Together with the City of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Bureau Metropolitan Area and many parties from the region, the Amsterdam Economic Board is working on making textiles circular. Within the Green Deal Circular Textiles, various parties are committed to this ambition. “Here in the region there is already a lot of activity in the field of circular textiles,” says Claire Teurlings, Lead Circular Economy at the Amsterdam Economic Board.
In the race against the growing shortage of people in the data center sector, data center provider 'Interxion: A Digital Realty Company' is starting a collaboration with IT and tech study guide 'TekkieWorden.nl'. The advancing digitizing society, partly prompted by the increasingly concrete application of innovative technologies such as AI, machine learning and the increasing use of cloud services due to the extensive use of teleworking, ensures that the data center industry is growing by 10 to 15 percent annually. This also increases the demand for tech talent for innovation, operation and maintenance. The sector is growing from 12,800 jobs in 2019, expected to reach 16,800 in 2024. This growth will be accompanied by an increasing shortage of more than 1,000 people, expected by 2024. With the collaboration, Interxion wants to actively influence the enthusiasm, find, recruit and train new tech talent.
Now that the cultural sector is going through severe weather during the corona crisis, Amsterdam's pop venue Melkweg wants to seize every opportunity to help (former) employees with retraining or further training for promising professions in the IT sector. After a broad (re) education and training program was set up earlier, it now announces a collaboration with IT career program 'PathWays' of TekkieWorden.nl. The collaboration takes Melkweg employees into the world of tech jobs and careers for four weeks and they create their own study and career path in tech in this short time, from home.
The Board is organizing a Purchasing Track that started in November. The aim by the end of 2021 is to have a sustainable impact for at least 10% of the facilities' purchases of each organization, and at least 50% by 2025. To this end, a diverse group of participants will start making a facility purchasing process sustainable in their own organization. Think of work clothing, catering or ICT. In sessions they can share experience and knowledge with colleagues from other organizations. In this way we build a network and we make an immediate impact. This article provides an overview of sources and further information to get started immediately with purchasing with the impact of ICT. It is based on the report (in Dutch) Naar een circulaire keten voor ICT-hardware, by the Utrecht Sustainability Institute, funded by the Amsterdam Economic Board.
Ruud Yap is head of IT and CTO at the Amsterdam Public Library (OBA). Within the organization there is interest in responsible technology because it can give Amsterdammers more control over their digital environment. But a transition to ethical tech is quite a challenge.
In order to achieve the energy transition, we need to be smart with data. And that can also be done in a transparent and democratic way, think Marleen Stikker and Koen Overtoom. 'I think the system will tilt anyway, but I still find it exciting how we can achieve that.'
Zorg2025’s Healthcare Innovation Prize was formulated to celebrate the latest healthcare innovations in the Netherlands – products and services that can potentially have a huge impact on improving the quality of an individual’s life. During 2021’s preliminary regional round the prognosis was clear: maintaining health is preferable to having to cure disease.
We will not make it by reducing alone. A future-proof, sustainable region requires a major system change and talent development also plays an important role in this. Melek Usta and Dick Benschop therefore believe that lifelong learning should be given more attention. "Isn't it crazy that you don't get an enormous dynamic at the MBO and HBO courses from people who are continuously updating their quality and competences?"
Tom van Arman is founder and director of Tapp, an agency that develops responsible urban technologies. Van Arman is packed with ideas about the digital city and the role that Tada can play in it. Citizens must be much more involved in the implementation of technology in the public space, says Van Arman. He explains how he uses the Tada principles to realize this in his projects. Entrepreneurs could learn more from each other about developing ethical technology. The Tada platform can act as a library for the exchange of knowledge.
The national government has great circular ambitions. Converting this from paper to practice with all parties required for this is a tremendous task. Acceleration of the implementation of the circular economy is needed. In the Amsterdam region, the Amsterdam Economic Board has built up five years of experience with impressive results.
