Sanur Entrepreneur Social June 2017 - Jeroen van Overbeek
398 views · Published 21 July 2017 · 24:46 · Indexed 2 October 2026
Channel: Genius Academy · 2017 · Travel & Events
JUNE SPEAKER: Jeroen van Overbeek Originally from the Netherlands, Jeroen van Overbeek comes to the project with over 20 years of international business experience. He holds an MBA from Rutgers University. In 2011, he was Vice-President for Europe, Middle-East and Africa for an English corporation, which manufactures yeast and bakery ingredients. Based in Dublin, Jeroen managed 800 employees spread over 9 countries in charge of a $260 million business. He has led teams across borders and cultures, in both emerging and developed markets. Jeroen can converse in 6 languages, amongst which Chinese (Mandarin) and Bahasa Indonesia. After having spent 20 years in the corporate world, Jeroen experienced a shift—he wanted to give new meaning to his life and focus on humanist values. He was helping companies make money, but he wasn’t helping people. He realized there had to be a better way to use his business skills. He decided to start his own business and moved to Indonesia in 2013. Jeroen believes that access to clean water is a human right, and because so many people lack access to it, he created a social enterprise, Social ImpaKt, to distribute safe, affordable, and high impact ceramic water filters to villagers in Indonesia. " More than 1 Billion individuals - one in seven people on the planet - now lack access to safe drinking water. And Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world and Southeast Asia’s largest economy is no exception, with 34 Million people out of 255 Million lacking access to safe drinking water. In Indonesia alone, 20 000 children under 5 die each year from waterborne diseases like diarrhea. Access to clean water is a human right, and because so many people lack access to it, I created a social enterprise to distribute affordable ceramic water filters to villagers in Indonesia. To contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 6 which is to Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Clean water has a huge impact for local rural communities: you directly improve health and income. Since I started Social ImpaKt in 2014, more than 15 000 lives have been impacted and our target is to impact 100 000 lives by 2020.
