Last week our COO & Commercial Director Emmanuel Kirunda represented Olsights LTD at the Great British Tech Off in Brussels & The Big Score event of Smart City & Mobility Summit in Antwerp , Belgium. The events were organised by the British Embassy Belgium, though the Antwerp one was in conjunction with The Beacon, Antwerp.
The two day events brought together more than 20 Belgian and British tech startups that tussled it out in Pitching their innovations. While the Brussels Pitching event was a competition that was won by UZE Energy – creating mobile Charging stations, the Antwerp one at which Emmanuel pitched (see pic below) was not a competition but rather an opportunity to present innovation to a panel of business and local experts.
In his own words, Emmanuel reflected that “pitching the Olsights Business proposition to a professional panel composed of local VC firms, industry personalities and representatives from the British Embassy Trade office was a great experience. Besides learning from the other startups, the event gave me a great opportunity to get valuable feedback about our business. Thank you British embassy and The Beacon for the opportunity”.
Besides the pitching, the Brussels event also included 4 business information panels: ‘The Belgian and UK Cyber Security panel’ hosted by Dan Patefield of techUK and Patrick Coomans of Agoria; ‘The future of Tech – the industrial metaverse panel’ hosted by Xavier Gaerinck of Proximus and Philip Young of UK Digital Catapult; ‘Raising Finance and Scaling‘ by Lucas Stoops of 6 Degrees Capital; and ‘Scaling in the UK’ by Hwyl’s Eamon Tuhami.
A big thank you to the British Embassy Trade & Investment team of Laure Clynckemaillie and Elias Suliman and the rest of the team who did such a fantastic job organising such a successful pair of events. Also the chat Emmanuel had with Chris Barton, HM Trade Commissioner for Europe was very fruitful in appreciating just how much the UK government goes far and beyond to help small businesses like Olsights access the European market.
It was Emmanuel’s first time visiting Antwerp but he feels it is no exaggeration when they say Antwerp is indeed the centre of Europe. Besides its strategic location and Port advantages, the Industrial clusters around the city are taking a leading position in the decarbonisation space and as a city of Innovation led by entities such as The Beacon, we see a lot of potential in exporting our services to Belgium. Emmanuel is looking forward to continuing discussions with the contacts he made both in Antwerp and Brussels to explore how our decarbonisation Planning & Research web app ‘The Olsights Eye’ could help with the decarbonisation efforts by local authorities, public bodies and project developers in Belgium.
Emmanuel’s last impression was that ‘I am definitely looking forward to returning’
