Lieke Schneijdenberg has been part of COOP Centraal since the organisation's founding in 2023. In her role as kwartiermaker, she works to strengthen the professionalism of energy cooperatives in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area — and to connect young people with these local initiatives as a driving force for the energy transition.
Alongside her work at COOP Centraal, Lieke has built expertise in coalition-building across sectors including construction, education and energy. She sets up public-private partnerships aimed at delivering large-scale system change — not through top-down mandates, but through the kind of trust and shared purpose that only sustained collaboration can create.
Her conviction is straightforward: the energy transition will be won or lost locally. And the organisations that bring the next generation in early — not as observers, but as contributors — will be the ones that actually move.
The port of the future runs on clean energy — but who decides how it gets there, and who gets to be part of that decision? This challenge session puts that question directly in the hands of young professionals.
Working in small groups, participants take on the role of stakeholders in a fictional port ecosystem: energy suppliers, cooperative members, industrial companies and local communities. Together they must find a viable path to powering the port on renewables — within real constraints of grid capacity, cost, timeline and political will.
Silke and Lieke bring the perspective of the young generation and the cooperative movement: what does it take to build structures that don't just work for today's decision-makers, but genuinely include the people who will live with the outcome for decades?
Tickets give you full-day access to all sessions, workshops and networking.
Silke de Boer
Rhea Creutzburg