HMK Maxima visits Unmanned Valley

Het Comité voor Ondernemerschap, inclusief koningin Máxima, was in november te gast bij Unmanned Valley op voormalig marinevliegkamp Valkenburg in Gemeente Katwijk. Voor de presentatie van het Jaarbericht ‘Staat van het mkb 2025 – Doorbraken voor het mkb’. De boodschap uit dit elfde en laatste jaarbericht is: pak de teruglopende arbeidsproductiviteit aan en zorg voor doorbraken die goed zijn voor het mkb.

State of SMEs

Chairman Jacco Vonhof of MKB Nederland accepted the report, stating: “The committee calls for a national plan for the business climate, fewer rules, more space and services for SMEs that are better aligned with practice. We wholeheartedly endorse those conclusions. It is dire necessity, because labor productivity and profitability are under pressure while entrepreneurs want to invest in their people, sustainability, digitalization and innovation.”

The Ministry of Economic Affairs is now continuing the “State of the SME” and says it will embed the SME perspective in the newly established Productivity Council. Figures and insights can be found in Statistics Netherlands’ SME Dashboard.

Working visit

In addition to the presentation of the Annual Report, there was also time for a working visit to Unmanned Valley. Here, entrepreneurs, dozens of startups, educational institutions and governments work together in an innovative ecosystem to develop, test and apply unmanned and autonomous technology, including robots and drones.

Entrepreneurs in action

During the presentation and tour, the Committee met, with admiration as they indicated, a few entrepreneurs:
👍 Rutger van Duijn, Remote Visual Inspection (rvi.tools) (underwater robots).
👍 Richard de Jeu, Transmissivity BV (sensors for water balance soil and vegetation).
👍 Remco Koemans and Frank van der Hulst, Stormcatch Robot Authorization (testing reliability of robotics).
👍 🧑‍💻Tom Rijntjes and Caspar Lusink, Trusk Technology (autonomous drone detection and neutralization).

The Committee was impressed with Unmanned Valley. And would like to see this fieldlab at this location given the space to develop further, in harmony with the housing challenge.

Rush course

Queen Máxima and Jacco Vonhof of MKB-Nederland were given a crash course in drone control by simulation trainers Walter Kort and Alexander Meij. The program was thus a nice introduction to the knowledge cluster, its innovations and the enthusiastic entrepreneurs who have their incubators there.