The Creative Cooperative believes in the power of people to build their own future through collaboration across diverse disciplines, expertise and experience. Digital media provide the tools to help envision, design, and mould that future.
In this context, the Creative Cooperative facilitates the creation and design of innovative concepts for the application of digital media in such areas as urban regeneration and future development, citizen engagement, social and cultural inclusion, education and health. The Creative Cooperative works with government agencies, creative industry clusters, SMEs, large corporations, knowledge and cultural institutes and professional associations across Europe.
The Creative Cooperative was founded in 2009 by Andrew Bullen (France) and Janine Huizenga (The Netherlands).
Andrew Bullen has spent his working life moving between creative disciplines, cultures and societies: From working for the Brecht family and university teaching in East Berlin in the 80s to directing Content & Strategy for the pioneering Europe Online in the 90s in Luxembourg. From Senior Corporate Management at Deutsche Telekom’s T-Online to directing the Media Guild, an innovation centre for the Dutch ICT/Media Creative Industries in Amsterdam. From media teaching at universities in the UK, West Berlin, and the Netherlands to media consultancy for international business corporations and the EU. From fictional writing (“Portrait of the Artist in 2015”) to freelance journalism.
Andrew is co-founder and managing director of the Creative Cooperative. Additionally, he was Director and International Vice-President of the Futur en Seine Festival in Paris and the Ile de France in 2011. He is co-creator of the European Street Design Challenge (ESDC) and he has created and run citizen co-design and social entrepreneur workshops for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Georgia, Cairo and Alexandria. In addition, he works as Studio Director of Utrecht University’s Co-Design Studio.
At present he consults for large-scale European municipalities, clusters and business organisations in the Culture and Creative Industry sector, and creates, designs and moderates conferences, workshops and events throughout Europe.
His recent thoughts on Design Thinking can be read in the collection: Driving Desired Futures: Turning Design Thinking into Real Innovation (Birkhäuser, Basel, 2014).
Janine Huizenga was trained as an artist and photographer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. After many years as Creative Director of Amsterdam based Waag Society, Janine co-founded the Creative Cooperative with partner Andrew Bullen. Within the Creative Cooperative, she works as a digital media designer, teacher, consultant and organizer of workshops and events around digital media design and societal change. She has designed and directed the Cultural Mapping project at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Her recent work includes collaborative design workshops for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Georgia and Egypt, in the context of the 2015 Millenium Development Goals. From 2013 to 2017 Janine was chair of the Digital Culture Advisory Committee of the Creative Industries Fund NL. and worked part-time as a designer at the Creative Care Lab of Waag Society.
Janine has wide experience in design education: As a teacher of digital media at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam/Media Lab Amsterdam, for the European Masters of Art, at the HKU Hilversum, and as a coach for the Stifo@Sandberg workshops, at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. In addition to her European teaching activities, she started work as a visiting lecturer in digital design at the Xiamen University Tan Kah Kee College in Xiamen, China in 2011. Since 2012 she has been coaching at the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, at the Industrial Design Department in the Themes ‘Next Nature’, ‘Wearable Senses’ and ‘Playful Interactions’. She has been teaching at the HKU at the HKU/KMT MA Creative Design for Digital Cultures/gaming & Interaction Design and coached students in creative research at the Willem de Kooning Academy / New Frontiers.
Janine currently is Head of Interactive Media Design (I/M/D) at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, The Netherlands.