Eindhoven booster Klaas Dijkhoff wants all of the Netherlands to be brainported

Why we write about this topic:

Brainport Eindhoven is increasingly in the spotlight as the innovative and economic center of gravity of the Netherlands. Klaas Dijkhoff is temporarily assigned to give its further development an extra boost.

Brainport is a huge success story, but it is reaching its physical limits. So instead of bringing even more important sectors and industries to Brainport, Klaas Dijkhoff says it would be much better to “brainport” the Netherlands. Dijkhoff, former VVD party chairman and co-founder of Sue and the Alchemists, was recently appointed ‘booster’ for the further development of the Brainport Eindhoven region. This has given the VVD politician a bridging role between The Hague and the region, which was awarded a bonus of 1.6 billion euros (including regional investments) shortly after his appointment.

“We need to expand the success of Brainport, but in return, it would help Brainport if it would stop screaming for more attention to this region from The Hague,” he said today during an appearance for the High Tech Next event at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven. “Brainport is not a regional project, it is at least national. And yes, that also means a shift in our identity as residents of this region. If we also allow the rest of the Netherlands to be proud of what happens here, we must share that feeling with more people.”

Beacon of hope

Very difficult this need not be, Dijkhoff said. “After all, we have been used to sharing for years. We share knowledge, our prosperity, and the way we improve society. That has been the key to Brainport’s success for years.”

Leading by example in the developments that are so needed these days, Brainport can become visible to the rest of the country as a “beacon of hope,” according to the booster. “We in our country are currently obsessed with the fear of losing something. This is not surprising because we have also accumulated a lot over the years. Nobody likes to lose that wealth; that’s logical. And it is precisely in this respect that Brainport can set an example by showing that change is not necessarily negative. That a transition can not only solve the nitrogen problem but also take us further. If we could make that leadership role more visible, it could help the whole country enormously.”

Target

Dijkhoff also warned Brainport: “The fact that we have grown from cute and fun to important and influential also means that the world looks at us differently. There are real threats: people who want to copy, steal, or buy up successful parts. Concrete danger lurks in the physical world but also through cyber-attacks. Anyone as successful as Brainport automatically becomes a target.”