Roel Boogaard

Twenty years ago I came to Amsterdam to study criminology and criminal law. Coming from a small village I was thrilled by the energy, diversity, and social challenges which living in a big city comprehends. In 2000 at the University of Cape Town while doing research on the South African criminal justice system in transition I realized that changing the world starts with changing my own perspective... to see beyond the current actual situation to what's potentially possible.

In the first years of my working career, I have worked as an interim manager at innovative projects in the social sector at Government agencies like the implementation of community service for high school students and the piloting of GPS-tracking of criminal offenders. After that, I have worked as a director of 2 different Christian non-profit youth organizations. Working with a lot of young adults in the last 8 years made it very clear to me that society is changing dramatically and most institutions are unable to adapt quickly enough to these changes. I decided to focus my ambitions into the area of social entrepreneurship.

At this moment I am involved in starting a philanthropic campus in Amsterdam where dozens of social enterprises can scale up their social impact on doing good to marginalized people in society.