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In 2012, the doors of the first and only Jean School in the world opened in Amsterdam, offering an education in which young, creative and driven students learn the craftsmanship of denim design and development. Jeans are iconic. The denim business is the largest within the fashion industry and the Netherlands is at the forefront of denim design and consumption. Globally, Amsterdam has the largest density of denim brands. Dutch brands such as G-Star RAW, Denham, KOI and Scotch & Soda are well-known all over the world. Brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein have their head offices in Amsterdam. This means there is a continuous demand for denim talent in the Netherlands, and Dutch talent in the rest of the world.

British author, James Wallman’s bestselling book, Stuffocation: Living More With Less is a provocative manifesto for change. It challenges the reader to move away from a mentality of materialism, from having more “stuff” than we know what to do with, to one of experientialism, to doing more and being happier and healthier for it. In the book, Wallman traces our obsession with stuff back to the original Mad Men who first created desire through advertising. He interviews anthropologists studying the clutter crisis, economists searching for new ways of measuring progress, and psychologists who link rampant materialism to declining wellbeing. And he introduces us to the innovators who are turning their backs on all-you-can-get consumption, and trading in materialism for “experientialism” – where they find more happiness, live more meaningful lives, and express status more successfully, through experiences rather than stuff. In this podcast, Wallman explains how we can make the transition from having to doing, and how we can apply the principles behind Stuffocation to our search for meaningful work.

Anne-Marie Imafidon is a child genius who’s grown up to be a barrier-breaking social entrepreneur. Imafidon first came to prominence on British TV as the eldest child in “Britain’s Brainiest Family.” At just 10 years of age, she passed her Maths and ICT GCSEs, exams usually taken by 16-year-olds in the UK, and at 11, she became the youngest girl ever to attain an A-level in Computing. At Oxford University, she was one of only three girls in a class of 70 studying maths and computer science. Now in her mid-twenties and having recently quit her job in the City, she’s committed to making a difference. Through her social enterprise, Stemettes, Imafidon aims to radically increase the number of women in Europe pursuing careers in the traditionally male arenas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics by matchmaking girls with women mentors and hosting a series of inspirational events and opportunities. In just three years, 8,000 girls across Europe have had attended Stemette experiences. As part of the initiative, Imafidon has also co-founded Outbox Incubator, the world’s first tech incubator for teenage girls.

The Brussels Beer Project has been making waves on the Brussels craft brewing scene over the last twelve months. Founded by two friends in their garage and kitchen, Sebastien Morvan and Olivier de Brauwere started out as hobby brewers, but soon saw the potential for disrupting the conservative European beer industry. With their signature beer product made from recycled bread, the duo has turned the closed business of brewing into a community-minded enterprise, working with a Brussels-based NGO to collect bread from local supermarkets that would otherwise be discarded and turning it into something both tasty and profitable. With backing from crowdfunders, who receive beer for life in return for their contribution, and community tastings to choose which beers to produce, The Brussels Beer Project is truly co-creative. In this podcast, Sebastien Morvan explains why beer making should have a social conscience and why, at just 32, he’s lived, worked and studied in 10 countries, including Brazil, Argentina and the UK.

What do driverless cars have to do with the future of online music streaming? A lot, according to Mat Clayton, co-founder of Mixcloud, the popular online music streaming and distribution platform who says that enhanced mobile phones and driverless cars are the next big thing in music tech. Mixcloud was started by two university friends in London in 2008 and has since grown from a four man company to a team of over 20 with around 10 million users. Mat leads the company’s engineering tech team, who are based across Europe and the world. Listen in as Mat tells us about the Mixcloud journey, from how the idea came about to starting up with no money. He explains what it’s like to work with a geographically displaced team as well as just where music tech is heading in the next few years. He also gives advice to young people starting out in the job market who are interested in working for a startup: “Be prepared to work hard. Pick something you 100% agree with the mission of, and you feel it fits with not just you, but also humanity and like the world.”

Jessica Greenwalt’s startup, CrowdMed is out to revolutionise the medical industry. Building on the highly popular crowdsourcing trend, CrowdMed relies on a community of ‘Medical Detectives’ to help patients diagnose unsolved medical conditions and the site has already claimed a number of successes. This isn’t Jessica’s first foray into innovation. The young Californian, who was featured in Inc magazine as one of its "10 Women to Watch in Tech," started a freelance design company while in high school, which grew into an international design and web development firm. An award-winning graphic designer, web developer, and illustrator, Jessica has produced design projects for clients including LinkedIn, and leads the design of CrowdMed's products and branding. In this week’s episode, Jessica talks to us about starting out as a young entrepreneur, taking her education into her own hands, what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated industry and making the move from design to medicine.

What impact will robots and machine intelligence have on the human future? How is society being shaped by machine influence? These are just two of the many questions that concern Nell Watson, a self-confessed “entreprenerd”. Nell is an engineer and a futurist who is an expert in Artificial Intelligence and a lecturer at the renowned Singularity University in AI and Robotics. Nell has had an unusual career, including teaching post-grad Computer Science at the age of 24, and later co-founding a successful graffiti arts company. In 2010 she founded Poikos, the ‘Instagram for body measurement’. Her patented technology ‘dematerialises’ the 3D body scanner, by providing accurate 3D scans of the body with only 2D camera hardware, such as that found within smartphones, or laptops. In this episode, Nell tells us about her journey from student to engineer to tech entrepreneur to futurist and gives us her tips for making it as an entrepreneur in the digital age.

In the first episode of the new Droppin.eu podcast, we speak to Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork, about the freelance economy. Freelancing has become a more attractive option for millions who are shunning the traditional workplace out of choice rather than necessity and entering into more flexible, on-demand work arrangements. The digital revolution has made alternative working models and employment relationships more commonplace. In fields as diverse as journalism and design to consulting and computer programming, digital marketplaces offer individuals new opportunities for generating income for those with in-demand skills. Upwork is the world’s largest freelance talent marketplace. It connects some four million businesses with more than 10 million freelancers from 180 countries. But there are downsides to this new way of working, notably insecurity. What does the rise of the gig economy mean for the future of work? And how can young people take advantage of this trend?