Press release by the municipality of The Hague:
ImpactCity The Hague startup hub for international startups
The Hague, 12 September 2017 – At the end of this month, The Hague is reaffirming its position as a successful business base for startups by hosting the international Impact Startup Fest. There will also be extra attention to the partnership with India here.
As the International City of Peace and Justice, The Hague is important for this category of startups. The Hague is home to startups, scale-ups, international businesses, knowledge centres, and NGOs. All this offers an interesting network and a fruitful business base for innovative companies wanting to make a difference. On 25 and 26 September, the Binckhaven and the Zuiderstrand provide the stage for Impact Startup Fest. This festival focuses on startups and scale-ups engaged in finding innovative solutions which are not only interesting commercially, but also help create a better world.
National and international matchmaking are a key feature of the event. Karsten Klein, deputy mayor for urban economy in The Hague: “Economic success and social impact go hand in hand in The Hague. As a city, we create an attractive business climate for these impact startups. We also want to help these innovative companies in their growth. At this festival, we therefore connect startups and advanced startups to international impact investors, experts, leaders, and service providers.”
Top speakers
Impact Startup Fest has a number of interesting (inter)national top speakers on the programme, such as Steve Ellis from The Rise Fund, Prince Constantijn (special envoy at Startup Delta), Nisha Dutt (CEO Intellecap), as well as famous philanthropists like Peter Holmes à Court and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. There will also be 35 different workshops, including an international programme about doing business in emerging markets and of course upscaling within Europe.
Partnership with India
The Hague has a large Hindu community and has had a good relationship with India for many years. Recently, the Indian Prime Minister Modi visited The Hague, highlighting the cultural and economic bonds with the Netherlands. Impact Startup Fest is also the first result of the partnership between The Hague’s startup programme and the Indian organisation Intellecap, which has forged an international partnership between The Hague, India, and Kenya. This partnership offers a springboard for Dutch impact startups to explore the Indian market and vice versa.
Impact investors
Innovative business which wants to have ‘impact’ share the conviction that companies can help solve social problems in the world. An increasing number of investors also want to do something good for the world, as is evident from the growth in impact investment volume. For that reason, they invest their money in startups which strive to achieve ‘impact’.
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