Anouk Butterlin's Seenior Hub tech experience playhouse has won the EUR 5,000 jury prize at the end of 2022 edition of Silver Starters. The 50+ entrepreneur program in the Netherlands was supported by Aegon and our online Dutch bank Knab.
The day-long final was held at Aegon's head office in The Hague on June 7. There was significant public interest, with 1,200 votes cast online for Hester Wandel, winner of the EUR 5,000 public prize. Her business concept is a podcast platform for artists, museums, and companies with art collections.
Sixty-five people, aged 50 and above, took part in the third edition of Silver Starters, and all five finalists were women. The free program provides online learning and personal coaching to support participants seeking to convert their ideas into actual businesses. Silver Starters was developed by Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing and made possible by Aegon and Knab.
The professional jury consisted of Tineke Abma (Director of the Leyden Academy), Martin Luxemburg (Partner at Unknown Group), Nadine Klokke (CEO of Knab) and Arjan in ’t Veld (Partner at Bureauvijftig).
The final also featured special guest speaker Han van Doorn. Han won the first edition of Silver Starters at the age of 83 in 2019 with Are you okay today?, a self-learning app designed to free elderly users from intrusive monitoring and alert systems.
Anouk Butterlin is presented with the jury prize by Leyden Academy's Tineke Abma.
Pitch perfect
The five 2022 finalists, who were nominated by the coaches, each gave an inspiring pitch and answered questions from the professional jury before the winner was decided. They were:
- (JURY PRIZE WINNER) Anouk Butterlin with Seenior Hub, a tech experience store for the elderly. In this 'playhouse' visitors can try out everything, get an explanation and possibly purchase it.
- (PUBLIC PRIZE WINNER) Hester Wandel with Het Atelier Van, a podcast platform for artists, museums and companies with art collections. One can experience art not only by seeing it, but also by listening.
- Annette Poels with the Green Inspiration concept to adapt roof terraces and gardens green, optimally and sustainably to enable people to continue to garden in old age and to contribute to sustainability
- Helena van Harten with Nature At Home, a food forest and organic permaculture garden to learn to live in balance with nature and to benefit future generations.
- Wil Plomp with My-W Creations, for embroidery and printing affordable corporate clothing for the smaller entrepreneur.
Silver Starters
Older entrepreneurs are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, both in the Netherlands and internationally. Yet there are hardly any startup programs aimed at this target group. Silver Starters is designed to help participants gain insights into customer needs, revenue models, prototyping and marketing. Coaches support participants as they seek to enter the world of the self-employed.
Hester Wandel (left) receives the public prize from Knab CEO Nadine Klokke
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