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Technology is key to keeping pace with the growing need for a strong and trustworthy relationship between the government and the public. We believe that we can unite all parties in a dynamic collaboration to stimulate civic connection. The GovTechNL programme accelerates the development of new products, systems and concepts for bright and positive cooperation in the public domain. We strive to play a leading role and are highly motivated to grow the best possible community for civic innovation.

GovTechNL is full of events and activities for different types of collaboration! We brought the community together at The Hague Tech on September 13 for an interactive session where all participants had a chance to share their ideas and collaborate with others who are enthusiastic about tech in government.

The objectives of the last interactive session were: 

Bring people together to further develop the GovTechNL community

Articulate the purpose, function and what is possible for GovTechNL

The session was facilitated by Matt Barnaby and Svitlana Khrystenko, who led the crowd through a series of activities to foster brainstorming and active interactions between participants.

The session began with the quick speed networking. Participants were tasked to find a partner and talk on a certain topic for 2 minutes, then switch to another participant. The questions included: 

If you were to implement a new law what could it be?

All your non-work related apps vanish - what is the first one you reinstall and why?

After an energetic start the crowd divided into several small groups to ensure active participation. They now brainstormed on these questions: 

How can we make sure that GovTechNL is the worst possible thing you've been involved in?

What do we need to do as a community to prevent it from happening?

At the end of the exercise, they presented their outcomes. Several important outcomes were:

Throughout the session participants also created inspiring messages to themselves as they were writing them 2 years later. What was achieved during these 2 years at GovTechNL? What are we proud of? What lessons did we learn along the way that we'd like to advise our current 2022 selves on? You can find the full cards on 

 where we collected all the results from the in-person session. 

The challenge that GovTechNL faces now is in bringing the public and the government together to accelerate the development of new products, systems, and concepts for bright change in the society. The last activity helped participants think about this challenge from the perspective of opportunities. With how might we questions, they turned challenges into opportunities. With what if we questions, they continued thinking about possible solutions and dropped some valuable ideas on how to go about pursuing these opportunities.

This session was a first step toward creating an innovation hub dedicated to collaboration between the public and the government. According to the steering committee on the initiative, which will meet in the coming weeks, many more announcements are forthcoming, including news of the official launch of a new brand identity, participation in the GovTech summit and more. We look forward to hearing your thoughts about this initiative and hope that you will participate in its development.

We brought the community together at The Hague Tech on September 13 for an interactive session where all participants had a chance to share their ideas and collaborate with others who are enthusiastic about tech in government.

Co-creation is key to innovation

Daniël Steginga and Alwin Veldboom have supported the Municipality of The Hague with formulating a Challenge for Startup in Residence with the Worldstartup Challenge Discovery & Definition process. Startups can now register until 12th of May 2022 with a solution to the question: how can we make it easier for people with occupational limitations to find a suitable job and to fill it in a sustainable way?

The Municipality of The Hague wants to help more people with occupational limitations find work. There are approximately 25,000 job seekers in the Municipality of The Hague. These are people who ask the municipality for help and receive financial support. More than 10,000 people with occupational limitations are still looking for a job.

Social issues can be complex, solutions cannot only be conceived and developed internally within a single organization. There is a need for collaboration with outside parties, such as start-ups or scale-ups. To recruit and select the right parties, the first step was to clarify and formulate the challenge. For this reason, the Challenge Discovery & Definition trajectory was introduced. In Discovery sessions, we discussed the various challenges surrounding an inclusive labor market in The Hague, with various groups of colleagues within the municipality. A shortlist of topics was made, based on certain criteria, which were used as the focus during each Definition session. Possible challenge questions were formulated, the scope and the innovation objective was determined, solution criteria and success factors were devised, stakeholders identified and an extensive Challenge briefing was drawn up.

Successful innovation projects start with a clearly defined (social) challenge and involvement of internal and external innovators. Looking for a good start to your innovation project or program? WorldStartup and Outside Inc. are very happy to support you further.

