This first edition will take place during Mission Day: Digital Futures, at Natlab during Dutch Design Week 2025.

A programme that demonstrates how the power of design accelerates innovation and helps organisations move forward. This first edition will be part of Mission Day: Digital Futures, at Dutch Design Week 2025.

Mission Days is a special, content-driven programme and part of DDW. It is the meeting place for designers, entrepreneurs, researchers and policymakers who are working together on solutions to societal challenges — or who want to learn more about them.

 

What to Expect?

We begin with a talk show focusing on successful collaborations between designers and businesses. Both start-ups and established companies will share concrete experiences, insights and lessons learned. Designers and entrepreneurs will talk about how design contributes to entrepreneurship, growth and value creation.

 

The first guests include:

  • Jos Oberdorf (npk design): the impact of design on the success of their clients.
  • Reinder Bakker & Hester van Dijk (Pretty Plastic): how design research into circular plastic grew into a successful start-up.
  • Alain Dujardin (Greenberry): how digital and social design come together in inclusive and purpose-driven entrepreneurship.
  • Annemieke Broesterhuizen (RVO): services for SMEs and the link with sustainable economic development.
  • Martijn Paulen (Dutch Design Foundation): the impact of visibility on the international stage of Dutch Design Week.

 

The programme will be moderated by designer Tiara Spalburg. From her work at the Innovation Hub of network operator Alliander and her focus on systemic issues, she regularly facilitates conversations where design, innovation and culture intersect.

 

Networking Lunch

After the talk show, join the Mission Days networking lunch, where more than 400 designers, researchers, entrepreneurs and policymakers meet. In the afternoon, we will explore the DDW exhibitions of entrepreneurial designers together during a guided design tour. As a participant of the tour, you will receive a DDW wristband, which gives you access to DDW for the rest of the week.

 

Curious about this talk show? Sign up here.