The channels from the Neurodiversity Foudation and the Neurodiversity Education Academy, gained 13.000 followers, a rise of 10.000 followers since we started counting 600 days ago.

To make a plan for 2023, the members of the NeuroEmergence team came together, to discuss all the plan for 2023: Approximately 20 online events, a 3 day online summit, and a new discord channel for the community of late diagnosed neurodivergents. The focus of the team will be to create a community of belonging using education and information as a guiding light.

On Februari 15th we had our 4th foundational anniversary of the foundation, and due to Covid running rampant, we kept it small and send virtual Cake & Love, to friends and sympathisers.

With new energy and zest, board meetings are held while operating powertools, the NE Academy team starts forging a new Brainy Mag and talks with new teammembers are initiated. 2022, is going to be a great year for All Neurodivergent Kind, and we are HERE FOR IT!

We delayed our Annual Supper event, and looked back to the year, knowing, that with the support of so many volunteers and otherwise awesome individuals, we’d done more than we though imaginable in our first year.

And knowing, that what we have planned for this world…. is even so much more. Onward to 2022!

Due to construction work, the temporary office of the Neurodiversity Foundation in Amstelveen,  is taken down. We will miss our quaint triangle shaped office, and look forward to a time where the pandemic won’t restrain us in working together in the same rooms, once more.

In June 2021 the Mikel Rijsdijk Grant was initiated by Saskia Wenniger, and was supported with contributions from the Neurodiversity Education Academy. It provides a grant for education and coaching about neurodiversity.

The Neurodiversity Education Academy has shaped up, and flexes her muscles, with a community app, a content app, a new website, and lots of enthusiasm. The new  site of NE Academy, can be found at neurodiversityeducationacademy.org

Our facebook page got its 500th follower!

Due to the Corona Virus, we cancelled our physical locations in the Netherlands. However, we keep in contact via zoom! Boardmeetings, Developermeetings, Pridemeetings, Zoom it up!

The Athens Initiative is saying yes to working together with Melvin & his company NAHV in doing the accounting for us, including our taxes, and offering to be a voluntary financial advisor to help us out moving forward with financial advice. He’s is a great man, intrinsically motivated, located in the Amsterdam region, and made us an offer we didn’t want to refuse 🙂

As our extended foundational family reaches a total of 30 contributors, researchers and volunteers working on each of the 5 projects, we keep reminding ourselves what the core values are of our organization.

Its love. Its connection. Its diversity.

And we keep reminding ourselves of our calling, for as we say: The problem is not solved, by doing nothing.

Second boardmeeting of the year at the Eye with Lana,  Ana,  Omotola & Tjerk.  We have three boardmeetings per year, and one annual social meetup for the whole organization. Our conclusion of this meeting: Full Steam Ahead!

With more and more requests from schools coming in, we keep sending packages to all the corners in the world. Brainy, and the concept of Brainy,  seems to work in many different cultures.

On our first first Birthday, three new athenians officially started. Ana Maldonado will be board member, Erik Post legal & finance and Diantha will be in control of our social media channels.

Neurodiversity Foundation & Ece & Tulpp opened the stock exchange.

Neurodiversity Foundation & Ece & Tulpp open aex index

Neurodiversity Foundation opens stock exchange – with lana and tjerk

The foundation has three board meetings each year. On these days, Tjerk & Omotola report about everything relevant to the ATHENS Initiative, and the foundation specifically. We have wonderful board members, we are very lucky to be working with them.

 

On the 15th of February 2018 the Neurodiversity Foundation was officially founded, with Lana Jelenjev as chairperson & Eleonora Spagnuolo as boardmember, and Tjerk as director.

Setting up the organizations 2Tango & Neurodiversity Foundation, as a startup needs some physical space to work, but being the first group of the Honours Program of Ece, we moved to an office that could house 30 developers. Months later, we are moved to locations more suitable to our actual needs, but the feeling of ‘now, we are officially a start up’ dawned on us first, in our first day at this office at the Science Tower in Rotterdam.

In this ‘third office’ the ideas of Abri, as visioneered by Omotola, are meshed with the concepts of Signs, and of the autistic support artificial intelligence we would start calling ‘Mini.AI’ in the years to come.

Our second office was small, and shared with Burg Foods, a startup creating cricket-based burgers. It seems humble and simple, but it was all we needed to start building our innovation and our growing organization.