GREEN INNOVATION HUB

What will our living environment look like in the future? What role will digitalisation and technologies such as 5G, AI and AR/VR play in it? That question is at the heart of Green Innovation Hub (GIH), a platform where public and private parties work together on key themes such as energy transition, circular economy, urban renewal and sustainability. Green Innovation Hub officially launched in March 2023. It is an initiative of the municipality of Almere, Vodafone Ziggo and the province of Flevoland. "Our goal is for more tech and high-tech companies to settle in Almere. That students continue to live and work there after their education. That the city gets a technical university and that Almere turns into one big hotspot for innovative tech talent," said Green Innovation Hub quartermaster Danny Frietman (Almere municipality).

Big ambitions, clear course

Danny Frietman: "We aim to put Almere on the map as the tech city of the future. At the same time, we are strengthening the business climate by enthusing public and private sector parties to work together on innovative, digital solutions. To shape this, we have developed three program lines: the first is aimed at developing a community, the second is our partner program and finally we have the open innovation locations with the most innovative residential area of the Netherlands, Hortus Almere, as the central hotspot. Through these programmes, we help organisations develop, market and scale up innovative digital solutions for urban development."

The CityLab: creativity and collaboration

Green Innovation Hub is an inspiring meeting place where administrators, entrepreneurs and students meet and work together on digital and innovative solutions for a sustainable living environment. Located on the ninth floor of the Floor building, the GIH overlooks the Weerwater, where the new Hortus urban district is to be built. One look out of the window and you immediately understand why Almere is the ideal place to set up an initiative like Green Innovation Hub. René Visser of VodafoneZiggo: "Almere is one of the few cities where there is still room to build completely new residential areas. That gives us, together with partners such as scale-ups, startups and larger companies, a unique opportunity to immediately equip those neighbourhoods with the latest digital applications and thus really create a sustainable, digitally-driven and innovative neighbourhood. Everything we develop here can be immediately applied in practice. It contributes directly to a pleasant and unique way of living and working."

Innovation in action

A visit to Green Innovation Hub makes innovation very tangible and concrete. For example, during our conversation, a group of young people enters the space to set up in one of the seating areas. Danny: "These are schoolchildren from Windesheim next door. They are developing a digital human, a lifelike avatar with Artificial Intelligence. They come here regularly to collaborate on their ideas".

He points to a wooden house in the CityLab further down the hall: "That is a prototype of a sustainable house that we had made from a design in Minecraft. Did you know that grey roofs heat up to 80° in summer? The house collects rainwater in a basin and then circulates it through the house to cool it by an average of 25 degrees in summer and insulate it in winter. The entire house is fitted with sensors. The data from these sensors land on an open-data system and it processes it into meaningful information."

A vibrant community

Almere offers plenty of room for technological development and entrepreneurship. With its modern infrastructure and openness to digital innovation, Almere is an ideal environment for companies, entrepreneurs and students to test,present and scale up new ideas. Green Innovation Hub cleverly responds to this with its community program by organising activities that attract not only established companies, but also young talent. René: "With our annual contest, we give young startups and scale-ups the opportunity to present their innovations to a wide audience. We also hold Minecraft challenges for students and schoolchildren. Just a few weeks ago, a group of Technasium students visited us with their parents to help build the new Hortus city district in our Minecraft environment. These young fresh thinkers are building their own house of tomorrow, which is fantastic!".

Danny: "We work with organisations that can contribute to our goals: from small, startup software suppliers to established high-tech organisations. To bring about real innovation, it is also important to have more interaction between business and education. We encourage this, for example, by having students from Windesheim or ROC Almere participate in real business challenges."

No shortage of talent

Elaborating all the ideas and bringing them to market requires a lot of talent and commitment. That doesn't seem to be a problem in Almere. Danny: "The opportunities in Almere to experiment with new, sustainable technologies and to apply them directly in urban development appeal enormously to the imagination, and talented young people and companies want to be part of that."

René Visser: "From Green Innovation Hub, we find it very important to encourage cross-fertilisation between business and education. We do this by having students work on real business challenges. From next year, we are also going to invite companies to give guest lectures here at the so they can engage directly with students. For companies, this is a good opportunity to come into contact with young talent who think along with their organisation with fresh eyes."

Partners in innovation

With a special partner program, companies get help to develop, validate, build and scale up innovative digital solutions. With their questions about financing, housing, HR or legal matters, they can contact Green Innovation Hub's regular strategic partners such as UPAlmere!, ICT Tribe, BTG and the Horizon Flevoland regional development agency.

It gives young companies space to establish themselves in Almere. René gives some examples of companies that joined last year:

• Viroteq, a young company developing intelligent robotics for the sustainable disposal of energy batteries
• COTIT a startup developing an AI software platform that can reprogram itself
• Vennster, a scale-up that developed the Parta app to allow residents and other stakeholders to think and decide on certain issues affecting a municipality.

Share your entrepreneurial story too? Tell us at info@onderneeminalmere.nl/en.

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