In the Blauwe Zaal, guest speaker Bas Haring kicked off YAN's activities before an audience of nearly a hundred people, taking as his theme ‘Engineer in society’. According to the philosopher of science, engineers are “curious, focused, optimistic, pragmatic, and on an equal footing with the world at large”. With that last description, Haring means that scientists are afraid of nothing, and always go and investigate in order to find out how something works.

Haring greatly values curiosity, but also warns of the pitfalls. He contends that a focus on results often takes the upper hand and perfectionism can get in the scientist's way. As far as he is concerned, teamwork at every opportunity isn't a necessity. “Sometimes it's simply good for a scientist to work on something alone,” says Haring, who himself has “an unbelievable dislike” of brainstorming sessions. “Nor it is a bad thing to look through your connections once every six months, paring them down as you go.”