Rianne Houba

Rianne is alumna of the faculty Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft. During her master Integrated Product Design, she developed a concept of a 360 degree panoramic camera for the Berlin startup Panono. Rianne’s successful  graduation project resulted in her first job as a designer at  Panono.

Year Here programme
She enjoyed working in a start-up, but she did not feel that her work contributed something substantial to the lives of the end-users. 

Rianne therefore decided to educate herself as a social designer: “As a social designer, I can contribute to building a more equal and stronger society.” She follows the Year Here programme in London. Year Here is a full-time 10-month fellowship programme that focuses on professionals who want to specialize in the field of social entrepreneurship. In this programme, Rianne follows courses in the areas of design, social impact, entrepreneurship and leadership development.

The future as senior designer
In the future she hopes, as a senior designer, to be able to look back on a large and varied number of impactful social design projects. “I hope that by that time I have contributed to the growth of social design as a discipline and besides my design work, as a mentor or teacher, I can pass on my knowledge to the next generation of designers.”

 How the Marina van Damme Scholarship can help Rianne
Winning the Marina van Damme Scholarship would ensure that Rianne can put all her time and energy into the remaining 8 months of the full-time Year Here programme. In this way she really hopes to get the most out of her year. In addition, she sees the Marina van Damme Network as a great opportunity to learn from female professionals from other disciplines.

In a world where the difference between poor and rich continues to grow apart, I believe it is important that professionals from different disciplines are committed to finding creative solutions to social problems.