My story of birthdays, a new decade and how Solvoz started

This morning my kids literally jumped on my bed. “Mummy, it’s your birthday!” Matter of fact: they barely could fall asleep last night out of excitement. I didn’t celebrate birthdays for years until my kids were there and reached the aged of grasping the concept of birthday (in their eyes it’s the day you’re basically the boss for the day, get presents and can eat what you wish). However this one is a birthday with a zero, entering another decade. And guess what… I’m actually just over the moon with it, reflecting a bit and getting my thoughts written down as we speak: I’ve had major milestones happening at each single entrance of a decade.

A story starting at age 6

As I’ve written earlier, from the age five or six, Humanitarian aid worker has been my dream job. It was the year of the great famine in Ethiopia. On one of the walls in our classroom there was a poster; a charity run at our primary school. A poster with two little boys, distinctive round bellies, hand in hand, dusty background. I came home enthusiastically that day, “Mum, Dad, I gotta run, and you have to pay me. With this money Ethy and Jopy can buy food, and hence they will not be hungry any longer.

The following three decades leading to the start of a movement

My first decade, 10 years old. The age I learned I could study tropical landuse at the university of Wageningen. Realizing that knowing all about agriculture in Africa I would be well equipped to help solve the world food problem. It’s the decade I would also (aged 16) work for the first time with an aid agency in Africa; Mauritania was my first country to work in.

My second decade, 20 years old, I studied Tropical Land use in Wageningen (the Netherlands). I became critical, reflected a lot about the rational to intervene, while loving it at the same time. This year, I had my first lecture in Humanitarian Assistance from Thea Hilhorst (professor at Disaster Studies and Humanitarian aid). I was sold from the very first day, the humanitarian principles were my guiding principles all along, I had an even clearer mission, one day I would join MSF. Little did I know that decade I would be confronted with serious health issues that would block me moving forward for a few years. But I became a real Master in Disaster, graduating from UCD Dublin in Humanitarian Assistance later on.

My third decade, 30 years old. On my birthday I was a Project Coordinator for Doctors without Borders (MSF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I remember being teary eyed realizing I was living my dream, my ambitions and my moral obligation as it felt to serve and do what needs to be done in the right way. While in this role one day I was in one of our cars for a malnutrition screening. Visiting villages where I was informed that Action contre la Faim and UNICEF have been doing the same screening years ago… I wasn’t collecting baseline data, it was just another subset of data. Data we humanitarian should be more responsible with. That day my new mission started, we humanitarian should be more responsible with data and innovation. Many roles followed, leading to the start of a movement: for responsible innovation and procurement in aid.

Today turning 40, a new decade to start

My fourth decade, 40 years old. Today on my birthday, I am the founder of Solvoz and we secured half of our funding to scale for covid last week. We released our prototype a month ago, and times couldn’t have been crazier. We are ready to make an impact, change and disrupt to enable responsible procurement and innovation in aid. To serve more people globally, responsibly and transparently, efficiently and effectively. I am so proud of the team we are working with. It’s unbelievable that this happens exactly at this week again, making another 0 a big milestone. No clue what it will be with my next 0. For now I would relish to call upon my network, to help us secure that remaining part of our funding and help us grow. To provide immediate value for the pandemic, and all what is needed, in low and medium resource settings.

Please send me a message if you wish to contribute and follow Solvoz on LinkedIn or check our website at www.solvoz.com

Thanks to everybody I have met over these amazing years that helped me to date; see were we are today!