Zidicircle School

Meet Toon Buddingh, games master extraordinaire and one of the facilitators of the Zidicircle Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. Toon is an educator who specializes in knowledge transfer, cluster development, startup incubation, and research. He’s also a founder of various innovations, including 16 incubators (three of which he’s a founding director: New Energy Docks (Energy); ESA BIC incubator (Space Technology) and the Buccaneer Delft (Offshore & Energy)), two investment funds, two training companies, a consulting firm, and a bar. Toon has helped over 1500 start-ups (250 of which he helped closely) with an 89% success rate. He was elected European Best Science-Based Incubator in 2006. As a partner of The Millennial Consult, Toon has helped medium-sized companies with talent development and innovation through training and gaming. Moreover, in his position at the Dutch Royal Institute of Engineers board, Toon has led the change to the rejuvenation of the 60 departments. Toon is also a senior researcher at the Hague University (incubators) and the 'Raad voor de Leefomgeving' (Breakthrough Technology and Future Society)

Meet Fridah Ntarangwi, Zidicircle’s Founder and Managing Partner. Fridah is an active participant in migrants and diaspora engagement activities within the European Union for the Global diaspora. She Founded the first-ever diaspora entrepreneurship incubator out of the Netherlands thus leading Zidicircle into supporting the diaspora and migrants with entrepreneurship training, mentorship, match-making and investment access to succeed as entrepreneurs both in their countries of residence and home countries. Fridah’s affiliation to Entrepreneurship and Investments has been evident in most of her career with over 16 years’ experience in these sectors. Through her leadership, Zidicircle has collectively graduated hundreds of diaspora entrepreneurs and impacted many households both in Europe and Africa. She has also managed several Diaspora Entrepreneurship Programmes including IOM’s Connecting Diaspora for Development (CD4D), SNV’s Green diaspora venture backers programme and Green-Diaspora SME Matching programme, the Diaspora-SME Forum and launched investment products like the Diaspora Venture Backers programme that trains aspiring diaspora investors on how to invest in startups and SMEs in host and home countries. Fridah has been a point of reference in diaspora engagement matters, and recently addressed IOM’S members states at the International Dialogue on Migration, where she shared how she is contributing to the social and economic healing post-Covid 19 as a migrant woman. Fridah was awarded by the EMEN project of the European Union (EU) for promoting inclusive entrepreneurship in the EU and was bestowed the Duisenberg title ‘Woman in Finance’ that was awarded in conjunction with QS Quacquarelli Symonds in the UK. Amsterdam’s Municipality’s initiative startup Amsterdam and the Silicon Canals recently listed Fridah as a top female entrepreneur in the Netherlands to watch in 2022. Through Fridah’s direction, Zidicircle won the Best SME Entrepreneurship & Investment Promoters - Netherlands award from the Ethical Finance Awards by Wealth & FInance International. She is passionate about building an inclusive entrepreneurship and financing ecosystem for migrants, developing economies and women entrepreneurs.

Johan de Visser works at Albert Heijn supermarkets, part of Ahold Delhaize, in the Netherlands as the Lead Category Manager Seafood, Chicken & Vegetarian for the 1000 stores across the country. Throughout his working life, he has worked in retail and value chains, from fresh food to health and beauty. He has a passion for business development, to build business in new ways: always starting with the customer and markets in mind, and then translating these into products, solutions and services. In the past 12 years he has been to Africa many times to meet new people, for research and also to share his retail knowledge.