Events: TED

 

Walter De Brouwer set up more than 40 companies in very diverse sectors but with a nerdy edge focused on technology and/science, two went IPO.

 

De Brouwer is the president of the Belgian chapter of Silicon Valley's Founder Institute, a global network of startups and mentors that helps entrepreneurs launch their dream company without quitting their day job.

 

As a long-time TED member, he is the curator of TEDxBrussels in cooperation with the European Commission. TEDxBrussels is one of the largest TEDx gatherings in the world with a paying audience of 2,000 members.

Curator Walter de Brouwer sets the scene

 

In 2010 he set up the first TEDxKids, a revolutionary attempt at transforming primary education by mixing it up with the maker subculture, representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture.

Walter De Brouwer, curator of TEDxKidsBy TEDxKids@Brussels☆Favorite Comment

 

Typical interests enjoyed by the maker subculture include engineering-oriented pursuits such as electronics, robotics, 3-D printing, and the use of CNC tools, as well as more traditional activities such as metalworking, woodworking, and traditional arts and crafts.The rise of the maker subculture is closely associated with the rise of hackerspaces, of which there are now over 100 in the United States [1]. Some notable hackerspaces which have been linked with the maker subculture include NYC Resistor, A2 Mech Shop, and the for-profit TechShop. In addition, those who identify with the subculture can be found at more traditional universities with a technical orientation, such as MIT (specifically around "shop" areas like the MIT Hobby Shop).Some media outlets associated with the subculture include MAKE (a magazine published since 2005 by O'Reilly Media) and the popular weblog Boing Boing. (Boing BoingeditorCory Doctorow has written a novel, Makers, which he describes as being "a book about people who hack hardware, business-models, and living arrangements to discover ways of staying alive and happy even when the economy is falling down the toilet".

 

Walter was a faculty professor at the International University of Monaco from 2001-2004, where he lectured the popular course, from zero to IPO.

 

He is a member of the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge (UK) since 2004.

 

He sits on the editorial team of the Journal for Chinese Entrepreneurship.

 

Every year De Brouwer writes a new 101 things I wish somebody would have told me. It is a booklet written in Evernote with a freakish format, the sentences are tweets and every reader changes the ranking of the sentences when he reads it so that the book changes after each read.

 

Walter De Brouwer and Julie Meyer communicating

 

Judge School Center for Entrepreneurial Learning