Neelie Kroes, Special Envoy of StartupDelta, visited RoboValley today. She discussed how entrepreneurship is stimulated via various educational programmes. Kroes also received the book ‘Robotics for Future President’ from a drone.

Neelie Kroes was impressed by the enthusiasm and entrepreneurial urge displayed by the robotics-students: “In RoboValley in Delft, innovation is a continuous process, it is great to see how students and investors are closely connected and how entrepreneurship is stimulated in the process. This should happen more often in the Netherlands.”

Arie van den Ende, Managing Director of RoboValley: “Neelie Kroes has put the Netherlands on the map as hub for start-ups during her work as Special Envoy for StartupDelta. RoboValley is an international hotspot for start-ups and companies that are active in the field of robotics. Scientists collaborate with the market to create the next generation robots. Thanks to this visit, even more robotics-companies will know how to find RoboValley.”

Massive Open Online Courses
During the special round table with experts from RoboValley, the subject of the conversation was how educations can better respond to the growing demand for robotics. MOOC’s, Massive Online Open Courses, were also brought up. TU Delft is the largest supplier of MOOC’s in the Netherlands; StartupDelta sees a growing demand for this form of open education.

Kroes: “The MOOC started by StartupDelta and the four technical universities is an important initiative of StartupDelfta. This initiative will strengthen the development of much needed talent. Thanks to this way of educating people, we put our top universities on the map and hope to inspire countless students to create a start-up.”

Read the press release (in Dutch) here.