Antony - AJKolenc (Workhotel)
I've been working from home since the start of the pandemic, but I always prefer to work in spaces with other creatives. After touring A Lab I was inspired by the diversity and passion of the teams I saw, and I knew that I wanted to take part. I hope in joining A Lab that I will not only find a productive workspace, but also a supportive community that pushes me in new directions. And I'd like to contribute to the amazing projects being developed however I can, so if you want a tester or some feedback you know who to ask!
Annabelle - Conscious Bias (Workhotel)
Hey, I’m Annabelle. I’m new here in A Lab. Been roaming the corridors for a few weeks and officially joined this month as a flex-desker. Usually in the less quiet work hotel, where there’s just the right amount of working buzz to focus!
I’m originally from Germany, spent 14 years or so in Scotland, completed my Undergraduate Degree there, wrote my PhD in Socially Sustainable Development (which I funded running the internal sales in a local high tech firm), and then worked as a post doc for a couple of years in the area of environmental biotechnology commercialisation. I then co-founded and co-led a project collaborating with artisans in Mexico to facilitate innovation of their production processes and techniques, and designing sustainable business models. In 2018 I moved to Amsterdam and worked in Executive Search for several years and have been involved in local anti-discrimination initiatives and groups ever since. The red thread and passion driving me has always been social justice.
The organisation that I am setting up, “Conscious Bias”, brings everything together, including: my passion for social justice, research capabilities, professional experience, languages, commercial mindedness, love for doing loads of different things at the same time, and always learning new stuff! The mission of my organisation is to debias hiring practices in multinational businesses and institutions across the world using research-based intersectional approaches, so as to create more inclusive and diverse organisations that reflect the communities that they operate in and serve.
I’m excited to be part of the A Lab community and, going by last week’s party, I think I have all the reason to. I love nerdy talks about research, social justice, and how to make organisations more inclusive and diverse (what does that even mean?!!). If you have some thoughts to share on this, and also if not, lets grab a coffee :)
Find me in the less quite wok hotel, or here:
Wellness Innovations (Lab.209)
Testa Omega-3 and Daily Supplements are Wellness Innovations’ consumer-facing endeavors. Both have been founded on the principle of preventing all unnecessary fishing by 2035. All products are powered by plants, with no animal derivatives used. The company cites educating buyers and consumers about the alternatives to fish oils as a key mission driver.
Wellness Innovations is an R&D group that focuses on fish-free nutrition, health, and beauty lines. It aims to offer viable alternatives across every sector, to allow fish populations to recover. It is vocal on the issue of overfishing and cites figures such as 90 billion kilos of fish being hauled from the oceans for consumption each year. Its mission is to entirely end unnecessary fishing within 13 years.
Omega-3 does not need to be sourced from fish. It can be found in sustainable, regenerative algae instead. Our oceans are overfished and 25% of all fish catch is used for Omega-3, whereas fish get their Omega-3 from eating Algae. Fish is a bad source for Omega-3 as it only contains 1% of Omega-3 and raw fish oil is highly contaminated with PCB's, dioxins and heavy metals. To drive the message, Testa unveiled a new vegan alternative to krill oil this year. As a connected but separate project, plant-based food fish alternatives are also being developed.
We hope to meet like-minded people here at A Lab that want to improve the food system and share thoughts on how to educate consumers to make the correct choices.
You can find our marketplace team(Sander & Elaine) and retail team (Joost & Martin) in Lab.209