Christiaan de Vries@GaiusCivilis

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I'm a 4th year student of public administration & governance at Avans University of Applied Sciences. I have a major passion for anything to do with European affairs, and have recently begun specialising myself towards security studies.  
Innovation is a topic that by pure chance I got to experience on different levels during the last couple of years. First, by taking classes in industrial policy and European funds on an exchange programme in Poland to gain a theoretical basis of how innovation can be steered by governments. After that I completed a six month internship at the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee (4th branch of the Dutch armed forces) with the Directorate for Knowledge, Strategy and Innovation. Here I was able to experience how innovations are made and encouraged in the armed forces of the Netherlands. Currently I am writing my thesis for Stimulus Programme management, who (amongst other things) manage a European (ERDF) programme aimed at boosting innovation in the southern Netherlands. 

The Cassini Hackathon is a very interesting next step in this journey for me, as this time I get to be on the receiving end of innovation policies and actually get to innovate myself! This is incredibly exciting, as it brings together all these things into one cool weekend.