starthub testimonials

StartHub has made an impact on entrepreneurial education and student entrepreneurs since it was founded back in 2014. Therefore, we’ve decided to record stories from people within our community.

We want to introduce you to Yvette Baggen, who you might have seen if you ever followed courses at StartHub Wageningen📚. She is an entrepreneurial teacher and researcher at the WUR, and besides that is also self-employed. Her dream is that, through education, students and professionals co-learn and co-create sustainable value!

Learn about entrepreneurial courses

Meet Sebastiaan Berendse, the Director of Corporate Value Creation (CVC) at Wageningen University & Research. He generates and develops WUR's activities to create impact and value-added for society.

Among other things, he is also responsible for the student incubator StartHub Wageningen. Want to know more about how Sebastiaan views (the future of) our incubator? Make sure to watch this video🙌

Learn more about CVC

Meet Victor van Saltbommel, the Junior Incubation Manager of StartHub Wageningen. Alongside this, he is also doing a management traineeship at CVC (Corporate Value Creation).

Victor’s goal is to apply a more entrepreneurial mindset among WUR students. 💡💬 He does this by motivating, facilitating, and supporting students who are interested in entrepreneurship. 📈💡

Learn more about our programn

Dr Christiaan de Koning - Entrepreneurial Fellow

Meet Christiaan de Koning the first titleholder of the Entrepreneurial Fellowship at Wageningen University & Research!

As the first Entrepreneurial Fellow at the WUR, Christiaan will be working closely with the various entrepreneurship-focused research groups and support facilities (like StartHub!) to help translate the knowledge contained within the University into sustainable ventures.

Christiaan is an avid deep tech enthusiast who enjoys working with science entrepreneurs. He is the founder of a transatlantic network between Oxford (UK) and Boston (US) for founders, funders, and local stakeholders: Founders and Funders. He holds a PhD in Management & Innovation from Christ Church College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the commercialisation of new biotechnology (e.g. CRISPR).

Evi-Mara & Camilla - Ephora solutions

Meet Evi-Mara and Camilla, the co-founders of Ephora Solutions! They met a few years ago during a course at Wageningen University & Research, became friends, and started Ephora Solutions in the beginning of 2020 at StartHub. Their start-up is working towards a circular economy for plastic and jute packaging of coffee beans, as this is currently waste material.

In this clip Evi-Mara and Camilla explain all about their start-up, their aspirations and motivation, what StartHub helps them with, and what it takes to achieve a circular economy. If you want to know more about Ephora Solutions, check out their Instagram page or their website and start making a sustainable impact yourself!

Marco Mega - Banabar

Meet Marco, the founder of Banabar, a real food lover & entrepreneur from Italy! After completing his Master's degree in Food Technology at the Wageningen University & Research, he started working on his idea at StartHub. As a student, always in a rush, Marco ate a lot of snack bars, which he'd always considered to be a very convenient product. In his search for a tastier snack, he stumbled upon dried bananas as a replacement for the widely spread bars made from dates, nuts and granola. Besides creating nutritionally balanced bars with bananas & other super foods, Marco has a mission. By only using organic ingredients and rejected bananas, he wants to fight the social and environmental exploitation involved in banana farming. To do so, he also commits 1% of his total revenue to support the farmers he works with. Want to know more about how he wants you to do good while snacking? Check out Banabar's mission & try a Banabar yourself!

Iris houthoff - mylium

Meet Iris, former lecturer in Bioprocess Engineering at the Wageningen University & Research. During the StartHub Startup Week in 2017, she discovered that she loved entrepreneurship. She decided to pursue her passion and is now the founder of Mylium, a startup which creates circular fabrics using mycelium - the thread-like structure of mushrooms. Every day she learns new things, which she loves. “Even legal stuff, that I normally would find super boring, becomes interesting.”

frej & mitch - reshore

Meet Frej Gustafsson and Mitchell Williams from Reshore! While simultaneously finishing their master’s degrees, they started working on their own startup at StartHub. They are now working full-time on their living breakwater that improves ecosystems, quality of life and contributes to economic opportunities all in one neatly packaged solution. What we think makes them unique? Apart from having complementary strengths and a shared passion, they are also best friends!

Lisa Ploum - WUR

Meet Lisa Ploum, an employee of CVC (corporate value creation) and ELS (education and learning sciences) at Wageningen University & Research where she provides and coordinates entrepreneurship education. That is why you can find Lisa at StartHub a lot!

Since she is also a teacher, you might know her from the minor “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” or from the “Master Track Entrepreneurship”.

Lisa’s goal is to start up people! And with people she means you, students and recent graduates. A big part of Lisa’s job is to facilitate and support you in your entrepreneurial process. She is doing this by teaching students and recent graduates about the entrepreneurial mindset and by inspiring them to implement their knowledge in an entrepreneurial way. This can for example be in your own start-up!

Learn more about entrepreneurship education!

Suradj Hiralal - Oost NL

Meet Suradj, Business Developer at The East Netherlands Development Agency Oost NL. His responsibilities at OostNL include, among many other things, developing innovative business cases in the agri-food domain and advising businesses on their investor and market readiness. During his studies at Wageningen University, Suradj was also part of the student board of StartHub Wageningen. Currently, Suradj is still involved with StartHub, but this time as part of StartHub’s expert panel! Together with other highly knowledgeable experts, he has a passion for supporting entrepreneurial students and is now able to share his expertise, knowledge and advice on behalf of OostNL. We are happy to have you on board Suradj!

Learn more about Oost NL

Juliana Romero Guzmán - Cano-ela

Meet Juliana, the founder of Cano-ela. Our ever-smiling entrepreneur from Mexico was awarded a PhD at Wageningen University in the Food Process Engineering group. She developed a Proof of Concept of a new extraction process during her PhD project and is now further developing her technology to get the maximum functionality out of raw materials such as canola seeds. Her work allows the creation of food products with a very clean label and a low impact on the environment. We are glad that she was picked up by the Value Creation department and is now part of the StartHub!

rosanne - starthub student board 2020/2021

Meet Rosanne Vromen, the Content & Marketing Manager of the StartHub student board! “After the first year of my master's, I felt like doing something completely different. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and develop skills that you wouldn't learn in a lecture hall. Designing content for the StartHub communication channels allows me to be creative, which I really enjoy. I've worked with a lot of inspiring people, hosted one of our webinars, organized these testimonials and much more! If you have any questions for me, feel free to reach out to rosanne@starthubwageningen.nl!”

Tim daalderop - FabLab Wageningen

Did you know there is a FabLab at the Hub, that can help you in for example developing your prototype? Tim Daalderop, Incubation Manager of StartHub, but also part of the board of FabLab Wageningen, will tell you all about it in the video above!

Visit the fablab website