Unknown Stories

In this episode, Jurgen, Dean of Unknown University, sits down with Adriana Cocerhan — founder of Eledi Corsets and current student at Unknown University — to explore her remarkable journey from financial hardship to building a purpose-driven fashion brand. Adriana opens up about working two jobs and living on just 50 euros a month, the moment she decided to bet on herself, and what ultimately led...

In this live‑recorded episode of Unknown Stories , the director of Unknown University sits down with Lex Hoefsloot — co‑founder of Lightyear, the Dutch solar‑car company that once raised over €200 million in funding. Lex shares the full arc of the Lightyear journey: from the ambitious build of a solar‑powered family car, through the highs of massive investments and media attention, down to the pai...

In this episode, Jurgen, Director of Unknown University, talks with Arnesh Jaikaran, the 19-year-old founder of Inta — a compliance software company for land-based casinos that uses facial recognition technology to simplify and secure identity verification. Arnesh shares how he discovered the problem that sparked Inta, how he and his team turned an ambitious idea into a working product, and what i...

In this episode, Jurgen, Director of Unknown University, sits down with Oliver Christodoulou, one of the university’s early student founders who started building his business from day one on campus. Originally from South Africa, Oliver shares his inspiring journey — from launching his first venture as a student to now leading Staunch Ventures, a venture studio focused on empowering and scaling bus...

In this episode, Jurgen sits down with Connor Burdett, a 20-year-old visionary from Zimbabwe and founder of Seed, a startup on a mission to give every African household access to clean energy. Connor is tackling one of the world’s most overlooked crises: 2.3 billion people still cook over wood fires, leading to millions of deaths each year, massive deforestation, and countless hours lost—mostly by...

Join us for a groundbreaking episode featuring Chief Researcher Gabriel Mora at Real Deal Milk, where innovation meets dairy-free transformation! 🌱 Discover how Real Deal Milk is revolutionizing the dairy industry, producing your favorite dairy products without a single cow involved! Their animal-free cheese fights climate change and preserves food culture using precision fermentation. Plus, get...

From melon seeds to innovation in ingredients, we delve into Väcka’s journey of creating planet-conscious plant-based cheeses.  Väcka is a Barcelona-based FoodTech startup that produces plant-based cheese alternatives. Founded in 2021 by Luz Sanz and Maxime Boniface, who were inspired to create vegan cheese alternatives after changing their diet to a vegan one. Väcka's cheese alternatives are...

Despite its lengthy decomposition time and difficulty to be recycled, over 300 million tones of plastic is produced each year. Would we ever be able to deal with the ever-growing amount of discarded plastic? Well, first believe that it is possible, and then you'll see🎙️ Hailing from Israeli, founder Tal Cohen developed a unique solution. Through PlasticBack, Tal Cohen and his team work alongsi...

Through virtual reality, you are immersed into a different world. Through the use of SenseGlove , you can also touch it. 🎙️ Today, our host Jurgen Nieuwenhuijsen is joined by Gijs den Butter , Co-Founder of SenseGlove. SenseGlove is the mouse and the keyboard of the future. Their haptic glove technology is enabling you to feel the touch and sensation of holding objects while being in VR. What star...

Did you know that the average edible insects have far higher protein content than the average protein source? To Daniela Arias, our next guest on the Unknown Stories podcast, this is no secret.    Coming from Costa Rica, Sibö B.V. is working to bridge the gap between insects and food companies! Through the use of their Entowise technology, they help insect manufacturers develop high-valu...

Discover a truly unconventional solution that stores energy in liquid air. Meet Phelas, our guest on the Unknown Stories podcast. In the fifth episode of this season, Leon, one of the co-founders of Phelas, joined us from Germany to explain how their solution is crucial for the energy transition. Phelas created a battery which uses the liquification of air to store energy and release it via expans...

Warp VR 's vision for the future of work is where workforces leverage VR to ensure they are trained for high pressure situations. Story-based, immersive VR modules to onboard and upskill will be the way to go! In the latest episode of the Unknown Stories podcast, we are joined by Thijs de Vries , CEO at Warp VR, who explains how cutting-edge VR training modules are making onboarding handbooks...

Going carbon neutral in the horticulture industry is an ambitious dream. With BBBLS it is possible. In the third episode of Unknown Stories, our host, Jurgen , is joined by Anton Paardekooper , Founder & Managing Director at BBBLS. Using soap bubbles, BBBLS is reinventing greenhouses. Their solution equips greenhouses with extra insulation, enabling the production of high quality crops with a...

