How did you come up with the idea to become a REC Impact Fellow at UvA?

'Like many good ideas these days, it started with a LinkedIn notification.
I had posted about AI transparency, trust and explainability, and Mark Siebert tagged Banu and Diederik in the comments. What was meant as a quick online exchange turned into my suggestion to ‘grab a coffee sometime’. That coffee became a longer conversation in the Impact Building about how organizations can work with AI in a way that is understandable and accountable. Somewhere between the second espresso and the whiteboard sketches in our heads, it became clear that we were essentially having a REC Impact Fellows meeting already – only without calling it that. At the end of that conversation, I simply said: why don’t I join the team and help build this from the inside? The Fellowship turned out to be the perfect way to do exactly that: turning a LinkedIn thread about responsible AI into a concrete collaboration on campus.'

What was your first experience on campus?

'My first encounter with the UvA campus was as a mentor in the Minor Entrepreneurship. I wasn’t teaching in a lecture hall yet – I was mostly guiding small student teams and discovering how much energy lives in those early-stage ideas.From there, things escalated quickly. I became a bachelor thesis supervisor, and after completing my doctorate last year I became involved in master- and MBA‑level projects and company collaborations as well.By now, I’ve seen the campus from almost every angle: as a mentor, supervisor, researcher and partner for impact projects.'

What is your 'Impact Project' or focus for this Fellowship?

'My Impact Project is centred on collaborating with impact fellows Banu Cigdem Aksel, and Diederikvan Braam van Vloten in developing a practical model for responsible AI adoption in SMEs. I focus in particular on ‘ecosystem thinking’: how we can connect SMEs, UvA researchers, students and technology partners so that smaller organisations can adopt AI in a way that is understandable, trustworthy and useful.The aim is to turn theory on ecosystems and innovation into concrete tools and project formats that make it easier for SMEs to explore AI responsibly, and to strengthen the impact ecosystem around the university in the processsee also my latest paper for more info on this topic: Stokvis, E. J., Srivastava, M., & Tyll, L. (2026). Universities as mechanism-makers: innovation in early-stage digital-health start-ups in a regulated ecosystem. International Journal of Innovation Science, 1-36.'