Daniël Steginga and Alwin Veldboom have supported the Municipality of The Hague with formulating a Challenge for Startup in Residence with the Worldstartup Challenge Discovery & Definition process.

Governments' innovation starts with understanding your challenges

Dates

International and The Hague-based students, professionals, startups, enthusiastic individuals, teams, engineers, programmers, designers, business and tech experts from any other relevant field per challenge.

For whom

Opportunity lead

Hackathon for Good - The Hague #6

Hackathon for Good is an open invitation to anyone who is interested in solving societal challenges by using data and AI.

Keep me updated

Apply 

6-week training by experienced entrepreneurs and top experts for an international group of ambitious innovators. The exact dates will be announced in Q1-Q2 2023.

Futurepreneurs Dutch Open is an online experience for empowering young, motivated and talented students and young professionals with entrepreneurial ambition.  It provides them with all the tools and skills to start their journey.  They can test their fresh skills and knowledge by embracing one of the challenges provided by our industry partners or introducing their idea of the concept. 

The programme helps them to answer several important questions:

Am I the right person to lead a startup or join a team?

Do I already have the right idea or concept?

There are many ways to join this experience, whether you are a teacher, a student, an experienced entrepreneur or a challenge owner. 

As an educator you can improve your curriculum by offering your students to solve real challenges and give them the opportunity to expand their network. Use Futurepreneurs to offer your motivated students real-life challenges from real companies to make your course more relevant, engaging and fun. 

Many organisations can use this programme as an opportunity to explore the potential of talent for future solutions. Whether it is a short-term problem or long-term, young brains can bring unexpected interventions to your company that you could not have conceived alone. 

Get fast and applicable solutions for free

If you want to validate your idea and learn about setting up your team, making the first steps in concept development and pitching for a jury. Futurepreneurs is a great opportunity to gain relevant experience, boost your skills and grow your network by solving real-life company challenges.

As a mentor, you will support one or several young energetic entrepreneurs in their business development. From the start, you will make a close connection with talented students/ entrepreneurs. With your expertise, you will guide them and move towards a better, more thoughtful idea. It is very inspiring what you will be able to do together with international talent.

Opportunity to support future entrepreneurs in their business development and design

International connections with the possibility to gain new potential partners

Futurepreneurs is a year-round programme that consists of several main activities. 

The programme is divided into two phases. 

In the first phase, we involve all the educators and important stakeholders to run the execution phase. 

The execution phase is the part where we facilitate educational weekly workshops for students that are interested in becoming future entrepreneurs. We start with the kickoff, followed by the workshops and end with the pitch event.

The core of the programme is a series of 6 masterclasses and workshops, all online, open to teams and young professionals. The programme ends with a pitch event where we involve our stakeholders and a jury. The best teams will get a scholarship that enables them to develop their idea into a viable business with support from  WorldStartup. Application is open for students/young professionals and teams and  participation is free of charge.

Extra: Open hour every Friday for questions and support.

What will futurepreneurs learn from this programme?

Analysing your personal skills and building a team;

Defining your mission, vision and values;

How to ideate, pick the best ideas and transform them into a concept;

Validating the problem you want to solve;

Understanding the impact your concept can make;

Set up a prototype and test to validate your concept;

Creating a roadmap with short-term and long-term goals;

In this programme you will get answers to these questions:

1. What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

2. Am I the right person to lead a startup or join a team?

4. Do I already have the right idea or concept?

Futurepreneurs Dutch Open

6 weeks of training provided by experienced entrepreneurs and top experts for an international group of ambitious innovators.

Download the brochure

Basecamp

Exploration phase startups

Join Sander, founder of De Krekerij

Experiences

Want to know more?

Basecamp is for

People who want to create real impact with scalable innovative ventures from the ground up.

Basecamp basics

Problem Definition & Validation

Potential validation

Solution prototype

Altitude

Validation phase startups

Ivana Dvořáková, founder of Terraz Food

Altitude is for

An all-inclusive support programme of up to 3 years from ready to market to sustainable growth.

