Closing the Safety Gap by Turning Feelings of Unsafety into Data with Anniek van Veldhuizen

Every day, women make safety calculations - which route to take, where to sit - that never show up in the data. What happens once that invisible data gets collected? In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Anniek van Veldhuizen, CCO and co-founder of MyHives, about turning daily, unmeasured safety experiences into objective, actionable data. Anniek and her co-founder Nelson built MyHives, and its AI guardian Beekon, to capture safety concerns before they escalate, using privacy-first technology that keeps all processing on the user’s own device. If you’re a founder navigating fundraising bias as a woman, a leader responsible for workplace safety, or simply curious how privacy-first AI can turn subjective feelings of unsafety into evidence that actually gets acted on, this conversation has something for you. What you’ll learn in this episode: Why daily safety calculations, from choosing a route to picking a seat, never show up in official data, and what that costs system design How MyHives captures both physical and social safety signals without cameras or continuous listening, keeping all processing on-device Why traditional panic buttons fail the moment someone freezes, and how Beekon is built to act autonomously instead How unsafe environments cost the Dutch economy an estimated €8.3 billion a year, with roughly €5 billion linked to psychological and safety-related incidents What it took to bring MyHives into pilots onboarding around 33,000 home care workers and station cleaners Why translating lived experience into numbers moves corporate decision-makers more than personal stories alone What it’s like fundraising as a woman founder alongside a Black co-founder, and how being underestimated became an advantage Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 04:00 Anniek van Veldhuizen on building MyHives from lived experience 05:49 The daily calculations people make to stay safe 08:08 Why unsafe experiences go unreported 10:04 The gender data gap and how missing data shapes safety 14:50 Safety, participation, and learned helplessness 17:15 Building trust into a tool people can actually use 19:52 How MyHives works: app, BEEKON, and BEEKON+ 24:00 Triggering help discreetly when someone cannot act 28:08 How escalation works across languages and locations 30:57 Why privacy is central to the product 34:58 Preventing false positives and training the system 40:32 Trials, pilots, and the workplace safety use case 48:09 The business and societal case for better safety data 53:16 Pricing, monetization, and the impact model 1:00:01 Working with security partners without being absorbed 1:04:20 Fundraising as a woman founder and a Black co-founder 1:07:36 Designing Fundicoach to feel safe and inclusive Show notes : Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/24/episode-171 Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-171 Connect with Anniek van Veldhuizen and MyHives: LinkedIn (Anniek): https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniek-van-veldhuizen-27731514a/ Website: https://www.myhives.nl/en-GB LinkedIn (MyHives): https://www.linkedin.com/company/myhives-nl/ Download the Hyves app Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.myhives Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/myhives/id6751838174 Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/ Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/ FundingCoach: https://fundingcoach.ai/ About Women Disrupting Tech Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed. 🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music. 👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of tech.