Chamber CEO Wil Pineau, CCE is in Eindhoven, Netherlands where he has also be joined by UCCI’s Dr. J.D. Mosley-Matchett.
Wil is attending lectures and seminars about the development of business incubators in the hopes of sharing this information in the Cayman Islands, as well as touring some of the Dutch facilities and incubators currently aiding their local businesses.
The endeavour is funded by COSME, a European Union initiative that provides small-and-medium enterprises and business support organisations in British, Dutch and French overseas territories with the support they need. This support can range from investment and financial backing, to having a professional and experienced mentor provide your business with the advice it may need.
The information collected from this trip should enable the Chamber of Commerce to better understand the functions, best practices and organisation of business incubators, and allow us to consider developing our own such resource. Mr. Pineau will prepare a report for presentation to Chamber Council and Chamber membership upon his return.
Wil will also be reporting his findings back to the Chamber’s Community & Membership Development Committee, specifically the sub-committee focused on business incubation. The findings will provide the sub-committee with the fuel they need to achieve their goals to implement positive change and support for businesses in the Cayman Islands.
There will also be a 2-day workshop in October during which members of the COSME and CaribConnect initiatives will be in the Cayman Islands to explain business incubators in greater detail to local business and SME owners. The workshops will take place on 12-13 October between 5:30pm-7:30pm.
Some of Wil Pineau’s itinerary can be found below.
Wednesday September 21st
• Presentation of “The Dutch Valorisation System” by Lennart Kamphuis Programme Manager at RVO
• “Business Incubation in the Eindhoven Region” by Piet van der Wielen, programme director at Brainport Development
• “Business Incubation at the university” by Steef Blok, Director Business Development at the TU/e Innovation Lab.
• Visit of “Catalyst and Twinning Centre,” 2 physical incubators on the TU/e campus
• Background and function of “Catalyst and Twinning Centre” by Jean-Paul van Oijen, Project Manager Business Incubation at Twice Eindhoven BV
Thursday September 22nd
• Expert speech on physical incubation by Noel Coopmans
• Expert speech on business incubation in regional economic development perspective by Joep Brouwers from Brainport Development
• Expert speech on business incubation in an EU perspective by Robert Sanders from EBN
• Expert speech on “BIDx” by Leslie Abell, CEO of BIDx
• Expert speech on cooperative incubation in the design cluster by Maarten Hendriks and John A.M. Sandiford of Founded by All
• Registration at Conference “XL Day Modern-Day Warriors of Change”
Friday September 23rd
• Travel to the “High Tech Campus Eindhoven”
• Visit of the physical business incubator/accelerator “Beta” and “Mu” (HTC 9)
• Introduction of the High Tech Campus and Incubator activities by Bert-Jan Woertman, director marketing and communications
• Guided tour through High Tech XL Plaza by Bert-Jan Woertman