Why join altitude?

Tailor-made support

Training programmes

Peer-to-peer learning

Partners of the GovTech NL

These and many other companies work together to ensure the hub is achieving its objectives.

Contribute to the transition. Join the community

GovTech NL

Centre for Civic Innovation

We gather a community of like-minded people in the GovTech sector

Find us here

About GovTech NL

GovTech NL is set to contribute to the innovation of our public sector.

Partners of Sustainable Aviation

Contribute to the transition. Meet RHIA or view our projects

Sustainable Aviation

Together We Make Innovation Fly

We innovate for

The future of aviation. To make it more sustainable and easier.

” The idea for the company surfaced during his Masters where he worked on a project for Indonesia. During this project Rushabh was working on how to use plastic waste, which was abundant in Indonesia, and how to solve the issue of unsafe constructions. That is where he decided to design a brick that can be manufactured anywhere and people can use it, making it a solution for both problems. He saw a great potential for the project to be applied, strengthened by the positive feedback he received from his peers and professors. “

If there is a possibility of this happening, I want to take it up right now.

” Rushabh recalls his mentality being at the time. Seeing as he had just graduated his Masters, he had more time, less responsibilities, and he was very passionate about this project. “

I see a big necessity for such a project.

” Rushabh grew up in Mumbai, India. He studied to become an architect, and was deeply afflicted by how a majority of the city’s population lived in squatter settlements, and why architects or the architectural profession were not able to cater to these people. “

Besides it having been a successful project during my Masters, it is also the emotional side of knowing the context of where I grew up that motivates me.

” He came to The Netherlands in 2016, where he did his Masters at TU Delft. “

I hadn’t planned much in advance, but I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so things just happened the way they happened.

It’s not just ment as a product, but something that enables people to unlock their capability of building their own house, and being able to afford their own house, while also being a hope for reducing pollution, and in that way also creating jobs.

In July 2019, Rushabh came into contact with WorldStartup. This happened coincidentally as his business partner Frans Taminiau knew Hub Jongen, the Startup Support Director at WorldStartup. WorldStartup saw the potential in “Conscious Designs”, and their views on impact were aligned. Rushabh mentions that the things that WorldStartup helped him the most with were making them feel comfortable as entrepreneurs, being patient with them, while also giving them really good training and mentorship. “

They followed up on us, and made sure that we were focused on the impact that we wanted to create.

” They gave them the tools to make their approach sharper. “

WorldStartup was more about lifting us rather than protecting us.

” is how Rushabh describes his company’s value. Not just as a product, but something that enables people to unlock their capability of building their own house, and being able to afford their own house, while also being a hope for reducing pollution, and in that way also creating jobs. “

Something that can serve people by helping people help themselves.

” The brick prototypes that Rushabh’s company currently produces in Rotterdam are made from waste plastics that they get from partnerships. One of their biggest partnerships is with a textile manufacturing company that has around 300 kilos of plastic waste every month. Currently they are doing a project in Ghana. Despite wanting to implement this project in Mumbai, Rushabh has done some analyses and came to the conclusion that it requires a lot more planning, as land is expensive and there are more challenges to overcome. That is why he thinks that before implementation in Mumbai, they will most likely develop their project in some smaller cities in India. Besides their project in Ghana, they have also explored ideas of bringing the project to Kenya, Malawi and Mexico, but they have decided to focus on one community first. The way they get plastic waste in African countries is different from in Europe, In Ghana, they are going to be working with informal waste recycling organisations in Accra to source their plastic waste, while supporting the local informal economy.

Rushabh is inspired by people who are less fortunate. A lot of people have the skills to help the people in need, but they either lack the motivation to use their skills in those sectors or circumstances hold them back. “

If I really want something to change, and I become the first domino to fall, I just need to do that once successfully and then the rest can follow.

” When asked about his greatest achievement thus far, Rushabh said that it has been about inspiring people, and being able to speak about these issues of waste plastic and affordable housing on global platforms. “

A lot of people have said that it is nice that younger people are taking up the fight against these problems.

