Roel Simons

Biography

Roel Simons The Netherlands, 1968 Roel Simons is a filmmaker and a change agent in education, urban planning and other fields. Combining his prior education as a youth worker and his degree from the Amsterdam Film Academy, he has developed unique skills to create real live learning situations, involving film and storytelling as a tool. Roel works with institutions, governments and companies to design simple, bottom-up, creative interventions within organizations and social communities, always including the use of video and film, with the aim to help unlock, enhance and/or accelerate the potential of participatory processes and collaborative learning. In the field of education, his company ‘Serious Video’ helps school directors and managers in education who struggle with the implementation of digital technologies and didactic innovation, by creating exciting visual methods and new learning concepts. All his projects promote self-organization within the group of participants/students. Roel Simons is an active inspirator and motivator, and his visual methods are designed to support participant’s responsible action in real situations. The storytelling tools and visual techniques used in cinema and film production become instruments to create a learning journey in reality. His work with schools, companies and organizations has given shape to many co-creative projects that are a proof of the future of learning and social involvement. For more information: www.roelsimons.nl www.seriousvideo.nl