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Wittenborg University 25 Jubilee Seminars

Today saw the presentation of two Wittenborg University jubilee seminars by Senior lecturer Saskia Harkema and Associate Professor James Bowen.

Dr Saskia Harkema

During her formative years Saskia lived in South America in Colombia, Argentina and Brazil. This has influenced her life greatly. Functioning in an international environment is where she feels most at home. After having worked for 10 years in a commercial environment amongst others for Philips Lighting Europe – which was a very enriching period that has also had great influence on her personal development – in the late 90’s she made a switch to academia, education and research. Saskia is dedicated, inquisitive and always looking for opportunities and new ideas. Her PhD dissertation is framed within the theory of complex adaptive systems theory. This line of thought influences her work as a consultant, lecturer and researcher and approach of problems. It places people, interaction and learning at the heart of change processes, instead of structures, processes and procedures.  She was Associate Professor Innovation & Entrepreneurship for 8 years at the University of Applied Sciences in The Hague. She combined this with an 

affiliation with one of the leading consultancy firms in the Netherlands BMC. Saskia has recently joined Wittenborg as a senior researcher and lecturer. Her expertise lies in the field of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Diversity. She also lectures at the University Utrecht and NCOI. Furthermore she works together with De Baak Management Centrum – the training centre set up by VNO/NCW specializing in leadership programs. In addition she has set up a European Partnership with 5 organizations supporting refugee women to enter the labour market via a EU funded program. She has written several books and articles and is member of ECEI 

(European Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation) and FinPin – the Finnish network on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Professor James Bowen

At age 21 and while still in undergraduate university James co-founded a software company. Over the next 20 years he and his co-founders build an international client base. Dr. Bowen has been interviewed on the internet, radio, magazine, T.V. and newspaper. He was the sole author of two books discussing the creation and growth of high-tech product companies. He published his third book “The Entrepreneurial Effect” that drew upon his network of entrepreneurs in a collaborative approach and focused on lessons learned from entrepreneurs and investors. The second in the series has been published in the fall of 2011. He is the originator of the Entrepreneurial Effect Award for student entrepreneurs.

He is associated with 10 universities including 3 in Europe where he teaches MBAs technology, entrepreneurship and strategy.

His volunteer work includes the City of Ottawa’s technology industry development agency’s (OCRI) Innovation Leadership Team. He wrote, for three years, the monthly theme article discussing the technology industry and its management issues for Ottawa’s technology industry newspaper NationalCapitalScan.

He is active with technology companies and investors and regularly provides advice to technology companies. He also sits as a mentor at the start-up incubator: Exploriem and mentor and founder at the start-up incubator: Hatchbrands. He is the inventor of an archaeological artefact locator using infrared and ultrasonic, a task management system and an underwater localization using passive sonar.

He is currently working on his 4th and 5th start-ups.

WUP 08/11/12

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