So,
about me.
Let's start with a bio you may use:
Emma is a 22-year-old Dutch entrepreneur. At age 17, she decided the conventional route of going to university was not for her. She then started Emma's College, her own informal college focused on self-directed learning. Emma specialized in informal and self-directed learning. Emma's expertise got recognized and she was asked to consult many schools and companies on their education/learning strategy, implementing the lessons from her own Emma's College. Her work has been published in two books and Emma got invited to be the youngest person to be on a one-week journey with global leaders to the arctic. Emma is a frequent speaker on learning. Some highlights are a TEDx talk, giving the yearly Teacher Gala speech in Amsterdam, and the Future Talks Conference in Oslo.
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Some of Emma's other projects include Emma's Notes, her weekly newsletter on entrepreneurship. Besides that, she runs a brand new foundation called Open Fields Foundation. There she uses the power of Open Science and Open Tech to investigate complex problems. Currently, Emma is pursuing a degree at the highly selective Minerva university, with an acceptance rate of 1.9%. Part of Minerva University is its global rotation, leading Emma to live in a different country every semester. Whenever Emma is not studying, she calls Barcelona her home. There she is part of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers, working on improving the Barcelonian ecosystem of innovation.
Then on to the longer version:
10 facts:
My name is Emma, but I think you got that by now. Entrepreneurship and education have always been key pillars in my life. For most of my life I felt torn between the two.
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I started my educational journey at a Montessori school and I loved it. The essence of Montessori education is teaching kids to be independent, empathic, and global citizens. One of the method's slogans is 'teach me to do it myself'. This way of nurturing growth really fitted my personality - as the first word I ever spoke was 'self'. It was also in harmony with my parent's values at home and I'm deeply grateful to them and my school for laying this solid foundation for my development.
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At the meantime though - I was also selling self-made headbands on the playground. The entrepreneurial spirit kicked in early.
My name is Emma, but I think you got that by now. Entrepreneurship and education have always been key pillars in my life. For most of my life I felt torn between the two.
​
I started my educational journey at a Montessori school and I loved it. The essence of Montessori education is teaching kids to be independent, empathic, and global citizens. One of the method's slogans is 'teach me to do it myself'. This way of nurturing growth really fitted my personality - as the first word I ever spoke was 'self'. It was also in harmony with my parent's values at home and I'm deeply grateful to them and my school for laying this solid foundation for my development.
​
At the meantime though - I was also selling self-made headbands on the playground. The entrepreneurial spirit kicked in early.
​
It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, however. Even thought the Montessori system is more flexible than many other forms of education, there is still a structure based on expected development. And well, if you're ahead of that, it means you spend a lot of time reading books by yourself in the hallway. Or at least it meant that for me.
Moving on to high school, I went to a grammar school (that teaches Latin and Greek). My time there was very different from the Montessori school. All of a sudden, I could not schedule my own day. Instead, I had a tight schedule to follow, just like all the other students.
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The first year this was engaging because it was all new. In the second and third years, our family went through a scary time and I spent a lot of time caregiving. In the fourth year, I got really bored. So I made it my personal mission to spend as little time as possible in the classroom.
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I started taking courses at Radboud University and only went to school 3 days a week. In the days that I was there, my entrepreneurial spirit took the better of me. I started many student initiatives, including:
- A group of 25 students organizing fundraising events for the Red Cross (totaled raised 32k)
- A student union to improve collaboration between students, teachers, and administration to improve the quality of education of the school.
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And then a main focus of my final years was: getting into Harvard.
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But that didn't go as planned:
'Emma is a highly talented and very professional young woman. She knows what she herself needs to flourish and what others and their organizations need to do the same. She has a sharp mind and warm heart is a great writer and speaker and easily balances the strategic overview with meticulously focussing on detail. She is both a strong analyst and feeler. In short: a blast to work with!
Claire Boonstra | Founder œ Operation Education