Marijn Leeuwenberg
TPM alumnus and project manager at The Green Village
Joep van der Weijden
TPM alumnus and project manager at The Green Village
Text: Dayinta Perrier
© Sam Rentmeester
Joep van der Weijden came to the Young Alumni Event for a possible new colleague, and he succeeded. Marijn Leeuwenberg, recently graduated and looking for a job, just happened to be sitting next to him. Almost two years later, they are each other’s colleagues and share a common goal: a successful energy transition at The Green Village.
‘TU Delft for life’ was on the pin badge that alumnus Marijn Leeuwenberg received during the presentation of his Master’s degree in Systems and Control. “I’ll never escape from university”, he thought. His graduation had been difficult and he needed a job in an environment away from Delft, which is why he attended the Young Alumni Event at Eneco in 2022. Leeuwenberg: “During my studies, I became increasingly intrigued by the energy transition. It is such a huge issue to solve. I wanted to work in that sector.” During the event, Leeuwenberg sat next to alumnus Joep van der Weijden, Digital Energy project manager at Delft outdoor laboratory The Green Village “We got talking and I felt a click straight away”, says Leeuwenberg. Van der Weijden had also come to the event for a reason: “I knew there would be a vacancy soon, so I was pro-actively looking for possible candidates.” During their conversation, he found out that Leeuwenberg had just the right background for the job. “Marijn would become my immediate colleague and his background was perhaps even a better fit than mine”, says Van der Weijden. “Especially for the next phase, which required more expertise in programming.” He invited Leeuwenberg to The Green Village and shortly afterwards Leeuwenberg signed his contract.
‘I was running around like a sponge’
‘His background was perhaps a better fit than mine’
Data platform
“In the beginning, I had to get used to working together”, says Van der Weijden. “Until then, I was working alone and was completely autonomous. Now we had to strike a balance and determine which topic was whose domain.” For Leeuwenberg, it was his first work experience. “I was running around like a sponge because so much was happening with multiple projects”, he says. “Fortunately, the collaboration went very organically, because our areas of expertise complement each other so well, I think. That doesn’t mean everything went without a hitch, though. ‘But a gem cannot be polished without friction’, says Joep.” Eventually, the two alumni managed to set up a data platform of the measurements at The Green Village. Van der Weijden was responsible for this project first and Leeuwenberg is now overseeing. The Green Village provides facilities to test sustainable innovations. As many as 70 projects may be running simultaneously, ranging from bee hotels to heat pumps to hydrogen plants. “The data used to leave our site as soon as the project was finished”, says Van der Weijden. “But this platform allows us to collect and organise the data so that others can use it too.” In addition, they are increasingly taking their own measurements at The Green Village. “We have extensive household data available, for example”, says Leeuwenberg. “You can use that to train algorithms about energy consumption, water consumption, climate adaptation and even more. That is now ready for use.”
Like-minded people
Even though Van der Weijden has found a good colleague in Leeuwenberg, he still attends alumni events. “I go to all alumni events that focus on the energy sector. The Green Village is relatively small, so it is nice to speak to like-minded people about energy”, he says. “Spots will soon become available again and these events turn out to be good places to scout candidates.”