Take for instance the case of 24-year-old Frank Wille, an industrial engineering major who started his own company Novulo in 2003, which is now one of the leading companies of visual development of web applications. He recently won the Bizz magazine award for the most innovative IT business in the Netherlands.
The pairing of science and business appears to be a blueprint for the creation of jobs and new business opportunities, which can supply the region with many graduate entrepreneurs. `Kennispark Twente is a high-priority program for the regional and municipal governments,' said Kees Eijkel, the director of Kennispark, whose organization aims to create 10,000 new jobs by 2020.
`Our goal is to further build upon the entrepreneurial success of the UT to create an environment that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship. People and organizations have to be aware of their options. Perhaps you want to start your career as a junior in a large corporation or entrepreneurship is your thing. One of our most important goals is to make students and others aware of all these options and have them make informed choices instead of `going with the flow', said Eijkel.
Since the Rector Van den Kroonenberg gave the UT the name of `entrepreneurial research university' in the 1980s, around 700 spin-off companies have been developed.
According to the 2007 annual report of Kennispark Twente, new job growth (not including UT jobs) dramatically rose to 6.6 percent from 0.3 percent in the previous year. These statistics clearly indicate progress in the creation of new jobs from 17 in 2006 to a whopping 306 in 2007.
While scientific knowledge gained at the university can be turned into profitable results, most people are uninformed about the broad network of services offered. Event planners hope to narrow this information gap by offering a symposium on November 14 at the Drienerburght Conference Hotel.
The symposium will help students who are asking themselves: Is there potential economic value in my research? Who can I contact to find out more about what steps to take? `Many people make conscious decisions in this area, but many more do not,' said Eijkel.
Speaker Aard Groen of Nikos, the university's institute for knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship, will speak about the Venture Lab, which is a joint program involving the UT and Saxion Hogeschool. This new initiative is scheduled to start at the beginning of 2009. Eijkel said: “It is a pressure cooker, where 50 participants are going through an intense practical training program to acquire skills needed for an entrepreneurial future. Within the half-year program, they come in close contact with many business cases, financiers, and high-level international trainers.' He predicts at the close of the program, a large portion of high-growth companies, lead by `strong management teams,' will be `spawned' and ready to meet the next challenge.
Nancy Trip, the project manager of Kennispark Twente said students will have the opportunity to talk with experts at the symposium during the one hour lunch break. `We are planning to repeat this formula every six months, and also offer periodic workshops on relevant topics to raise the level of awareness about the wide range of services available to PhDs who want to explore business opportunities and safeguard their scientific discoveries,' she added.
`Students will have the opportunity to create their own schedule for the day by picking and choosing which events or workshops they want to attend and all parts of the symposium will be offered in English,' said Janinka Feenstra, the Kennispark Twente communications coordinator.
Interested in attending? Visit the Kennispark website: www.kennispark.nl.
