Maayke-Aimée Damen, M.A. is R&D assistant at Ex’tent. She is also Member of the Advisory board of the Sustainability and Innovation Fund Port of Amsterdam, Project Manager at INSID, and Member of the Young Club of Rome. She was winner of the Dutch Singularity University innovation contest with the idea of a “Google for Materials”.

Maayke dreams of a world where waste does not exist. With her passion for sustainability, sharp intellect and strong will it has come as no surprise to anyone that she has done some amazing things in her short career.
She takes her inspiration from nature to reform economic and industrial systems. She developed the idea of the Resource Passport that has now been made into Dutch and European policy.

Singularity University taught her that exponential technologies hold the key in our transition towards a sustainable society and can deliver the necessary tools. Through various companies and projects she has been working on creating a Circular Economy for many years. With her company the Excess Materials Exchange, a digital marketplace where companies can buy and sell their excess materials, she can now fully focus developing a worldwide inclusive Circular Economy.
 
Maayke was previously Member of the Opel Project Earth expedition team; Board Member of Transitieraad “De Groene Versnelling”; Master of Ceremonies at TEDxUtrechtUniversity; Part-time Business Development at Lemnis Lighting, Hong Kong Branch; Founder and Coordinator of the Youth Copenhagen Coalition; Communication Adviser at Maurits Groen Milieu & Communicatie; Official Dutch United Nations Youth Delegate for Sustainable Development; Faculty Council Member at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universiteit Leiden; Intern Program Management, AMREF Flying Doctors the Netherlands, Leiden; and Member of the Advisory Board on Education for the Department of Cultural Anthropology, Universiteit Leiden. 
 
Maayke earned her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology / Development at Leiden University in 2009. She attended the International Programme on the Management of Sustainability and Sustainable Development Diplomacy at Fletcher School, Tufts University in 2009. She earned her Master’s (Cum Laude) in Sustainable Development at Universiteit Utrecht in 2012 with the thesis A Resources Passport for a Circular Economy. She also graduated Singularity University in 2012.