Bas Verhart (b. 27 March 1972) is an entrepreneur, educator and environmatalist.
In 2002 Bas Verhart co-founded Media Republic an Amsterdam-based new media company. As part of Media Republic, Guerrilla Games was founded, one of Europe's leading game development studios. In December of 2005 Guerrilla Games was sold to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Media Republic was sold to Grey (WPP) in 2010.
In 2006 Bas Verhart started the PICNIC conference. PICNIC is an international event in the areas of creativity, media, entertainment and technology. PICNIC has been described as ‘a mash up between TED and Burning Man’.
Together with Dutch Postcode Lottery, Bas Verhart initiated The Green Challenge (www.greenchallenge.info), a global competition with an annual prize of 500.000 EURO. The Green Challenge calls on creative, innovative minds to come up with concrete solutions to fight climate change. The Jury included Sir Richard Branson (Founder of Virgin) and Niklas Zennström (Founder of Skype).
In 2010 Bas founded THNK, The School of Creative Leadership (www.thnk.org). THNK is a global school and movement that will offer a new type of creative leadership education in places like Amsterdam, Vancouver, Shanghai, Lisbon and Silicon Valley.
Bas served on various boards: Amsterdam Economic Board (chaired by the Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan), The Dutch Innovation Platform (chaired by former Prime Minister Dr. Jan Peter Balkenende), Trendwatching.com and Meta Design.