Pim van Strien, VVD Parlement, visited NL Space Campus
NL Space Campus offers many opportunities for the Dutch Space Sector and as such we now regularly receive groups of people who show an interest. After the royal visit we hosted Pim van Strien, VVD and member of the Dutch Parliament. Starting out at the largest technological heart of ESA, a guided tour of ESTEC, and meeting the director Torben Henriksen. The visit ended with meeting multiple startups at SBIC.
During the meeting and discussion with Torben Henriksen (director of technology, engineering and quality ESA and head of ESTEC), Jörg Wehner (Head of Infrastructure Coordination Office ESA ESTEC), Wendy Verkleij (mayor of Noordwijk municipality), Roberto ter Hark (alderman of Noordwijk municipality), Wim van den Doel (dean Leiden - Delft - Erasmus universities alliance), Max Hermans (Binnenhof Advies) and Esther Peters (director NL Space Campus) about ESA ESTEC and developments in the space sector, Pim van Strien was very interested and emphasised how important he considers space to be, particularly because it can bring about such innovative breakthroughs in other sectors, and because he believes very strongly in a strong innovation ecosystem such as NL Space Campus and what it can bring us as a country.
After this meeting and discussion at Torben Henriksen his office, there was an inspiring tour at ESA ESTEC, followed by a visit to our Space Business Innovation Centre. While enjoying lunch, a presentation on campus development and an open discussion about what is needed to take this development to the next level took place. Last but certainly not least Pim van Strien met with startups Pierre Blanchet from Meteory, Peter Scheer from SEMiLLA Sanitation and Berry Sanders from HDES and was impressed by these new initiatives and innovations in the field of agriculture, sustainability and health. Again a successful visit!