On 18th November 2021, Prof. Koen Kok, program leader for the MEGAMIND Program, hosted the two-day online kick-off event, which marked the official start of the program.
Getting to know each another was one of the goals of this kick-off event. This goal was certainly met with a turn-out of almost 40 people, and thus giving a good representation of the industrial partners and knowledge partners.
A diversity of topics was discussed, giving the participants insights in the MEGAMIND program structure and program governance (presented by Koen Kok and MEGAMIND co-lead Nic Roest) and the NWO’s role in this ‘Perspectief’ program.
Guest speaker Mr. Anne van der Molen from Stedin gave an enthusiastic and interactive presentation about the Energy Transition Challenges and MEGAMIND Rationale.
Guest speakers Mr. Paul Blank and Ms. Anke Stekelenburg of the NWO made it clear that this program is a joint effort with a reflective approach. The Impact Plan Approach is a tool during this program journey, to jointly develop a strategy as a consortium that increases the change of the research contributing to social impact.
All in all, the first day of the event can be described as interactive and full of useful information.
The second day of the kick-off event, 19th November 2021, was dominated by a hands-on session during which several use cases were discussed, led by the WP-leaders Saskia Lavrijssen, Johann Hurink and Phuong Nguyen. An interesting session which marks the start for the researchers to deep dive into the program’s content and research questions.
On 30th June and 1st July 2022, a Consortium Program Meeting is planned at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Hopefully by then we can meet each other in person and we can continue where we left things off in the online session!
