UT students applying for Fellows Programme

| Marianne de Beer

Wim Kamerman (Bussiness & IT), Sevim Aktas (Advanced Technology), Rianne Hagen (Industrial Design) and Titus Venverloo (ATLAS) have been selected by the UT to apply for the University Innovation Fellows programme (UIF). They will follow a 6-week online programme and eventually go to Silicon Valley.

Kamerman starts: ‘We received an e-mail only two weeks ago, telling us that we had been selected by the university to apply for the UIF. We did not know what this programme was and we were quite surprised but happy to have been selected.’ Aktas: ‘The e-mail told us that we had to complete quite some tasks for the application process. We had to provide a letter of recommendation made by staff member and one made by a fellow student. The DesginLab had already taken care of the application as a Leadership Circle, the tuition and a letter of recommendation by Victor van der Chijs. We also have to complete a personal interview via Skype to be let into the programme.’

'It is about becoming a student leader'

The UIF is a key initiative of the NSF-Funded National Center for engineering Pathways to Innovations and a joint-venture between Stanford University and VentureWell. The programme has trained 1000 fellows at 185 institutions all over the world. Hagen tells us: ‘The programme is all about entrepreneurship, about becoming a student leader on campus and encouraging student activism.’ ‘The UT has chosen to apply as a Leadership Circle, which means that the four of us will be working together if we get accepted’, Aktas says.

'The UIF wants the UT to be a hub'

Kamerman: ‘The UT is one of the first European universities to apply for this programme and because of this the UIF wants them to be a hub. Because we have already been selected by the UT to apply, the chance that we will be able to do this programme is quite big.’ Continues: ‘The training is a six-week programme that will start in September. It will take place online and we will probably have most of our meetings in the evenings. After six weeks we will have completed the training and there will be a pinning ceremony where we will become fellows.’ ‘After the six-week programme, a second cohort of four people will start doing the training. After they are finished, the eight of us will go to Silicion Valley, probably in November’, says Hagen.

Because the students are still in the process of applying for the programme, they are not yet one hundred percent sure they will be selected, but they are eager and working hard to make sure they will be able to do the programme. Kamerman will be going to Finland next year for his minor and Venverloo is currently doing an internship in Brazil, but this will not limit them in joining this programme.


For more information about the programme: http://universityinnovationfellows.org

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