On Friday the 14th of September, we organized our second summer event together with Epicenter!
Working like a startup
After everybody was provided with a drink and found their seat, the first of the six speakers ascended the stage. Each speaker was asked to give a short ten-minute presentation, and Mike Hoogveld decided to use his time to reveal a few insights from his book ‘Working like a startup’. In this book, Mike explains how large companies can learn from successful startups to create faster and better value for the customer. Obviously, these ten minutes were not nearly enough to get into all topics covered in the book, and therefore Mike was so kind to provide everybody with a copy. Thanks again!
The new way of working
Pieter Paul van Oerle, partner at nlmtd, spoke about channels other than acquisition of startups that can be used to introduce innovation within a large company. As an example, he used the project he is currently doing at The Next Web, where innovative tech startups are actively matched to corporate challenges. A cool example of how corporates and tech startups can work together to grow and reach new customers. As third speaker of the afternoon, Korik Alons talked about the new way of working, something he tries to achieve in his company nlmtd. Instead of money and status, Korik thinks that the new generation is looking for flexibility, personal development, and purpose in their daily job. Companies should adapt to these drivers in their way of working, to be able to attract and retain these talents.
“The new generation is looking for flexibility, personal development, and purpose in their daily job.”
Innovations
After that, the founder and CEO of the digital agency of Innogy (parent company of Essent) Parsia Tayebi talked about the advantages of separating innovative departments from the corporate environment, and how to attract the skills that make theses departments successful. Fifth up was Navin Thukkaram, a technology investor and entrepreneur that you might know from Qwiki, the mobile technology company that was sold to Yahoo! for a reported $50 million. Navin told an interesting story about his journey with SkyKick in which he invested a while ago and has grown into a big player in the field of cloud automation.
The building as healthy and inspiring environment
As final speaker of the day, Sandra Gritti from Edge technologies explained why the building that houses Epicenter should be the healthiest building in the world. After the talks, guests were able to get a tour around the building, and ofcourse there were drinks and bites to kick-off the weekend together.
Overall a very successful event, mainly due to all the guests that decided to join us! If you are interested in joining one of our next events (or just want to give the hot tub on the roof a try), please keep an eye on our website. We will announce all our upcoming events here.
