Serge de Gheldere

Leuven, Belgium

TCP presenter Serge de Gheldere is a design engineer with lots of personal energy, empathy, and intellectual curiosity.  

In 1999 Serge founded Futureproofed, a sustainable design consultancy based on one central thought: mainstreaming sustainability. Futureproofed is a team of 5 engineers, change agents, who understand issues of climate change and environmental degradation, and transform it into an opportunity for today’s shareholders and for future generations. Futureproofed works with businesses, individuals, governments and professionals to help transform these issues into a movement to a more profitable, comfortable, attractive, sustainable future. 
The future by choice, by design, and not as fatality.

In 2006, Serge was part of a select group of individuals personally trained by Al Gore to become a global warming presenter. In 2007 Serge has presented more than 120 times a version of the slideshow that formed the basis of “An Inconvenient truth” to a wide variety of audiences from ministers and governments to schools to board of directors and corporations such as IBM, Dexia, Fortis, HP, Picanol, Solvay MBA, Electrolux, Sony, Leaseplan, GE, Yale University; speaking at the David Liu Memorial series at Stanford University; at the CSR summit in Dubai, and as a at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Serge has appeared several times on national TV, commenting on climate change and sustainable business issues. Serge is also the central guest in the episode on "Nature and environmnent" of the TV documentary series "India for Beginners", filmed in Bhopal during a 5 day shoot in the fall of 2008.

Serge is also a guest professor at Group T University College. He advises a team of the Vehicle Design Summit consortium that collaborates with Tsinghua University in Beijing, TU Delft, MIT and many teams worldwide to develop a new 6-passenger, production-ready car with dramatically improved life cycle impact. He also developed and teaches a course designed on the current context in which engineers will function, by using Natural Capitalism as a thread to explore aspects of holistic engineering such as enterprising, educating, environmenting and ensembling. 
Serge recently became the first alumnus director on Group T’s board.

Serge trained as an electro-mechanical engineer in Groep T Engineering School, Leuven (B) with a focus on materials technology and product design, and as a master in polymer and composites engineering at the KU Leuven (B). He wrote his masters' thesis on light, efficient thermoplastic composite structures in Professor Beukers' lab of advanced structures and materials at the faculty of Aeronautical Engineering of TU Delft (NL).

Serge then worked as a product development engineer for Baxter R&D Europe for 7 years. There he worked in a global team designing and developing the industry's first system to eliminate blood-borne pathogens in platelets. He also spent 15 months on a project assignment in Chicago and received several awards including a Baxter outstanding technical achievement award and two patents.

Serge owes most of this to the continuous support of his wonderful wife Marie, with whom he has three fantastic kids. In real life, Serge loves to spend time with the family snowboarding, kitesurfing, traveling, playing tennis and music and mountain-biking.

Donations

The Climate Project, Al Gore's climate change leadership program, is a non-profit organization founded in 2006. TCP's mission is to educate the public about the harmful effects of climate change and to work toward solutions at a grassroots level worldwide.TCP has more than 3,000 diverse and dedicated volunteers internationally. TCP Presenters have delivered 70,000 presentations and have reached a combined global audience of 7.3 million people. Your donation will allow us to engage even more people directly in our mission and empower every individual to play a part in solving the climate crisis.

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