Bao Podcast

Sven Grooten, co-founder of B-architecten, shares insights from his innovative architectural journey. He discusses how collaborative training at the Berlage Institute shaped his studio's ethos. Sven dives into cultural differences in land use, advocating for circularity and material reuse in design. He emphasizes the need for architecture education in schools and calls for stronger public control over land to prevent greenfield development. With a vision for more sustainable practices, he highlights the shifting values of younger generations towards sharing and reuse.

For our podcast episode for the month of March, our guest is Jérôme Constant. Jérôme is managing partner at Rise PropTech Fund, a venture capital fund dedicated to Late-Seed and Series A startups active in the PropTech sector. They invest in companies that have the ambition and potential to change the construction & real estate industry in Europe. Recently, they made their first investment in the company LEKO Labs. For more information, please visit https://riseproptech.eu/.

After a short winter break, we’re back with a bang! For our tenth podcast episode, our guest is Jan Kriekels. Jan is the owner of Jaga Climate Designers, a radiator manufacturer using innovative heating and cooling technologies. Jaga employs over 600 people and operates in over 35 countries across the globe. Under his leadership, the company has won a great many international design and export awards. Among many other big projects, they are the company behind the innovative heating technology installed in the residence of Russian President Putin and at the Telefónica headquarters in Madrid. For more information, please visit https://www.jaga.com/benl/.

Hans is the founder and owner of Sustacon. With Sustacon, he advises Flemish family businesses on (among other things) strategy, organizational development, and sustainability. They are specialized in helping companies to work more sustainably in the construction sector, but they also advise companies in other industries. Besides his work at Sustacon, Hans is a part-time professor in Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics at the University of Antwerp. For more information, please visit https://www.sustacon.me/.

Rik is the founder of editorial office Palindroom, specialized in writing articles on construction and architecture. With Palindroom he creates websites where they publish the latest news about the construction industry. One of these websites, architectura.be, is the most visited architecture website in Belgium! Rik also has his own podcast, the ‘Architectura.be Podcast’ where he invites Belgian architects to share their vision. He’s also very passionate about circular construction and started for this reason circubuild.be. For more information, please visit https://palindroom.be/nl, https://architectura.be/nl or https://circubuild.be/nl.

Jona is Innovation Manager at the well know construction company Groep Van Roey. With 11 companies in this group, They are a specialist in total solutions for the construction industry, they develop projects from start to finish. On top of this they are probably also one of the oldest companies in Belgium: Groep Van Roey was founded in 1760, which makes them 281 years old! For more information, please visit https://www.groepvanroey.be/nl.

Chris is the founder of JuuNoo. This company has developed a circular interior wall, it’s a wall that is not demolished at the end of its life but gets dismantled and repositioned as a new wall. Chris started JuuNoo 5 years ago, with one specific goal in mind: to stop building waste created by interior walls. Currently, they are actively conquering the Belgian market, but their ambitions also extend abroad. For more information, please visit https://www.juunoo.com/.

Serge is a “climate ambassador” of Al Gore, initiator of the climate case against Belgium (which he and his colleagues have won), and founder & CEO at Futureproofed. The mission of Futureproofed is to help businesses and cities become ‘futureproof’ by helping them reduce their CO2 emissions while saving costs, driving innovation, and becoming more attractive. Two branches of Futureproofed are working towards this goal: FutureproofedCities is a software platform that connects over 145 municipalities and helps them implement their climate plan. CarbonCap is a similar service but aimed at businesses, launching in September 2021. Carboncap enables businesses to measure, manage and reduce their carbon emissions faster and easier across their organization. For more info on Serge's activities, please visit https://www.klimaatzaak.eu/ and https://www.futureproofed.com/ .

Sunita is the founder and managing director of SuReal. SuReal is a consultancy firm that supports companies and government agencies in making buildings and city projects more sustainable. To reach this goal, they do all types of studies. One of the projects they already worked on is the Victoria reconversion project in Brussels, which’s been developed by DWNTWN Real Estate & Baltisse. For more information, please visit https://sureal.be/ .

Arne is the co-founder of AMAVI Capital. AMAVI is an independent pan-European investor, established to support the growth of the leading and most promising companies active in the European Proptech industry. AMAVI bridges the gap between the traditional real estate industry on the one hand and the most groundbreaking Proptech scale-ups on the other. For more information, please visit https://amavi.capital/.