Toppers April!

For the month of April our new topper is Mick Vermeulen! To get to know Mick a bit better, we conducted an interview with him. Enjoy reading!

What do you study? I am now following the master Information Studies with the Data Science track part-time, so divided over two years. That way I still hope to still have a bit of fun before I finish studying. I previously studied the Computer Science Bachelor.

How long have you been a member of via? This summer I will be with via for 5 years. I immediately became a member in the [intreeweek] (https://svia.nl/news/373/view/).

Which committees are you on? For me it all started in the Kickstart committee, then I moved on to the Barbecue committee. After a year I became coordinator there, which I really enjoy. Until now I have often been a coordinator who did quite a lot myself, I now want to make that a slightly more guiding role. It is a great committee! Every year we try to get three new freshmen to join the committee, but this year we did not succeed because we have not been able to speak to anyone personally because of covid. I have also been on the Presidium Committee for three years. That is actually a funny story, I wanted to chair an ALV, but then accidentally registered for the committee. At the end of that ALV I was then still chosen to chair the next ALV. I have been beamering for a while, now I mainly arrange everything with Helios. I am also a member of the Marketing Committee, where I mainly make Board logos. Finally, I am now also a member of the Advisory Board 21.

Do you have board ambitions? No. In my second year I wanted to do a board year, but then I decided to focus on our startup together with Lennart. So we were able to put in our time full-time here and we were able to do very cool things. At ACE we participated in the Incubation program at Startup Village. When I think back now, I would have liked to do a boardyear, but I do not regret my choices.

What is your favorite via activity so far? From the barbecue committee it is of course the [end of year barbecue] (https://svia.nl/photos/72157698126280844). As a coordinator I am busy all day, at the end as a circus artist directing drunk people to roll up inflatable things. The next day we have to clean up hungover, after which I am always too dead to last longer than an hour at Flux. In addition, the via trips are always fun. My first trip was to [Valencia] (https://svia.nl/photos/72157681325037094), I'm still talking about that. That was also the first time I thought about becoming a board member while I was in a taxi with Micha. In the end I did not do this.

What is your favourite food? It was always pasta pesto, but I recently switched to Domino's 40cm pizzas. And then I eat absolutely everything, I choose a different kind every time to try them all. Usually I also do two different halves because I can't choose.

I heard from anonymous sources that you are doing something with a Lego game, can you tell us something about that? In 2010 there was an online Lego game: the Lego Universe. I played this game a lot but it was closed after a year and a half in 2011. Many people thought this was a shame and tried to put this game together again. Since I was 12-13 myself at the time, I only later started to look for what happened to this game and then I joined a group that was doing this. We are now finishing up with this group and there are about 18,000 people on the waiting list to play it. It is a team of a Belgian, a Swede, two Americans, a Briton, two Germans and me. We have been in touch with Lego about the guidelines to follow in this process and have even been invited to come over! We will certainly do this as soon as it is allowed again. It is a non-profit and I spend almost all my free time on this, but the appreciation of the people who follow our process in this is so great that it is well worth it. Take a look at this project by Mick! [Here] (https://darkflameuniverse.org/) is the website and [here] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGY8KgGchuo) is a video of some gameplay!

Who would you like to switch lives with for a day? I'd like to be the CEO of some enormous company for a day. Someone from Apple or Tesla, like Tim Cook. I am very curious how you can run such a company at all in a day. I think it's a super stressful life, so I would only want it for a day, then I know enough. I just don't understand how you have the time to arrange that, how they manage their day. I would rather have a good exit myself, so that you don't have to work afterwards.

Thank you Mick for this interesting interview! Do you now know someone you would like to introduce to our association? Send an email to toppers@svia.nl!