” But Rushabh also mentioned that in terms of the company, achievements are not yet there, they have not made that impact yet. But someday they will.

Currently, Unibrick is a collaboration between “Conscious Designs” and “Community Plastics”, founded by Frans Taminiau, who is the founder of “Masters That Matter.” These companies together are going to create a new company which is going to be launched the coming months. The milestones for this year are therefore also setting up this company, andalso setting up a pilot project in Ghana in the next year and half. For the future, Rushabh’s goal is to have built over a million constructions with Unibricks in the next 10–15 years.

When asked what his main challenges were, he mentioned that as an architect, he was not trained to be an entrepreneur. “

There is no entrepreneurial course that is given to you at Architecture school in which you start thinking of your own ideas, from a concept level to an implementation level, while also thinking of all the other puzzle pieces of how a startup works.” Rushabh mentions his architectural studies.

“I knew I had the passion, but I had to learn the skills, and I am still learning.” For future entrepreneurs, and people looking to start a startup, Rushabh’s advice is to hang in there “It is a long run, not a sprint”, and also “It will always take more time and more money than you expect it to, but the journey is worth it.”

During this project Rushabh was working on how to use plastic waste, which was abundant in Indonesia, and how to solve the issue of unsafe constructions.

Taking on the fight of waste plastic and affordable housing on a global level with ‘Conscious Designs’

Register

This opportunity is provided by our partner 

Futurepreneurs is a sustainability pre-acceleration program for impact driven entrepreneurs. Participants receive mentorship, education and skill development while working on their business solutions. Program includes open lectures on business starting basics, hands-on workshops, individual mentorship sessions with business professionals and an opportunity to pitch in front of potential investors.

Futurepreneurs pre-acceleration program was launched in 2017 and became the first sustainability pre-acceleration program in Lithuania. In the spring of 2018 Futurepreneurs expanded and successfully implemented in Poland. In 2019 the program was available in the Netherlands for the first time and will be launched again the future.

Participating is free and no equity is taken

Real time experience: real problems, interactive process, learning by doing

A lot of teamwork and international support

Development of personal skills and expertise

Futurepreneurs is a concentrated sustainability pre-acceleration program for young people (aged 16 to 30) willing to become entrepreneurs. This business development training package outlines 5 training sessions (workshops) for building a startup from an idea to a viable solution that can be presented to potential investors. Every session is led by business experts, while participants get insights from mentors in between the sessions. In order to create and develop their (future) start-ups, participants have to focus on Sustainable Development Goals and find an innovative solution to worldwide problems. Participants will not only be trained to become an entrepreneurs, but also to build an impact driven business that is good for the environment, society and economy.

*Participants located in Lithuania must take part in the program live in Vilnius. Meanwhile, participants located in Ukraine and Europe in general will be able to participate online.

Futrepreneurs for Ukraine

Sixth edition of Futurepreneurs: practical entrepreneurship training and focus on Ukraine.

Learn more

Frank & the Backs

Growth phase startups

Book an appointment

Frank's legal counsel

Visit the website

What we do

We offer tailored support with an entrepreneurial model starting with a plan.

How do we work?

Discovery stage

Growth plan

Implement

Access FLOW

This two-month online training, packed with highly intense and result-oriented sessions, prepares impact-driven startups for their expansion to the European market through The Hague's ecosystem in the Netherlands.

As part of the ongoing Indo-Dutch collaboration in the Agriculture Sector, 11 Ag, Food and Tech startups from India have been chosen to participate in the Digital Soft Landing Programme this autumn. This 4-step program aims to help Indian AgFood Tech startups validate their European value proposition through training and stakeholder introduction sessions with the local AgFood ecosystem in the Netherlands.

Meet the eleven ambitious startups from the Indian Agri & Food Tech sectors ready for their European expansion.