When crumbs of energy come together as Powercrumbs ! Episode 2 of the second season of the Unknown Stories is here to dive deeper into overlooked energy sources. In the energy transition, all energy sources matter. For this episode, Jurgen is joined by Pieter Mans , Co-founder of Powercrumbs. On a mission to unleash the true potential of untapped energy sources - power crumbs - Pieter, together wi...

In the first episode of Season 2, Jurgen is joined by Linda Klunder to go into an in-depth tour of the first cocoa pulp-based soft drink on the market. Living at the poverty line, cocoa farmers earn only 6% of the final value of a chocolate bar. However, to produce it, much of the cocoa fruit is discarded as waste, when in reality, it is a rich pulpy fruit. So, what can we do to increase the incom...

Did you know that The Netherlands offers the biggest and widest range of plant-based products? Or that Spain is emerging as one of the leading FoodTech ecosystems in the world? The synergy between the two countries should be leveraged. Our first Unknown Stories Special episode of this season welcomes Alejandro Alvarez of Quesana (former Vegetaleso) to share with us his main learnings from the Desa...

Jurgen is joined by Coenraad de Vries, co-founder of Oneplanetcrowd . Oneplanetcrowd is The Netherlands' largest sustainable crowdfunding platform; with a community of 30,000 impact investors, they have financed more than 200 projects by sustainable entrepreneurs. Listen to this episode for insights on how they became the largest Dutch sustainable crowdfunding platform, their ambitions of supporti...

🎙️ Meet Oscar Via, Economic and Trade Counsellor of Spain, who is guiding Spanish FoodTech startups to The Netherlands and beyond! In this parallel series of Unknown Stories, our host Willem Knaap aims to understand how governments act upon opportunities and innovation to reveal tomorrow’s taste. With the Desafia FoodTech Netherlands 2021, Unknown and ICEX aim to facilitate meaningful collaboratio...

Ever wondered how large militaries innovate and stay ahead of the curve? Then this one's for you. Fons Van der Ham is the International Innovation Manager of Defensie Materieel Organisatie, The Netherlands Ministry of Defence. He joins Jurgen and Tom at the studio to discuss the digital NATO Innovation Challenge organised by Unknown Group in Spring 2020, further going into how innovative startups...

It’s tough for new, innovative ventures to collaborate with McDonald’s, but not impossible.   In this Unknown Specials episode, our host Willem Knaap aims to understand how corporate leaders act upon opportunities and innovation to disentangle the future of food. This time, he is joined by Jeroen Dekkers, Head of Supply Chain at McDonald’s, to draw the route for newcomers into the McDonald’s...

Collaboration between start-ups, scale-ups, (energy) companies and governments will fast-track the development of technologies which can help us tackle the challenges of climate change. Shell GameChanger stands out as the oldest of all corporate innovation programs. Since 1996, the Shell GameChanger program is fully focused on scouting for disruptive ideas that could be vital to meeting future ene...

"The massive challenge that we had to solve is to provide what a professor would know after teaching a domain for 50 years." Previously being featured as the Unknown Solution of the Week, KIMO is a Dutch AI firm which is making breakthroughs on personalized learning at scale. Their unconventional solution is able to reskill professionals that want to move into another knowledege domain. To provide...

We first met Vijaykant Nadadur, Co-Founder and CEO of Stride.ai, when we identified them as a viable solution for the ABN AMRO "Building the Bank of The Future" challenge in 2017. Winning this event elevated Stride.ai to process optimization superstardom especially in the Banking industry, with Stride.ai landing successful collaborations with ING's Fintech Village and EY.   Today, Stride.ai i...

"Microplastics are everywhere. In water, air, soil, and in our food, they have been found in Arctic ice, on Mount Everest, in our bodies and so on... If we do not come to working solutions as soon as possible to remove microplastics and micropollutants, we directly have bad influence on our health and we get sick. This is for sure." Dr. Katrin Schuhen is the Founder & Managing Director of Wass...

Omniflow upgrade regular street lights to sustainable infrastructures essential for smart cities. Their smart IoT lamp post, powered by wind and solar, is reducing energy consumption by more than 94%, while providing EV charging, smart car parking, 5G small-cell and other value added services. After winning Get in the Ring Lisbon - Impact a couple of months ago, we were eager to discover more abou...