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The Edge Fellow Program
A new approach to transformation with the guiding expertise of unique visionaries.
The Edge Fellow Program provides transformational expertise with a unique selection of visionaries who collaborate across disciplines to create positive change across Europe.
Purpose
The Center for the Edge is a strategic think-tank, where we explore what the relevant future might look like, push the boundaries of mainstream thinking, and apply these to long-term business strategy. Although part of Deloitte, we operate at arm’s length and independently of transactional engagements, so we can think outside immediate project priorities. As a small research group, our role is to apply intellect, rigour and imagination to our subject matter. We bring high-grade knowledge, fresh thinking and the ability to examine and challenge underlying critical beliefs about the future, in a way that clarifies and expands the horizon of strategic possibilities
Background
Deloitte founded the Center 15 years ago in Silicon Valley, where it developed a close working relationship with Singularity University. In 2013, we opened a European base in the Netherlands, and now employ a small team to apply that research, both externally and internally. Much of our value comes from building trusted relationships with CEOs, allowing us to challenge their assumptions about the future. Meanwhile, we collaborate closely with Deloitte’s businesses through our distinct Zoom Out, Zoom In strategy approach. In essence, though, we are flexible and adaptive: as a small and agile team, we can quickly drop in and out of assignments or client conversations without becoming locked into underlying priorities and mindsets.
Topic focus and Edge Fellows
Sustainability is a unifying thread running through all our thoughts and insights. Four of the key themes are the Future of Energy, Future of Food, Future of Health and Future of Mobility, and each brings important questions about how business can become more responsible and sustainable. Clients rely on the expertise the Center brings to think more broadly about overall systems and interconnection, with such a holistic outlook being the foundation of most strategic approaches to sustainability.
The future means nothing without the present, and our Edge Fellow programme keeps us connected with current industry-leading practice outside of Deloitte. Our Edge Fellows bring visionary thinking, outstanding global expertise, and a wealth of board-level industry connections. While they remain autonomous and typically work with us around one day a week,
Edge Fellows connect the Center with invaluable subject matter expertise, while accessing Deloitte’s execution power, to put thinking into practice. Of our present Edge Fellows, Constantijn van Oranje is a world leader in digital innovation and incubating technology ecosystems, while Lucien Engelen brings rare expertise in the user experience and operating model for digital healthcare. Recently Carlo van de Weijer joined the Edge Fellow program, His industry experience and visionary thinking will help us jointly explore a more sustainable future for mobility, and bring new perspectives to board-level conversations
We believe that with the subject matter expertise of Edge Fellows and execution power of Deloitte, we can accelerate positive change at our clients.
Together we put topics on the agenda of the CEO that are not there yet but ought to be.
Carlo van de Weijer - Future of Mobility
With a long career in the automotive and transportation industries – including executive positions at Siemens and TomTom – our Edge Fellow for the Future of Mobility is Carlo van de Weijer. Carlo advises ministries and industries around the world on mobility issues, and serves on the supervisory boards of several high-tech companies (among them NXP Semiconductors, VADO Group and PON) and start-ups (Lightyear, Amber, Nimbus and others). He is one of the founding fathers of the billion-euro-plus EIT Urban Mobility programme, and weekly columnist in a Dutch national newspaper.
Mobility resides at the heart of our society, with people spending on average 60–90 minutes a day – and more than 15% of their budget – on being mobile. It’s an industry that has never been more topical, seemingly under constant attack by new, disruptive innovations in all arenas, from cycling to aviation. Globally, governments have accelerated thinking around future-proofing the transportation landscape, and European trends such as superblocks, the ‘15-minute city’ and car-free zones are nudging both consumers and companies away from traditional modes of transport and toward greener alternatives.
Carlo is a master of the mobility debate; a pioneering thinker on all transportation issues, from micromobility to aviation. He not only raises the important questions about how businesses can become more responsible, sustainable and profitable in the modern world, but also helps define the pathways to get there.
Carlo has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology, and a PhD with honours from the University of Technology in Graz.
Lucien Engelen - Digital Health
As an Edge Fellow for the Deloitte Center for the Edge Lucien leads Global Strategy on Digital Health and pushes the needle on a global scale for the needed change of the operational model and the H-UX as he coined it; the Healthcare User-Experience. He helps corporates understand and act on the current and future grand challenges within health(care) and aims to (re)shape the health(care) sector. Lucien has decades of experience within healthcare innovation: lastly 11 years as an advisor to the executive board at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
He was also the founding director of the wellknown REshape Center for Health(care) Innovation at Radboudumc. Lucien initiated the National Health Innovation School and build this in co-creation with the Dutch Ministry of Health into a (inter)national effort. Lucien is also faculty at Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine (Silicon Valley) since 2011.
His modus operandi is always challenging, creative, sometimes provocative but always techno-realistic. His goal is to prepare for a ‘soft landing into the future’, meanwhile creating a sustainable global health(care) for all. As a public speaker, he touches on how the intersection of technology and patient empowerment is creating momentum for the delocalization of healthcare, and the shift of data in the hands of patients.
Constantijn van Oranje - Ecosystems & digital innovation
Constantijn van Oranje leads TechLeap.NL (formerly StartupDelta), the accelerator for the Tech-ecosystem in the Netherlands. As Special Envoy he is on a continuous and tireless mission to make the Netherlands the best place in Europe for tomorrows leaders in technology. To achieve that, he and his team connect the Dutch Tech-ecosystem to help ambitious and promising Dutch Tech companies grow fast internationally by improving their access to capital, market and talent. Humor and knowledge are his most important tools in this respect, in addition to a relentless passion for technology and innovation and a deep commitment to make The Netherlands the frontrunner in European Tech.
Constantijn is also Director Digital Technology & Macro Strategy at Macro Advisory Partners in London and New York and Edge Fellow at Deloitte Centre for the Edge.
He also advises companies and the European Commission on their digital innovation strategies. Besides innovation and technology, Constantijn van Oranje is passionate about art, music, photography and nature.
