VU New Year's Gala

Ondernemen met impact voor sociale wetenschappers (Entrepreneurship with impact for social scientists)

Under the leadership of Erik van Ingen, the Faculty of Social Sciences is working hard to develop transdisciplinary education 2.0. Not only do students learn to actively link their academic knowledge to issues from outside the university, as in regular transdisciplinary education, they also learn skills that are not part of the social sciences curriculum. Entrepreneurial skills are linked to academic knowledge and skills, with the aim of making an impact on society, taking on issues about sustainability, climate change, polarisation and the socially responsible use of big data. The project focuses primarily on the renewal and further development of transdisciplinary education in the Sociology Bachelor programme, but it is also working on scaling up to other (social science) programmes and to other universities.

Farmaceutische vraagbaak voor geneesmiddelvragen van consumenten (Pharmaceutical helpdesk for consumer questions on medicines)

Consumers often have a need for simple, accessible information about the effects of the medication they are taking. Students and alumni of Pharmaceutical Sciences, despite their substantive knowledge, are insufficiently trained to provide consumers with this. Therefore, this project establishes a pharmaceutical questionnaire in which students themselves participate: they answer the questions. With attention for active learning, engagement and student responsibility. This innovative project increases the autonomy of students.

Persoonlijke en Professionele Identiteit (PPI) (Personal and Professional Identity) - Winner

The learning programme Personal and Professional Identity (PPI) is a unique programme of the Faculty of Law that fits in well with the positive learning and teaching culture of the faculty. In PPI, students are actively involved in their own learning process and development into professional participants within the VU community and in their future professional field in an innovative way. During interactive group meetings and individual interviews, they are coached by pairs of student mentors and teacher coaches. In activating educational forms, they learn to reflect on who they are, what they can do and where they want to go. They also acquire competences for professional practice. All progress is recorded in a portfolio that remains available after graduation. PPI replaces the mentor and tutorate in the bachelor programme.

Diversifying Philosophy Through Training High School Teachers

A professionalization trajectory will be developed for secundary school philosophy teachers to get them acquainted with non-canonical texts, thinkers and perspectives. The project will support them in their preparations for the soon to be undertaken renewal of the secondary school philosophy curriculum in a diversified direction. The overall aim is to respond to an emerging and urgent need at universities and secondary schools to diversify philosophy to reflect our global society. The project leaders also hope philosophy can, through our efforts towards a more diverse approach, become more attractive for students from diverse backgrounds. There is no other way to reach diversity than to actually work on it and to ‘do diversity’ in all sorts of contexts. This project is a cooperation between Amsterdam University College, VU Amsterdam and the Vereniging Filosofiedocenten in het Voortgezet Onderwijs (Association of Philosophy Teachers in Secondary Education).

Ramla Jamac (Faculty of Science)- Winner

Ramla is a true role model. With her start-up MobileUurka, she is making a serious contribution to reducing maternal mortality in Somalia, inspired by the support her parents received when they fled the war in Somalia. MobileUurka provides hospitals with a registration system and the ability to monitor and communicate with patients remotely to reduce geographical and financial barriers to care. Ramla is a great example of a student who knows how to apply her academic skills to strengthen society. Ramla's talent is also demonstrated by the fact that she is one of the few Master students to have been selected as a pre-finalist for the Amsterdam Science Innovation Award 2021.

Suraj Harylallsingh (Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences)

Suraj has already won his faculty's Student Award for contributing to the education of others in various wonderful ways. How? By providing good feedback on courses, giving free tutoring to fellow students and helping fellow students with personal problems during the pandemic. He organised excursions to companies and a study trip to Prague. Suraj does so much for his fellow students that he should be put in the spotlight himself.

Yatou Sallah (Faculty of Social Sciences)

Yatou Sallah: a passionate, inspiring, down-to-earth mentor and organiser who contributes full of energy to a positive world. As a mentor, she provides mutual connection at a time when this is desperately needed. Outside VU Amsterdam, Yatou also devotes herself to a positive society through podcasts and radio. Besides being a good student, Yatou can rightly call herself a connector and bridge-builder.

Oliver Fabert (Faculty of Science)

Oliver turns out to be an expert in providing education in times of crisis. Not just because of his humorous, well-appreciated, well-run video lectures and additional Q&A sessions, also because he ensured that students got to know each other and could learn from each other and, above all, that they did not experience any stress during his lectures. A perfect recipe for a – relatively - relaxed study period during a pandemic.

Alexander Bijnsdorp (Faculty of Medicine) - Winner

When corona made it impossible to teach anatomy, Alexander set up the 'Anatomy studio': a programme that allowed students to follow anatomy lessons from home using visual material. Alexander Bijnsdorp is a passionate teacher who has the interests of students in mind and inspires students with his contagious enthusiasm.

