Taking part in the trip was senior advisor Tor A. Johannessen, project manager Christina Laastad, communication intern Sunniva Ullavik Erstad, business analyst Marissa Ewart and business analyst Christian Eriksen. The trip aims at giving BTOs employee’s insight into entrepreneurship and innovation based on research outside of Norway. The importance of entrepreneurship and self-employment in the Netherlands is being acknowledged on a large scale by both economists and policy makers. This is because entrepreneurship combined with self-employment contributes to economic growth and creates more jobs.
During the trip BTO visited the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk. Our host Niels Eldering from ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office (TTPO) gave us a great insight in both ESA, ESTEC and their technology transfer program. In return BTO held a presentation focusing on the most applicable space technologies to the Norwegian marked. In addition the presentation compared American and Norwegian technology transfers. We also visited ESAs Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) situated just outside of the ESTEC area.
The next day we visited the YES!Delft incubator in Delft. The incubator focuses on combining great design with scalable high tech products. A good example of this type of products is the Senze umbrella. The umbrella has a unique design and can withhold air pressure up to 100 km/h. Read more about the sense umbrella here.
During the final day of our stay in the Netherlands we travelled to Rotterdam Science Tower. Here we visited both the Startup Campus related to Erasmus Universiteit and the Erasmus Medical Centers Technology Transfer Office (EMC TTO). The Erasmus Medical Center is the second largest hospital of The Netherlands. Consequently the hospital holds a great potential for medical technology transfers, a notion which is handled by the EMC TTO lead by Mr. Michel Bergh.
The BTO employees were satisfied with the study trip. “We gained valuable insight into several Dutch incubators and technology transfer offices. This type of knowledge exchange is very useful as it gives us the opportunity to learn from another nation’s experience with innovation” says Christina Laastad.