Serendipity and creation of economic value, it still is a tough task to balance at the University boardroom. Former member of Dutch Parliament, Anne-Wil Lucas heads the Talent, Knowledge & Skills department at the StartupDelta organization in Amsterdam. As it is her role to stimulate the transfer of the results from academic research to entrepreneurial ventures, Anne-Wil is the perfect person to chair the entrepreneurship track and the Startup of the Year contest at the International MicroNanoConference 2017.
Educated at Wageningen University, being experienced in the political arena and now working for the governmental founded agency StartUpDelta, Lucas is extremely motivated “to show things can be organized along another road than before. Sure, entrepreneurship as an education course is being offered already since quite some time at universities. But we saw that only a small number of students took advantage of this opportunity. So what we did for a start, is organizing an event for 1.000 students, called ‘StartUp 24’, for them to experience what entrepreneurship is all about.”
Furthermore Lucas is working on organizing gatherings with people from different disciplines to meet and talk, who normally don’t know much about each others motivations, characters and interests; PhD’s, Masters Students, members of the board of Universities, private and institutional investors, Knowledge Transfer Officers. “Science based academic start ups is the most difficult start up category for us to deal with. They have their own ecosystems and from our point of view the arena seems a bit fragmented. Each one of them is so highly specialized, that it is quite difficult for us to get in contact. So, therefore I am really happy being asked to participate now in the International MicroNanoConference. It gives me a chance to meet a significant number of these start ups and to experience the vibe of their ecosystem. It is all thanks to the contacts I had as a member of Parliament with the FHI Association of Technology Branches and through this connection with the MinacNed Association for MicroNano Technology.”
Entrepreneurship track, December 12, 11.15 – 12.45 & 14.00 – 15.30 hrs.
Click here for the complete programme of the iMNC 2017 and the parallel events.