Northern Knowledge window for female entrepreneurial talent

‘Follow your heart and just do it!‘ summarizes moderator Aniek Ouendag an evening full of enterpreneurial spirit in front of a mainly female audience at special VentureClass edition 'TheNextWomen Science Stories' last Thursday at Van Swinderen Huys, University of Groningen. This special VentureClass was shining the spotlight on women entrepreneurs, with several pitches and keynotes.

‘Nature or Nuture, never mind, if you have the passion to become an entrepreneur, just go for it’, stresses k eynote speaker Mrs. Heleen van Balen, proprietor of Commutatio Group BV and member of the Advisory Board of the University of Groningen. Her pas sion is with change management with the aim to contribute to the personal development of people and organisations. Heleen kick started her entrepreneurial career at a young age making her first money with washing cars. Heleen: ‘People thought it was strange that a girl did this kind of supposed boys work. A rubbish statement, of course. Follow your heart regardless of whether you are a boy or girl. Just do it!’

The VentureClass was co-organized by VentureLab North, TheNextWomen organization and Northern Knowledge open innovation platform. Annemieke Galema, director of Northern Knowledge opened the evening with putting the spotlight on entrepreneurial activities by women, and by presenting Northern Knowledge as liaison between the northern universities, businesses, governments and organizations. Northern Knowledge is an initiative of University of Groningen, UMCG and Hanze University of Applied Sciences. TheNextWomen company provides female founders and investors access to knowledge, capital & network.

Heartbreaking passion

Prof Ingrid Molema, UMCG, is CEO Vivomickx , Better Drugs Faster, spin-off. She follows her heart on pharmaceutical innovation and value creation. Vivomicx is able to tell you what the effects of a (new) drug are on the gene expression profiles of subsets of cells in the organ where the disease is located, so medicines can be composed and dosed more effectively. Ingrid: ‘We are scaling up Vivomickx with the support of UMCG. UMCG provides financial and lab facilities to take your spin-off one step further.’

PhD Linda Dijkshoorn’s entrepreneurial heart is with strain on demand services. Linda is CEO biotechnological start-up E.V. Biotech BV. EV Biotech developed a datamodel in which they can simulate changes in their microbes before engineering real bacteries/microbes. Her goal with her company is to make the world a bit better. Linda: ‘Currently we are in our first investment round and are actively working on our proof of concept.’

FC Groningen

Fall 2017, Mrs. Tanya Colonna, CEO BlackTop Labs, LLC, came over from the United States to VentureLab North facility to learn and experience how to successfully start a business. Tanya : ‘I found VentureLab North business acelerator opportunity by googling .’ BlackTop Labs mission is to deliver the future standard of care in kinesthetic diagnostics and rehabilitation. The company designs and builds modular, easy-to-use wearable analytic devices and associated software platforms that output objective metrics targeting niche patient and clinician populations identified through our customer discovery process. Tanya: ‘At this moment, we are extending our target audience to sports related input, including Dutch soccer club FC Groningen.’

Algea innovation

Entrepreneur and key note speaker Dr. Monique Schoondorp closed 'TheNext-Women Science Stories' masterclass with an inspiring presentation on biobased transition. She is managing partner at Omega Green B.V. The green company with laboratory located at Eemshaven builds and installs her own unique algae grow system specially designed for large scale production. Omega Green is convinced that algae will significantly contribute to healthy and sustainable food and feed. Monique: ‘Our ambition is to provide the new algae producers an interesting business case, from the economic and ecological point of view. Omega Green has a biobased future. ’

More information

Are you a woman entrepreneur and looking for acces to knowledge, capital & network? Please contact TheNextWoman

Northern Knowledge

Northern Knowledge is platform and liaison for Valorisation & Entrepreneurship. Adding value by showing, connecting and facilitate disciplines, projects and activities from universities, governments, business and citizens and their impact on regional development.

Are you interested in profiling your business, please contact Albert van der Kooij, Northern Knowledge Programme Manager

VentureLab North

VentureLab North is the business accelerator for startups and existing companies in the Northern Netherlands offeringa cohesive one year business development programme.

Northern Knowledge is the open innovation platform of University of Groningen, UMCG, and Hanze University for Applied Sciences