Jos
Jos Dirkx dares to go where others don't and has lived an extraordinary life across fifteen countries. Through impactful keynotes and collaborations she brings this worldly experience to life, seamlessly connecting her audience to must-know trends around great ideas, inclusion and education. During her time in South Africa, Jos started an award-winning NGO, Girls & Football SA, which focused on the development of girls and young women through sport, media and education.
Her work, keynotes and strategies have inspired thousands around the world. Experience gained as award-winning founder, author and World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer make her an engaging and inspirational thought-leader who sets the bar for our new world of work and learning – where creativity, connection and collective intelligence drive our brightest breakthroughs.
For the past 20 years, Jos helped companies, communities and educational institutions unlock their potential by clearly demonstrating why teams stop innovating, how to keep ideation alive and by implementing global best practices for future-proof work systems. Underpinned by an emphasis on the concept of range and by implementing culturally sound learning curricula, Jos empowers her audience with the tools it takes to turn creative intelligence and inclusive practices into a driving force for profit and purpose.
Jos speaks with passion and authenticity about critical, global trends: bringing to the forefront the essence of high-performing teams in a rapidly changing world. Jos speaks five languages, has written two books and is finalizing her third, "Why Great Ideas Die", a how-to guide for 21st century innovation, featuring global thought-leaders, ground-breaking research and real-life experience on mastering our cognitive and somatic capacity for relentless ideation.
Alongside her team, she received a letter of recognition from Former First Lady Michelle Obama for her work across girls' health. Jos was selected as a 50 Global Heroes Ending Violence Against Children (alongside others like Hilary Clinton and Maria Eitel), a 2019 Woman To Watch, a Women Deliver and Gates Foundation Young Leader, a Nike Girl Effect Challenge winner, a Microsoft YouthSpark winner, an Ashoka Changemaker, and has spoken at global events from the TEDx Stage, to Glowork in Saudi Arabia, to World Economic Forum: Women in Leadership. Her work and research have been awarded and featured in publications worldwide. Jos and her team have built solutions and products reaching over 85k users globally and have recently received a grant from the Dutch Government to design learning solutions for change in education.