on this subject in 2019 was the first step in starting a movement. Since the start of his career as a trainer and coach in 2000, Daan has always been engaged with the genuine development of his students.
In his talk, Daan will show how you can create the space for students to live their existential questions genuinely. Our current educational system is performative and answer-driven. Teachers, students, and staff can only together change this narrative, and move towards a more purposeful education where young people feel connected, anchored, and passionate, to face the current multi-crisis and an uncertain future.
Eva Thuijsman
Eva Thuijsman has been following her curiosity across academia, art, and the broad Wageningen community!
Alongside her PhD, she has explored the magical world of participatory puppetry, using play to spark connection and dialogue. Now, she is a community builder at Thuis Wageningen: the city’s common living room, where different worlds meet and take action for the city together.
She will show in her talk how change starts small, with each of us. Not alone, but in connection. In a society that prizes independence and often leaves us feeling isolated and powerless, we forget that community is something we create. It grows through curiosity about who and what we do not yet know; through reciprocity; through play!
SOMI LYNDA
Somi Lynda, known online as Driplist, is a writer and content creator from Nigeria, now based in the Netherlands. What started as sharing her life and culture online during university and her career working in marketing has grown into a full creative career and her own published book. Somi’s work inspires because she’s real, passionate, and proof that showing up as yourself can take you far.
Her talk will be about the hidden power of embarrassment and why the fear of looking foolish is one of the biggest barriers to creativity, opportunity, and personal growth. Through humorous storytelling and real experiences from her life as a content creator, the talk reveals how perfectionism and fear of judgment silently hold people back far more than actual failure ever could.