Brainport and Midpoint Brabant growth regions offer opportunities for Fontys ICT
With one foot in the Brainport region and the other in Midpoint Brabant, Fontys ICT stands in two innovative Brabant growth regions. In both regions you can see the ambition to forge more and stronger public-private partnerships. Public-private alliances are the future. Add to this the fact that Fontys wants to be 'for society', and you can see that strengthening regional cooperation is more important than ever. So it is interesting and valuable to zoom in on our regions.
Brainport Eindhoven, with 21 municipalities and over 800,000 inhabitants, is small in size but big in impact. The world's most complex and advanced machines, products and innovations are conceived and made in Brainport. There is no place in the world where as many patents are applied for as in the Brainport region. Key technologies are being developed. From artificial intelligence to additive manufacturing and from photonics and systems engineering to micro- and nanoelectronics.
According to Paul van Nunen, director of Brainport Development, Brainport's strength lies in the clustering of the public and private sectors. Thinking together in terms of possibilities. Jeroen Driessen, CEO of Driessen Group, predicts that this public-private cooperation and the formation of alliances with each other will become increasingly important in the future. Innovative systems thinking has made the Brainport industry great, says Van Nunen. By bringing this systems thinking to the public sector, solutions to bottlenecks are being sought. In the region, the public and private sectors have strategic dependencies. For instance, an attractive residential and living environment is important for businesses. Housing, traffic and public transport seem to have reached a ceiling in the Southeast Brabant region. That is why we are looking at developing a second location in the Turnhout region in Belgium. That region offers space and good infrastructure.
Network congestion is a growing problem in the Brainport region. The Dutch power grid is under pressure, especially in Brainport Eindhoven. In this innovative high-tech region, companies are not only growing fast, they are also taking big steps towards sustainability. More and more companies are electrifying their production processes, generating their own renewable energy and switching to clean modes of transport. The electricity grid, originally designed for another era, is struggling to meet the increasing demand due to the region's growth and the importance of sustainability.
Brainport has always deliberately kept focus, staying close to technology. The region essentially revolves around machines. Although the term high-tech may give the impression that the Brainport region mainly employs highly educated people, this is not the case. Van Nunen points out that 50-55% of jobs are at MBO level. There is a high demand for technical and ict-educated talent, including many mbo graduates. Interesting here is the group of 4,9000 people, including young people, who, according to UWV data, could and would like to work but do not yet have access to the labour market. Brainport is looking at whether and how they can address this group. Brainport Eindhoven has developed into an international society. In 2022, Southeast Brabant had 71,918 people with a foreign nationality. This represents an increase of 6.9% compared to 2021. Internationalisation is not only due to an increase in the number of internationals in the region, but also because companies are working more and more internationally. English is widely spoken in this international environment.
Education plays an important role in preparing students for an international world. The 'Vision Internationalisation Education for All in Brainport Eindhoven' translates the cooperation with multi-helix partners into programme activities up to and including 2025. The focus here is on childcare, primary education, secondary education and senior secondary vocational education. An important part of the programme of activities is investing in teachers' international skills. They play a key role in shaping internationally oriented education.
Our other region is called Midpoint Brabant. This area around Tilburg in central Brabant seems to stand in the shadow of the Brainport region. Midpoint Brabant may be smaller, but a 2023 study by Rabo Research shows that Midpoint Brabant is also a growth region. Whereas Brainport is characterised by engineering and mechanical engineering, Midpoint Brabant profiles itself as an education region and booster of the new economy, broad prosperity and sustainability. When working on the economy, Midpoint Brabant aims to increase the broad prosperity of Midden-Brabant. Activities aim to promote prosperity and well-being of inhabitants in the region.
AI and digitalisation are seen as accelerators of these desired developments. Together with the Municipality of Tilburg and partners, Midpoint Brabant is working to develop Tilburg's Spoorzone into a Digital Innovation District where knowledge institutions, companies, startups and governments are working towards a future-proof economy and society. In other words, working together to find solutions to social issues based on research and applications of technology and AI, as well as embedding these in society. MindLabs plays a pivotal role in this.
The 2023-2027 action programme consists of ten tasks for the future. Midpoint Brabant provides services to organisations to help them with, for instance, sustainability and digitalisation. For instance, for SMEs in Central Brabant, there is the Smart SME programme, with guidance from a digital coach, an ICT company and/or student. To keep healthcare in the region accessible, good and affordable, Tilburg University, ETZ (Elisabeth-TweeSteden Ziekenhuis), the municipality of Tilburg and various other organisations work together on prevention, integrated health care, informal care and digital care.