Born in Flanders – Raised to support global ageing 

Theme 4
Tuesday 24 September 16:00-17:30
Room: D1

In this interactive workshop, speakers with key roles in areas of ‘idea over concept’ and ‘solution to market’, will discuss how they work in the Flemish ecosystem of active and assisted living to help grow and develop ideas into market-ready products or services.

Central to the Flemish innovation approach is the cooperation between SMEs and other complementary stakeholders. This is aimed at integrating entrepreneurship, scientific knowledge, end user engagement and customer expectations. Due to a limited internal market, Flemish SMEs are also forced to focus on internationalisation within their business model quicker than usual.

Participants can expect to come away achieving two complementary goals:

1. Share best practices that have been developed in Flanders related to living labs, local and regional networking, and how to support entrepreneurs and SMEs in developing active and assisted living technologies.
2. ‘Future sketching’ will engage the audience who can expect to define for themselves what a similar approach might look like in their region – what might be missing and/or what strengths or challenges they might face.

Speakers:

Roel Smolders (Activ84Health)
Ingrid Adriaensen (LicaLab)
Ellen Van Hoof (Health&Care Network Kempen)
Patrick Dillen (Noblito)