Entrepreneur Stef van der Ziel doesn’t want to dwell on the topic of his TEDTalk. You just have to listen to it and find out for yourself. He does however mention a couple of energetic terms in a brief description of his Talk: Energy and Power. “Take control of your own energy”, that’s the message. “Energy is the essence of life. In ten years time, the way we will heat our homes and supply it with electricity will change radically. We can solve the ernergy problem independently. That’s what people should be realizing.” In this regard, Van der Ziel leads in creating, pitching, and realizing these plans. He calls it ‘disruptive planning’, a term we encounter more and more in the media. What he means by it, is what we will hear in his Talk.

Van der Ziel enjoys creating plans in order to innovate existing markets and give people more control. His companies, Jet-Stream and StreamZilla, stood at the beginning of the internet television revolution, allowing people to decide for themselves what they wanted to watch; where, when, and on which device. His ‘quake meter’ enables people in the province of Groningen to measure earthquakes. It also enables people with earthquake damage to their houses to locate local repair companies, independent from the NAM and the government. Power to the People is a plan to rid our country’s addiction to energy taxes and make everyone their own independent energy producer.

Enthusiasm and commitment are the core elements of his work. Implementing innovation in existing markets is his passion. A book about him will never appear because, as he comments on the existing market: “a book is so 20th century…”
A TEDTalk that inspired him is the ‘WHY’ presentation by Simon Sinek.