BuildingThinkingStoryAbout
Daniel van Griensven
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Building

A few things, with a few people, over a long horizon.

Everything I build stands on one layer underneath, Future Proof. Here is what stands on it, who it is with, and what our part was.

The NetherlandsWhere I was born, and where Internship Abroad began.
North CarolinaCamp Spring Creek, where I saw what the right structure does for a child.
BaliWhere I saw people build real things across borders.
Hoi An, VietnamWhere much of Future Proof was thought through.
ThailandWhere part of the ecosystem lives and works.
AustraliaThe ecosystem, on the other side of the world.
Sardinia, ItalyWhere Future Proof is building its home.
  1. Future Proof Intelligence

    Founder. The layer underneath.→
  2. Internship Abroad

    Founder, since 2020→
  3. The ecosystem

    Founders building their own companies→
  4. Places to reconnect

    A place being made→
  5. Future Proof Certified

    A standard we made→
  6. NextGen Education

    With an education partner→

Founder

Future Proof Intelligence.

The company I build everything else through. We shape the intelligence a company runs on. Everything it knows is read in, the way it works is written down, and then it builds, with every decision still the company's own.

Then we stay.

    My part

  1. Founded it and lead it.
  2. Hold the thread between every partner and every build.
  3. Shape the work in conversation, and let the system build it.
  4. Bring in the people who back the work with capital and craft.

Founder, since 2020

Internship Abroad.

Daniel working with two colleagues in Internship Abroad shirts
The Internship Abroad start screen

Students learn fastest when the stakes are real. Internship Abroad places them in companies abroad before they feel ready, supported without being insulated.

Today a student begins with a living profile, made in a few taps, and companies find them there.

    Our part

  1. 2020. I started it.
  2. The platform students begin on, built by Future Proof.
  3. A site for each country it works in.
  4. Still carried by me today.

The ecosystem

Founders building their own companies, with Future Proof underneath.

Each founder runs their own business. Future Proof brings what is hard to build alone, and what one of them learns, the others can use.

Wellness and healing, education, mobility and travel, design and product, capital.

Three wooden A-frames lit from inside among pines at dusk, a small fire on the slope above a still lake

Retreats and regenerative places

Places where people reconnect.

Five A-frames round a fire, a sauna at the lake, and the phones stay at the door.

How the place is imagined. The land is still being found.

Some of what we build is a place. Land in nature where people come to sit by a fire, walk, sleep well and find each other again.

The right intelligence carries the plans, the numbers and the search for land in the background, so the people there can put their phones down.

The first is Digital Detox Sweden, made with two founders. It is still being made.

To me this is what future proof means in a place. People who know each other, land that is cared for, and intelligence that serves both.

    Our part

  1. The place drawn out, from the cabins to the fire and the sauna.
  2. The search for land, region by region, every number with its source.
  3. One shared space where the owners plan it together and can ask Future Proof anything.
  4. Made to be reused by others who are making a place like this.

A standard we made

Future Proof Certified.

TrustContextDistributionProductGovernanceAI integrationAutonomy

A trust standard for businesses built for this era. Seven dimensions, each scored on evidence. The result is a level, issued slowly, that capital can read.

    Our part

  1. The method. Seven dimensions and how each is weighed.
  2. The scoring, on evidence, never on claims.
  3. The site where a company's level can be read.

With an education partner

NextGen Education.

An elementary school classroom in morning light

Education will be reshaped over the next twenty years, ready or not. NextGen starts small, with micro-learning built into the rhythm of elementary schools.

Underneath is the long question. What does school need to give children when information is everywhere and orientation is scarce?

    Our part

  1. The first idea, shaped together with its founder.
  2. Micro-learning in the classroom, a few minutes at a time.
  3. The long view. Designing for the generation that grows up inside this shift.

One way of working

Building something that belongs here?