Sean Telg (School of Business and Economics)

Sean surpassed the expectations of students when they were forced to sit at home because of corona. His positive attitude, passion for education and adaptability make him popular. Sean also truly wants to get to know students. He designed his online education in such a way that students received all the attention they needed at that moment, both in class and individually. Sean puts his students first without compromising on quality.

Lara van Leeuwen (Law) - De termijnloze glijdende schaal waardoor de criminele vreemdeling altijd vreemdeling blijft. Een studie naar de verenigbaarheid van de afschaffing van de eindtermijn van de glijdende schaal met het non-discriminatiebeginsel als uitgelegd in de jurisprudentie van het EHRM.*

In her thesis, Lara argues for the reintroduction of the so-called 'final deadline', so that the residence permit of foreigners who have been living in the Netherlands for more than 20 years is not withdrawn after conviction for a criminal offence. This is a wonderful example of how scientific knowledge can be used for the benefit of a diverse and inclusive society.

^{* An English translation: The termless sliding scale whereby the criminal foreigner always remains a foreigner. A study of the compatibility of the abolition of the final deadline of the sliding scale with the non-discrimination principle as interpreted in the case law of the ECHR.}

Nalini Heinmüller (Psychology) - Mental Health Disparities by Gender Identity: A Cross-Sectional Study about Depressive Symptoms in Transgender Individuals

Nalini shows that transgender people show higher levels of depression than cisgender people. In doing so, she debunks earlier findings that this effect is stronger among transgender people who were assigned a male gender at birth. A perfectly written and strongly thesis with a methodology that exceeds bachelor level.

Andrew Tan (Information Sciences) - Visualization of Energy Consumption in Container-based Virtualization - Winner

The excellent combination of conceptual design and project implementation shows that Andrew clearly possesses the necessary technical knowledge and analytical skills. Combined with his exceptional dedication, he has made a valuable contribution to his field.

Zowi Huinen (Oncology) - The role of stromal-derived sialic acid in macrophage-mediated immune suppression in PDAC

Zowi conducted her research at a high level, comparable to the PhD students of the research group she was part of. She did this so well and adequately that her research is now being used for publication.

Finn de Ridder (Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems) - SMASH: Synchronized Many-sides Rowhammer Attacks from JavaScript

Finn's research had great impact: it was published, nominated for an award (Pwnie Award), and businesses as well as the academic 'Security' community have visibly improved their defence efforts against the 'Rowhammer' attacks on the working memory of PCs, servers and smartphones following the publication of Finn's research. All in all, an original and high-quality social research project.

Tim Mocking (Bioinformatics & Systems Biology) - Improving clonality analysis of multiple tumours from the same patient - Winner

A study of the crucial clinical problem of determining whether (new) tumours originate from the primary tumour, or represent a new, different type of tumour, the latter of which would require a completely different medical treatment. Besides some improvements on existing methods, Tim came up with a completely new idea that he managed to implement within a short time. His thesis is of high technical quality, characterised by profound theoretical insight combined with outstanding creativity.

Timen Vierling (Spatial, Transport and Environmental Economics) - The willingness to pay for better elementary education. Applying a spatial difference model in Amsterdam

Timen shows that an increase in the quality of schooling raises house prices in Amsterdam. Good primary education attracts higher incomes, whereas it was long thought that this was not the case in the Netherlands. Finding a causal effect is remarkable for a social science thesis. That and the methodological approach - which, according to his supervisor, is better than that of other (international) studies - makes Timen's thesis a deserved nominee for the Master Thesis Prize.

ReAlliance - Winner Best Sustainability Startup

ReAlliance creates circularity in the packaging industry by incentivizing consumers to return packaging to a collecting point, and thereby creating a sorted clean wasted stream for recycling.

Healthnetwork

Healthnetwork provides a set of guidelines that allow people to make well-informed choices about what is right complementary medicine for which patients.

Dizordat

Dizordat is a social media platform aimed at inciting users to debate, share opinions, get feedback and connect on all sorts of topics and in the most interactive way. 

Madglove - Winner Best Social Entrepreneurship Startup

The goal is to develop an orthotic device in the form of a glove that can be used at home, to improve the hand function of people that suffer from spasticity. The aim is to get the spastic hand into a functional position for a better grasp.

Bamboi - Winner VU + ASIF Best Startup

Bamboi created organic toilet paper made from 100% sustainably sourced bamboo. Each roll is CO2 negative, free from deforestation and completely chemical free.

SIMPLEX

There are multiple diseases correlated to the same symptoms. SIMPLEX is a software with an algorithm that matches the symptoms with a list of potential diseases. 

FireDynamo

FireDynamo is a single-tree based simulation software that considers the terrain and weather conditions to accurately predict the fire propagation.

Binqy

Binqy is the online tool for organizations to detect burnout at an early stage using professional questionnaires based on research and expert input.