Boukje.com Consulting
Boukje.com Consulting BV is a young and dynamic small consulting agency, which was founded at the end of 2007 as Boukje.com and extended into Boukje.com Consulting BV in 2010.
Project
BCC assists organisations with their search for funding their research and development in order to create new business. For example, Boukje.com supports companies and research institutes in developing research proposals, building cooperative R&D consortia and carrying out project management. BCC has accumulated over 15 years of experience in the field of PV, related to successfully developing and launching technology, with its expertise in carrying out (costs, ecologic, legal) assessments in national and European projects, and in supporting consortia with carrying out their dissemination, exploitation and replication strategies.
Achievment
During her career, the founder of BCC (Boukje Ehlen) has gained experience and knowledge in the field of economic and ecologic assessments, which is being used in nationally and EU-funded projects. BCC is currently participating in 4 EU-funded projects, using its expertise for supporting industry partners with their exploitation of results; coordinating the dissemination activities; actively involved in setting up and maintaining the website, producing video’s for the general public, and collaborative workshops for scientific and policy stakeholders; and supporting coordinators with everyday management and administration.
Boukje Ehlen
“Health is the best World”
I’m deeply driven by the process of gathering information, connecting ideas and translating them into technical and scientific research that feeds into the healthcare sector. I’d like to contribute my share to a new and healthy future. Only if we do so will we create a better world.
About me and my professional experience
During the past years, I gained a lot of professional experience (see CV). This works to my advantage now. I support the INCITE project with their data management plan, their IPR-related issues, communication and dissemination activities. Besides being CEO of Boukje.com, I am also an accredited psychoneuro-immunology therapist. In this context, my fields of expertise meet, so that I can use my skills to contribute to the direction of this project.
In 2008, I wanted to change the context in which I worked. I pursued this plan, and it worked out wonderfully for me. I have travelled and worked across Europe, and was involved in organizing and realizing a number of breakthrough projects. Likewise, we would like to accomplish beautiful and fascinating results through a fulfilling process.
Function within the project
Supporting and coordinating the data management plan, IPR-related issues, communication and dissemination activities. I plan, propose actions and support wherever necessary. I can convince people and take them along in my ideas, so that we jointly cree action and motion. This is especially required since many scientists tend to think within their own disciplines. I provide the “horizontal” connections between various disciplines, so that the connectivity and cooperation is strengthened. I effectuate changes and keep everyone involved going through
What would I like to achieve?
I would like to convince people that many plans are in fact possible. There are always possibilities. I coach and support so that these ideas become goals that can be accomplished. I like to think positively and how changes and ideas can become a reality. That is what I do. I’d like to do something for humanity. That’s why my early projects were focused on sustainability and now on health. The direct link to accomplishing something good is necessary for me.
Biggest challenge
Without doubt, within this project. The biggest challenge is to bring everyone together. To do so, the value of a consistent and cooperative process has to be emphasized again and again, as this is at least as important as the results that we all aim for. If we just deliver something beautiful without a good process, we missed an opportunity. The biggest challenge is to set up a prolonged process where various types of input are respected and valued, so that each discipline realizes its potential to the fullest.
Inspiration
I am inspired by people who remain curious, inspiring and fascinating and active even after their retirement. I find that beautiful, and when I reach that age, I would want to be like that.
Bucketlist
I’d like to accomplish a half Ironman run before I have reached the age of fifty. As in my work, the process is again more important than the result. If I can combine this ambition with being with my partner and my huskies, then I’ll go for it.
To the reader
Blieve laupe (“keep walking”). Start with something and work at it. Keep discovering yourself, you can always make a choice – but most likely, you didn’t spot them yet!
Otto Paans
“Making complexity comprehensible”
Within INCITE, I’d like to map out and explain the complexity that goes on in it. This entails visualizing the research questions and solutions in detail. It is a very rich project, in which many layers of content overlap. But simultaneously, all this has to be presented in an understandable manner.
About me
I started out as a landscape and urban designer. However, given my visual orientation, I developed in the direction of graphic design in various scientific research projects during the last decade. I have always played a creative role, using my visual skills to elucidate concepts and ideas. Consequently, I obtained a PhD focused on design thinking and research. Through creative and collaborative processes with our clients, I try to develop and visualize concepts and innovative ideas.
Function within the project
In INCITE, I play a double role: I manage dissemination activities and I am the “narrative designer”. That means that I tell various stories about the project. I visualize the content, and its implications visible and understandable for various audiences. I edit and frame project communication, so that it presents itself as a coherent whole.
Professional experience
The skill “connecting” precisely fits my function. The various disciplines within the INCITE project form as it were an archipelago of skills. As a connecting designer, it is my job to come up with a visual story that conveys what we are aiming to achieve. First and foremost, this is a process-based activity. Many participants have good ideas and are looking for like-minded people to communicate with and share their ideas. If we can streamline this process effectively, the results are often very inspiring!
Visually, the idea that we can engineer with organic structures is very inspiring. This provides me with visual handholds and ideas to work with. And when I find the right tone and visual concept, the result can be even more fascinating and inspiring than we could imagine in the beginning. If I can realize the “expected unexpected” then I did my job well!
What I would like to achieve
At the end of this project, I would like to have a story that conveys the thoroughly interesting science and technology developments that we worked on here. If the reader takes the project brochure, is positively thrilled by the concept and visuals and can’t put it down, I have achieved my goal.
Biggest challenge
I would like to spur people’s creativity in the project. It is often the case that scientists retreat comfortably within their disciplinary domains. I would like to invite them to share, exchange and collaborate. We require collaboration and mutual trust.
Inspiration
One of the most inspiring works I can imagine was made by Philp Beesley from Toronto, Canada. He works on architectural design of public buildings, public art and experimental installations. His methods combine machining and digital visualization, industrial design, digital prototyping, electronics, organic and mechanical engineering.
His works combine organic and mechanical properties but can’t be reduced to either of them. In his installation Hylozoic Ground, he built robots that had operated with a closed-loop metabolism and mechanical sensors. The sublime effect was that you have to position yourself towards an entity that is neither organic nor mechanic, and maybe not even completely alive. And this twilight area is exactly where we operate with INCITE.
Bucketlist
First, to write out my philosophy in full, based around the notion of organicism. The problem is that it took more than ten years to think up, so probably it will take more than twenty years to write it all down…Second, to create lots of visual stories!
To the reader
Determine by yourself where you are going, even if it feels that you are moving against the current. We live in a world that constantly tells us what we have to be. However, it is already to tell yourself what you would like to be! Therefore, try harder to become good at it, and you will make your best work.