Anne Sallaerts

Partner & Managing Director at Designathon Works

My experience and deep interests:

• Business Development

• Education (Youth)

• Strategy

I am based in: Amsterdam

I am driven to contribute to a better world through preparing children for a vastly changing future. I do this by teaching them the competencies to co-design their future and prosper in it.

To reach my goal, I use my 15 years of experience as a leader & designthinker in both the corporate and NGO world, mainly focused on business development, creative concepting and innovation. In my current role, I am one of three partners leading the international Designathon Works organization together with fellow THNKer Emer Beamer.

Designathon Works is a young foundation. We developed a unique design thinking method for children to empower and unleash their creativity to design a better world using new technologies. We aim to reach 1 million children globally by 2023.

With the Designathon Works learning method grounded in design thinking, the child is understood as a complete human being endowed with great creative capacity. Through this method, we enable teachers to tap into the natural space of play within a child and among children, to stimulate their interest and engagement in social issues, and from there, challenge them to design solutions for these issues aided by the use of modern technology. Our flagship project is the yearly Global Children''s Designathon held in 18 cities worldwide and growing.