We're humbled to partner with so many amazing Belgian companies and organisations as we prepare for the inaugural Tech.eu Summit happening on Tuesday 17 May in Brussels (Expo).
Yes that's next week - get your tickets now!
Today we're highlighting some local #BeTech stars who are part of the agenda for the day (aside from yours truly, ha!).
1) Alexander De Croo (Belgium's Prime Minister)
A former business consultant and entrepreneur, Alexander is a Belgian politician who has served as Prime Minister of Belgium since October 2020. Previously, De Croo served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Telecom and Postal Services.
2) Pieterjan Bouten (Showpad leader)
"PJ" began his career at Netlog. In 2010, he co-founded the product design studio 'In the Pocket' where he serves as Chairman of the Board. A year later, he partnered with Louis Jonckheere and Peter Minne to co-found Showpad, a revenue enablement platform and one of Belgiums most successful scale-ups. He led Showpad as its CEO for over 10 years, growing the company to about $100M in ARR and +500 employees globally. Early 2022 he transitioned to become Executive Chairman.
3) Zhong Xu (co-founder and CEO of unicorn Deliverect)
As the CEO and co-founder of Deliverect, Zhong is integrating third-party food delivery platforms with restaurant POS systems, automating delivery so it can be managed more efficiently. Zhong, who obtained a M.Sc. degree in software engineering in 2009, created the first IPad POS in EMEA in 2012, together with co-founder Jan Hollez. This SaaS company evolved into the company that today is called Lightspeed, which is available in more than 100 countries around the world. Zhong was Global Director of Lightspeed Hospitality until 2018, when he founded Deliverect, thereby continuing to revolutionize the hospitality industry.
4) Tanguy Goretti (Serial entrepreneur, co-founder of COWBOY)
Tanguy built his first website at age 13, and launched his startup when he turned 23 and was still a student in Software Engineering. At that time he was the co-founder and CEO of Djump, a ride-sharing startup operating in Belgium and France. Tanguy is always eager to share his vision about the future of mobility as co-founder of COWBOY, which offers connected electric bikes for urban riders, and strongly believes in the power of technology to solve the biggest problems of our century.
5) Laura Warnier (ensuring growth at GoStudent)
Laura Warnier is Chief Growth Officer at the online tutoring platform GoStudent, recently valued at €3B. Laura joined GoStudent in 2018, as the company’s second full-time employee, to develop the commercial strategy. She built from scratch a scalable customer acquisition machine and grew the marketing and sales teams from 0 to +250 employees.
6) Quentin Nickmans (founder of eFounders)
Quentin is a founding partner at eFounders, a start-up studio that builds the future of work. An expert in SaaS business strategy, Quentin has helped launch over 30 companies at eFounders which now have a total valuation of over $2 billion.
7) Nicolas Verschelden (Global Innovation Director, AB InBev)
Nicolas is in charge of the Global Innovation Ecosystems at AB InBev, liaising best practices and partnerships among local innovation hubs located worldwide. Prior to that, Nicolas led the Dream Tech Alliance, the first large-scale collaborative platform that supports corporates to innovate with, and invests in promising startups in Europe by leveraging best practices and mentorship among its network of Fortune500 corporate members and public authorities.
As a former social entrepreneur and laureate of the Prince Albert Fund, he previously founded the first independent price comparison website for supermarkets in Belgium.
8) Lode Uytterschaut (Founder, Start it @KBC)
Lode is the founder and CEO of Start it @KBC, the largest startup accelerator in Belgium and one of the largest in Europe. Founded in 2013, Start it @KBC helped over 1.200 startups and scale-ups on their way to growth and success. It has seven locations in Belgium, two in Hungary and one in Czech Republic. In 2019, he founded Start it X to help corporations bring their innovations to market the startup way. It helps companies like Barco, Agfa, KBC, Luminus and many more to get innovations executed.
9) Ruben Merre (co-founder and CEO, NGRAVE)
Ruben is a tech entrepreneur with a focus on digital asset security and financial empowerment. He is co-founder and CEO of NGRAVE, the creator of "ZERO", the world's most secure hardware wallet for crypto storage. In 2021, he was selected for Belgium's 40 under 40.
10) Soundous Boualam (making impact @ Brussels Global Review)
Soundous graduated from Cambridge University and has been in the field of international relations and communications ever since. Soundous took on the role of foreign advisor at the European Parliament and now co-founded Brussels Global Review, a digital communications and online learning firm, focusing on sustainable business and entrepreneurship in the EMEA region.
And last but not least ...
11) Suyin Aerts (our main stage MC/event host)
After a career as a professional ballet dancer and a job as an actress & presenter for Belgian TV and some years in the fashion Industry, Suyin decided to continue her a-typical walk of life with her partner by joining him in his company X-Treme. She combines her professional life as a female entrepreneur with a freelance career as multilingual presenter and journalist for television (Kanaal Z/Canal Z).
Check here for the full speaker list and final agenda and make sure not to miss out on our first major event!
Featured image: Najib Samatar / Unsplash
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