Jim Stolze

Jim Stolze (born November 30, 1973) is a European thoughtleader on digital transformation and entrepreneurship. After founding several companies he is now the Chief Strategy Officer of Singularity University in the Netherlands.

A graduate of VU University Amsterdam, Stolze earned his MBA from the Lemniscaat Business School. With his Master Thesis, he started a research movement on Internet usage and Happiness called the Virtual Happiness Project. Several studies showed that people who have access to the Internet are significantly happier. Jim Stolze captured international attention with an experiment in which he went completely offline for a whole month. After that period Stolze joined the Lifehackers Movement and wrote a book about In-box Management called "How to survive your Inbox". Before writing his book, he was one of the lead bloggers on a popular weblog called DutchCowboys.

His second book was called "Uitverkocht!" (Dutch for "sold out") in which he describes the Attention Economy. The book was nominated 'management book of the year'.

Jim Stolze is an active leader in the TEDx community. Together with his team he organized three editions of TEDxAmsterdam with an international cast of speakers, including technology visionairy Kevin Kelly, Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, former astronaut Wubbo Ockels, professor Barry Schwartz and Commander in Chief Peter van Uhm. He also played an active part in TEDxAruba, TEDxBinnenhof, TEDxDelft, TEDxMaastricht, TEDxDoha and TEDxMuscat. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

In 2012 he moved for five months to Doha (Qatar) to work for TED and the Doha Film Institute to help set up an organization that fosters TED's mission of 'ideas worth spreading'. With Bruno Giussani as the curator and Stolze as the executive producer the biggest outdoor TED Session took place. This opening night was live streamed on Al Jazeera English.

Together with the European Commission he created a program called "Ideas from Europe" (2015). On this platform aspiring entrepreneurs from 28 member states joined together to see how their business ideas could have a positive impact on society.

In 2016 Jim Stolze was asked by former Vice-president of the European Union Neelie Kroes and Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands to create a festival of match making between startups, investors, corporates and developers. As a result Startup Fest Europe took place between 24 - 28 May.