Ask HE: Tech in the Netherlands
I am currently enjoying a very nice Tech boom here in NYC. My wife has an offer from Eindhoven and wanted to know the health of Tech, Startups, and the Web there. Thanks!
I am currently enjoying a very nice Tech boom here in NYC. My wife has an offer from Eindhoven and wanted to know the health of Tech, Startups, and the Web there. Thanks!
Well, I study in the Netherlands, so I have some knowledge about the scene here.
AFAIK, TU Eindhoven has a relatively successful incubator for startups as a part of High Tech Campus [1]. I study in Delft, and we also have a tech incubator called YES!Delft [2], which hosts quite a lot of tech startups, not necessarily focusing only on IT. Most of them, of course, originated from the TU itself.
In general I would say NL is quite positive towards startups, and at least our university is very supportive when it comes to student's entrepreneurial activities. Some notable Dutch startups that made it "big" are for example Layar (AR app), Senz (aerodynamic umbrella), or, well, TomTom, which was a startup even before the word startup became so cool:)
[1] http://www.hightechcampus.com/
[2] http://www.yesdelft.nl/
The health of Tech and Web is alright in the Netherlands is alright, there's lots of businesses and career opportunities, if you got some skills you'll get a job at a great shop in no time.
About startups I'm not so sure, the Netherlands, and europe in general, is more risk averse than the states. There are quite a lot of startup accelerators and investors in the netherlands, but there isn't an abundance of risky web startups like there is in SF for example.
The startup I work for (phusion.nl) is organizing a conference for startups in Amsterdam in october, maybe you can visit us and have a taste of what is going on :) (http://bubbleconf.com).
I may just take you up on that conference. Thank you all for the tidbits.
n