By Karsten Klein. Photography by Arenda Oomen.
Alderman Karsten Klein has the Hague literally at his feet: his office at City Hall provides a magnificent view of the hustle and bustle of the city.
If it is up to Klein there will be even more economic bustle in the city. To achieve this, an increase in innovative talent is necessary. That is why he has introduced the program Impact Economy, a program where societal and technological innovations with international outreach are united to create a better world.
What exactly entails the program?
‘Let me start with a few examples.
Drones who can be used in a case of emergencies
Big data, which can be converted into practical visualisations to make humanitarian help more effective
Tweets who can be converted into flood maps who can actually save lives in case of flooding.
The mentioned examples are all technological innovations with an international impact, made possible by start-ups or entrepreneurs who are all based in the Hague. We call this phenomenon: the impact economy and it is exactly the kind of economy the city wants to stimulate.
That is why we have developed this program. The city is a junction of public authorities, of international institutions and companies, creatives, embassies and NGO’s.
This has an historic background, of course, but also more and more an economic signification. I call it an international eco-system: on a daily basis thousands of people are working on a better world.
The Hague used to focus on attracting large international institutions and companies to settle in the city. Now we are ready for the next step: we can use our reputation as international city of peace and justice to attract companies and start-ups who are working on global challenges.
Our international ecosystem is a perfect environment for exactly these kind of entrepreneurs who are focused on making our world a better place.
The city wants to stimulate people working on the Impact Economy by investing in people, places experiments and ideas.’
How does the embassy network benefit from the Impact Economy program?
‘In the impact economy embassies and their economic diplomats are valuable partners with whom we would like to collaborate more intensely.
Embassies can let us know which challenges they are facing in their country. We are interested in entering such dialogues, as some of our impact start-ups can play an innovative role in solving them.
For example: I can imagine that countries who are based in delta’s and are suffering from flooding can benefit from the start up, I mentioned above, that extracts data from twitter and creates maps that give insight to inundation areas.
Embassies that are interested are more than welcome to contact us on impacteconomy@denhaag.nl. We also encourage them to have a look at our platform impactcity.nl on which they can also share their events and possibly share their challenges.
Also, I can imagine the city organising meet-ups or conferences for certain trade sectors from specific countries. We can than inform economic representatives of the embassy about promising developments for new industries.
Not so long ago I went to Milan to discuss the enhancement in the area of food, food production and food safety. The Westland is one of the most knowledge –intensive agriculture areas and is just around the corner. Right here in this city we have multiple companies and start-ups who are working on further rejuvenation of these themes.
We can make this knowledge and these developments are potentially applicable to other countries for other countries.
There is more. In addition to this I think there are also more informal possibilities for cooperation. We want to create a welcoming environment for diplomatic staff. The Impact Economy program inspires to attract young people.
The city offers a lot of international cultural activities, sports events and recreational opportunities. We have high end meeting places and an international events calender. We encourage embassies to join us. ‘
