SingularityU Amsterdam Chapter

There is no shortage of curious people in Amsterdam. Historically, the Dutch have been known for their global explorations, and more recently they have become one of the most vibrant startup culture cities in Europe.The Netherlands, and Amsterdam especially, are quite involved in thinking about new technologies. Relative to other countries, the Netherlands has a strong interest in technologies and also has a large startup culture, shares Alix Rbsaam another member of the SingularityU Amsterdam leadership team. The city of Amsterdam even has a CTO. We were excited to have him speak at one of our events.Maayke continues, Because our country is so small, we have to think a lot about the global grand challenges. For example, water or waste management issues are something that we need to talk about because of our demographic.Filling a Community VoidA common thread for the team members is that each one of the 4 members once felt isolated regarding their interests in technologies and exponentials. We have each found a way to an existing community we didnt know existed. So to be able to facilitate such a journey and help others find their community is the idea we started with, shares Jordy Egging, another SingularityU Amsterdam leadership member.Although it is often difficult to quantitatively measure the number of connections and outcomes from these new relationships, the team is confident that they are adding value to a growing community. Some evidence includes regularly receiving letters of appreciation and gratitude from event participants. And several other have offered to host future events for the chapter.It is not uncommon for the chapters events to have sold out within hours of announcing the event. In fact, the team had to make a special effort to cap the number of attendees at around 150 per event.

The growth of the community has been fueled in large part by referrals. Around a third of the people who attend our events are first timers, shares Jordy. People send the invite to others who are not already in our communications channels, which really helps to get the new curious onboard and grow the community around it.

We recently hosted an event at a really awesome tech co-working space with a nice garden here in Amsterdam. People came in and immediately started networking. Our team was making introductions as often as we could. We made a short introduction about what the evening was about, a bit about our SU community and then about why we intentionally chose to host our event in this coworking space. Then we had 3 speakers, saved up questions and then held a really nice moderated discussion with the participants, explains Maayke.SingularityU The NetherlandsFor such a small country, The Netherlands has a disproportionately large number of Singularity University alumni and chapters. Currently there are 4 different Chapters in the Netherlands Eindhoven (currently seeking volunteers), Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Nijmegen.The team has been able to collaborate with the already established SingularityU The Netherlands country partnership. Although SingularityU The Netherlands is quite different from the in its offering and day-to-day experience, the opportunity to collaborate is very much a part of the chapters success.

We have been really lucky to have access to the larger SingularityU The Netherlands community as well. For years, the country partnership team has been organizing events in the Netherlands and we were able to tap into this 2000 people strong community to spread the word about our events. We also attend each others events which makes the collaboration really easy and fun, explains Peter Maarten. Alix continues, We work with the other Chapters really well. They are awesome and always help us with whatever we need help with. We always make sure we align events, share resources, speakers, dates, important stuff coming up so that we dont have overlapping events.

Community EventsThe Chapter focuses on running two different types of events. The first is a networking type of event. While they do offer some content, the events are mainly focused on bringing the community together to connect people who share similar interests and passions.The second type of event focuses heavily on local impact, which involves choosing a local challenge space, inviting expert speakers and hosting conversations and dialogue around that topic. These events have lead to many beneficial shared experiences including discovering coworking spaces, landing new jobs, co-hosting events and more.There is a community of people who have the same interest. The community feels very open and curious, adds Jordy.

The chapter has a strong sense of community and purpose. We provide people who cannot afford the price or the time to go to SU with information so that they can learn the exponential way of thinking and then incorporate that into their lives, explains Maayke. For us, what we aim for at the events is that we help them get to know others who are interested in the same things to be able to help each other and we provide them the knowledge and tools to be able to do that. All our events are aimed at this.

To learn more about SingularityU Chapters and to get involved, explore their website here.In the Spotlight: Singularity University ChaptersSince launching the SingularityU Chapters program in 2015, the SingularityU Global network has grown to an impressive network of 107 chapters in 57 countries. In this SingularityU: Chapter in the Spotlight blog series, we will interview Chapter Leaders to explore some of what lead them to opening their SingularityU Chapters, what their chapter experiences entail and what and makes their cities an important part of a global ecosystem.

To learn more about getting involved with SingularityU Chapters, explore our website here: ·RELATED QUESTION

bringing weed back from amsterdam to usa.?

Well, coming back from Amsterdam automatically flags your for extra special searching when returning to the US. Why risk it? Are huge fines and possible jail time worth a little cheaper weed? If you're paying all that money to go to Amsterdam, to come back with a little weed, you're just going to end up causing yourself trouble and hassle