Europe’s leading tech festival, TNW The Next Web took place on May 18 – 19, 2017 in the city of Amsterdam. The Next Web brought together 12,500 entrepreneurs, developers, managers, CEOs and policymakers together for doing business, develop technology, invest and pitch.
A prominent part of The Next Web was the StartupCity Summit organized by The Next Web, Startup Amsterdam and The City of Amsterdam.
The Summit initiative aimed to connect startup cities to other startup cities, discuss about city startup ecosystems and the role that local governments currently have and role that local governments will have in the near future.
The Summit bought together 100 leading civil servants to exchange best practices, make connections and collaborate to discuss important issues being experienced in many city startup ecosystems.
Roundtable sessions were conducted with the participants regarding a variety of important factors facing city startups ecosystems. The roundtable topics included connecting corporates to the startup ecosystem, the city as a launching customer for startups, attracting, creating and upscaling tech talent, international collaboration between cities, unleashing capital and investments, startup city marketing, city and the (metropole) region and lastly inclusive growth.
The opening speech made by the Deputy-Mayor of Amsterdam, Kasja Ollongren, explained the importance the City of Amsterdam places on the development of the startup ecosystem of Amsterdam and how it has developed its startup ecosystem over the years.
Keynote speakers included startup ecosystem experts, Bedy Yang, Managing Partner at 500 Startups, Dane Stangler, Head of Policy at Startup Genome and Siddharth Bannerjee, Policy Researcher and Analyst at Nesta.
Bedy Yang, Managing Partner at 500 Startups discussed important elements in building sustainable city startup ecosystems, including the important elements of a strong capital investment flow, infrastructure, community leadership, mentorship and inclusiveness.
Dane Stangler, Head of Policy at Startup Genome discussed the important role of assessing a city startup ecosystem, action to develop a city startup ecosystem, the lifecycle model of a startup ecosystem revolution and the Global Startup Genome Report 2017.
Siddharth Bannerjee, Policy Researcher and Analyst at Nesta discussed the role of city ranking indexes, Nesta’s EDCi European Digital City Index 2016 and its important practical Digital Entrepreneurship Idea Bank for Local Policymakers Report.
The Summit hosted a Panel discussion on the important topic of “How national governments can empower local tech-ecosystems.” which was paneled by Bindi Karia, Innovation expert and advisor of Startup Europe and Tech London Advocates and His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn of The Netherlands, Special Envoy at Startup Delta.
The StartupCity Summit then hosted the book launch of ‘Startup City, The role of local government in entrepreneurial ecosystems’, written by influential Amsterdam startup ecosystem leaders, Bas Beekman and Ruben Nieuwenhuis.
The Summit bought together the representatives to identify the demands and meet the demands of startups and scale-ups and their expansion from city to city.
Contributor: Adam Bregu
