Louis-Philippe Loncke

Common name:	LouPhi
Nationalities:	Belgium.
Languages:	Dutch/Flemish / English / French / Spanish/Castilian.
Profession:	Explorer, engineer, consultant, entrepreneur
Types:	Activist / environmental advocate, Adventurer, Explorer

Biography

Loncke was born in Mouscron, Belgium to a family of furniture makers. He studied engineering in Brussels at ECAM, a master in Industrial management in KU Leuven and treasury management at the University of Antwerp Management School.

Loncke started his career as logistic manager. Since 1999, he has built experience in over 10 corporate companies in various positions. He has been working as management consultant since 2007 mainly in IT. The skills he built in the challenging corporate world allow him to plan efficiently his expeditions. He is also self-taught in photography, SEO, marketing and communications. Since 2006, he is volunteering at NGO Art in All of us and was elected member of the board of directors in 2010.

He started traveling alone in 2000. In 2002, he was sent to Singapore for work and learned scuba diving. To fulfill this passion he traveled for a year in Oceania between 2004 and 2005. He started hiking and heard about adventurers and explorers; and became interested after seeing the world acclaimed film Alone across Australia. Back in Belgium, he met author and adventurer Sylvain Tesson who encouraged him to continue and Louis-Philippe left again in 2006 to Australia to start his first three expeditions. After a year in Australia, he went back to Belgium and started planning for a series of several world first expeditions.

He has organised charity expeditions involving media buzz including the highest chocolate tasting on Everest. In July 2010, he trekked across Iceland between its extreme latitude from North to South. He spoofed an Icelandic promotional video that got viral in Iceland. Both his Simpson and Iceland expeditions involved a science program of the MSH of Paris named Stress and decision taking in extreme environment.

Education

University

1995 - 1999 - Master in Electro-mechanical engineering - ECAM

2000 - 2001 - Master in Industrial Management - KULeuven

2003 - Expert Class in Management, Financial Risk and Treasury Management - University of Antwerp

Certificates

2002 - PADI & NAUI Divemaster

2004 - PADI Enriched Air Diver, Nitrox 40%O2

2009 - PADI Ice Diver

Organizations

2011 - ... - Jane Goodall Institute Belgium - Volunteer, ambassador

2013 - 2017 - JCI The Hear of Europe - Active member, board member, director.

2016 - ... - KayaClean.org - Founder, Global community manager

Records

See expeditions.

Awards

2013 - Second place, Photoshoot Awards contest OCEAN 2013, category Pollution

2017 - European Adventurer of the year 2016 - ISPO Munich

Honors

2010 - Elected FRGS (Fellow Royal Geographic Society)

2010 - Explorers Club member, 2014 Fellow, 2017 Life Fellow

2011 - Goodwill ambassador for the Roots & Shoots program - Jane Goodall Institute Belgium

2012 - Torchbearer for the London Olympic Games

2014 - Jane Goodall Institute Knight for Youth, Animals and Plants in the Order of the Iguana

2017 - Honorary Bailli of Mouscron (honorary citizen)

Quotes

"My backpack was 60kgs at the start. It is not heavy, it is constant pain above 40 kgs"