Coen Ponsioen

Last week the news came out that a hospital in Afghanistan manned by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was bombed-out by the United States military force acting in the middle east. By bombing this hospital 19 people were killed, of which 12 staff members of MSF, and over 50 people are seriously injured. MSF is speaking of the biggest disaster in the history of the organization. At first the Afghan…

We as the Dutch population belong to the top 10 percent wealthiest of the world population. We educate our youth to become citizens of this society by schooling them as good as possible and teaching them to come up with innovative ideas and products. We have a lot of knowledge in all different kind of fields because we always try to push the limits in our designs and often this leads to very good…

During a debate for who is going to represent the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections for United States President, the host asked the contesters a question. “What do you think is the greatest national treat to the United States?” The candidates answered with threats like: The spread of nuclear weapons and the risk of them falling into the wrong hands, cyber warfare, China, the unstable…

Joylent the European alternative for the American Soylent, which is a meal replacing beverage available in liquid and powder form. The drink is created by a software engineer who was fed up with the time, effort and money his meals were demanding. By testing on himself he developed the drink which will provide you will all the nutrition you need during your day to day life. At first glance this…

More and more plastic waste is ending up in our oceans and seas, because of the circular sea current in the north of the Pacific all this plastic waste is gathering in the middle of this current. This is what we call “the plastic soup”. Plastic isn’t biologically degradable, which means as long we keep throwing our plastic in the ocean this soup will only get bigger. With the last measurements of…

The wildlife living in the southern part of Africa is suffering under the pressure of the excessive poaching of the last years. The number of poaching incidents is growing every year and especially the number of rhino casualties is growing exponentially. Last year there were 1215 confirmed rhinos poached, to put this in perspective in 2007 this number was only 13. This all is the result of a…

Last week I was walking through Amsterdam and someone in the street came to me and asked me if he could ask some questions about the reputation of the ABN Amro bank. The bank is owned by the government since it had to be saved on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008.  This bank has had some very bad publicity in the last weeks because of a salary raise for the board members. It wouldn’t surprise you…