100K for incubator

The city of Delft has allocated 100,000 euro to start a creative incubator. This new initiative, initially proposed by Stip, the city council student political party, was announced during last week’s municipal budget meeting.

There is a great need for a creative incubator, said Bart Bikkers, a Stip city council member: “YES!Delft has proven to be huge success for techno-starters, creating more than 1,000 jobs. A YES!Delft study has now shown that there’s also a need for a similar incubator for creative start-up companies.” Graduates of TU Delft‘s faculties of Architecture and Industrial Design Engineering would especially benefit from such an incubator.
Thanks to the city’s 100,000 euro in funding, steps will now be taken to set up this creative ‘sister’ of YES!Delft, Bikkers confirms: “YES!Delft is now making a business case, from which a solid plan for setting up the creative incubator will be drafted. The incubator could fall under the banner of “YES!Delft, but it doesn’t have to.” Once this plan is formalised, the roles of TU Delft, various faculties and their graduates will be determined.

The city council also voted last week to invest in the Schie Halls, situated in the Schie River Bank area. “These buildings have been vacant for years now, yet there’s a huge demand for affordable and temporary spaces where TU Delft students and others can work on projects”, Bikkers says. This demand is partly owing to the fact that many projects now being pursued at YES!Delft on the Rotterdamseweg will have to relocate. This includes rooms currently used by Stylos, the faculty of Architecture’s study association.
These project groups must relocate because YES!Delft is moving to the Bandridge building in Science Park Technopolis, which is currently under development. Last week this building was officially purchased, and YES!Delft expects to move in around June 2010.
Bikkers says that an added benefit of this investment plan is that all the new activity in and around the Schie Halls could reinvigorate the old and somewhat dilapidated Schie River Bank area: “It would then also become an interesting area for redevelopment.”