Meinke Gerritje van Oenen
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14vBZYyEEzyx7tG-7NGjfdnffkeCO6C9U/view?usp=sharing Algaenius & Eindhoven University of Technology
Meinke van Oenen is an award-winning student entrepreneur working on the frontier of water innovation. At just seventeen, she launched research that has since become Algaenius, a startup using immobilized algae as a biobased pretreatment method for desalination that can remove 50% of salt from seawater while capturing CO₂ — lowering the energy needed and making drinking water production cleaner and cheaper. She has received multiple awards, including the UN Gamechanger Challenge 2023, the Dutch Junior Water Prize, and the Young Lady Business Award. Last year she was the youngest talent on the Dutch Finacial Times' Entrepreneurial Talent Under 35 list, and most recently she won the Benelux final of the EIT Wavemaker Award for the most promising water innovations in Europe. She is currently finishing her MSc in Innovation Management at TU Eindhoven and her LLM in Financial Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam, while championing intergenerational leadership through Network 2100. By combining technical expertise with business insight, she aims to catalyse bioinnovation to ensure water for all, while cooling down the planet.