Nail the European market in 4 simple steps

We help you explore the Dutch startup ecosystem and provide you with market information on your sector. Once completed, you will enter the second step of the programme, where you will be given market preparation training on developing your value proposition for the European market. The next step consists of validating your developed value proposition with experts from the local ecosystem to refine this further and find the right market fit. Lastly, once you have a clear idea of how to enter the European market, our team will help you prepare a tailored roadmap for European expansion.

 Digital Fact Finding sessions to explore and learn about the AgFoodTech ecosystem

 Market readiness training to refine your value proposition tailored to the European market

 Match Making with local players in the ecosystem to validate your European value proposition 

 Develop a tailored European expansion plan 

The Hague is a throbbing city with millions of possibilities. There are passionate funding organisations that can back social and for-profit ventures.

— Avinash Kulkarni, CSO at Kaizen Secure Voiz (India)

The Digital Softlanding Programme is executed by a coalition of public and private organizations, such as 

The Royal Dutch Embassy of the Netherlands

. This coalition brings the right experience for Indian AgfoodTech start-ups to ensure successful expansion to the Netherlands and soft landing into the local AgFoodTech Ecosystem.

This program aims to help Indian AgFood Tech startups validate their European value proposition through training and stakeholder introduction sessions with the local AgFood ecosystem in the Netherlands.

Opportunity Lead

Digital Soft Landing Programme - Focus: Indian AgFood Tech

Digital Soft Landing Programme

Apply

The 5th edition of The Hackathon for Good in The Hague takes place online and at various exclusive working spaces during the 48h hack period.

The deadline for teams’ registration is 23:59 CET on the 13th of November 2022. In case you are looking for teammates or want to join an existing team, check out our tips in the 

There are 2 options to take part in the hackathon - Fast track and Full track. Each team can indicate their preference for time involvement upon registration or no later than by the end of the 19th of November.

The Fast track includes key events, mandatory activities and opportunities for 1-on-1 sessions with the challenge owners and mentors. Fast track teams can get tech support or ask questions via chat on the platform.

The Full track contains all activities from the Fast track and comes with an exciting support programme. This includes workshops on data processing, business and design, extended sessions with the challenge owners and open hours for consultations and technical support. The Full track gives you the advantage of having more time to craft your solution uninterrupted during the 48h hack period.

Hackathon for Good - The Hague #5

I'm interested

The demand for electricity is increasing. At the same time, the supply is also rising rapidly. The current electricity network cannot cope with this. That's why network companies are working hard to create a more extensive network that is strong enough. This is quite a challenge because we have to prevent the new grid from becoming too heavy or too expensive. In this way, we can prevent the energy bill from rising unnecessarily. How can we use innovative solutions to match the growing supply and demand for electricity and thus make the best use of the current grid?

Good ideas, designs and solutions need more than funding to be developed. Your project plan must also be ready and attractive to investors. Therefore, the Zeeland Public Interest Foundation and innovation hub Dockwize collaborate in this challenge.

Together we have developed a program to help you further elaborate and develop your proposal. This will significantly increase your chances of obtaining funding. The program is also part of what you ultimately hand in. Do you have an approved plan? Then you can apply for 50% to 70% funding (up to a maximum of € 1,000,000). On top of that, guidance is possible.

During the programme, you will evaluate your idea with business coaches and experts. Together you will work on the design in several sessions, after which you will present your idea to a jury. The jury will decide which project plans are ready for this program called 'Boost the grid', in which your project plan will be further developed.

Is your plan selected by the jury? Congratulations! During the programme you will work on making your idea even more concrete. During these work sessions, all project plans are prepared to be submitted to The Zeeland Public Interest Foundation.   

Exiting things are happening in the world in terms of the energy transition. We ask a lot of the electricity grid we currently have and must seek for solutions and plans to guarantee a reliable and available grid in the future. This is the only way to achieve the necessary and desired acceleration of the energy transition.

Details

More opportunities

Hackathon for Good - The Hague #6

Digital Soft Landing Programme - Focus: Indian AgFood Tech

Boost the Grid Challenge

Futurepreneurs Dutch Open

Apply now

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