Start Up Spain celebrates entrepreneurship as a driver of job creation in the Netherlands and Spain
Entrepreneurship is the key to job creation, especially when it is based on innovation and information and communication technologies. This was one of the conclusions drawn yesterday in Madrid at the eighth edition of Start Up Spain, organised by ESADE, the Rafael del Pino Foundation and the Dutch Embassy in Spain. Under the theme of "Global Challenges: Dutch and Spanish Solutions", the event brought together various representatives of the Spanish and Dutch entrepreneurial ecosystems to analyse the best formulas for managing and financing start-ups and the ways in which these companies can contribute to an entire country’s growth.
"According to the OECD, new companies are currently responsible for 60% of job creation in the Netherlands," declared Enrique Verdeguer, Director of ESADE Madrid, in his introductory remarks. Cornelis Van Rij, Dutch Ambassador to Spain, expanded on this theme in his talk: "Technology start-ups are generating four times more jobs than companies in other sectors." Anne-Wil Lucas , Member of the Dutch Parliament and the Director of Start Up Netherlands, declared: "The Dutch company Booking started out as three students in a garage. Today, it has more than 6,000 employees." She added: "It’s important to get innovation out of the R&D department and spread it across the entire company."
This latest edition of Start Up Spain was inspired by TEDxBinnenhof, one of Europe’s largest innovation-related gatherings. The event featured two panel discussions moderated by Jan Brinckmann, Associate Professor at ESADE, and Javier Santiso, Vice President of ESADEgeo and founder of Start Up Spain. Prof. Santiso declared: "Large Spanish companies have set up incubators as a means of having information sensors." During both discussions, the invited panellists – well-known business owners and investors – stressed the importance of generating new ideas rather than being tempted to copy models that have been successful in the past. The panellists also stressed the importance of learning from one’s mistakes rather than seeing them as the endpoint of a project, as well as the need for an entrepreneurial ecosystem in which new companies can grow and develop. Vicente Montes, Director of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, echoed these conclusions in his closing remarks.
