About us

We are Forthemany.

Forthemany is a purpose-driven idea studio (social enterprise) that initiates, develops and markets products and services that address social issues for the many, by focusing on social design solutions and thorough user research.
We believe that collaboration between innovators, knowledge institutions and implementation parties is essential to create a positive impact at scale. Therefore, we collaborate with a wide range of partners and experts to overcome the many challenges ahead of us together. If your organization is interested to collaborate with us too, please reach out to us!

Meet the team:

Eise van Maanen

Co-Founder

Cycling through South-America in 2012 Eise heard about the water war in 2000 in Cochabamba, a (real!) war fought over access to affordable water. This filled him with disbelief and awakened an interest that eventually led to a career in water. After working in different organizations of the UN system and at True Price (calculating the environmental and social costs of i.a. water), Eise most recently worked as a financial consultant in the international water sector. Mid-2021 he quit his job to fully focus on JERRY.

Olivier de Gruijter

Co-Founder / Design Engineer

After witnessing water scarcity first-hand while travelling, Olivier has specialized in this topic during his study Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. After graduating cum laude in water filtration back in 2015, he gained experience as design engineer at renowned design studios in Amsterdam and London. In 2019, he commenced the development of a water filter solution with usability at the core of the design, which resulted in the jerrycan water filter. Start of 2021 he quit his job to fully focus on JERRY.

Kenji Shimizu Larenas

Social Entrepreneurship Intern

Hi my name is Kenji. I am half Dutch and half Japanese, and am passionate about the intersection between business and purpose driven organisations. Covid has highlighted the prevailing inequalities in the world, making it all the more important to have purpose driven organisations that are focused on bringing a lasting impact in the world. During this time, I will be focusing on finding different business models to use to bring the jerry can filter to the market. This will include many aspects, ranging from finding financing models to marketing the brand purpose and mission of the business.

Filipa Brandao de Menezes

Social Entrepreneurship Graduate Intern

With a background in Economics and experience in project management, Filipa is currently enrolled in the MSc Business and Social Impact at the University of Utrecht. As a passionate traveller herself, she is eager to link her personal interests to entrepreneurship, social venturing, and sustainability in this business and ever-changing world. Filipa will focus on supporting the business model development for Jerry by giving insights on academic literature and contribute to the experimenting of different business model typologies.

Partners: