According to the international real estate services provider Savills, Amsterdam is number four on the ranking list of best tech cities in the world. Wonderful news! The tech ecosystem has experienced enormous growth in the last four years, partly inspired by initiatives such as StartupDelta and StartupAmsterdam. However, the downside of the success is that, in addition to the economy, the inequality of opportunity has also grown. So let's not cheer too loud or celebrate ourselves too long. The last four years were the easy part (part I). The truly difficult issues are still ahead of us.

“Everyone is talking about diversity and equal opportunities,” says Corinne Vigreux, co-founder and board member of TomTom, “and yet there is often a lack of decisiveness in this area. The economy of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is going strong. Unemployment has not been this low in years. Yet many young people are still left out, while the tech companies are struggling with a labor shortage. That hole must be closed. And TechConnect will help enormously with this.”

At the beginning of July, Jacqueline Cramer held 2 keynote speeches about the MRA resource transition programme of the Board in Paris during the first OECD Roundtable on circular economy in cities and regions.

The TechConnect action programme, a collaboration with Booking.com, TomTom, Rabobank and the CA-ICT education fund, has announced several initiatives to increase equal opportunities and diversity in Amsterdam’s tech sector. Making related study programmes and jobs accessible to everyone means that 50,000 people from groups that are currently underrepresented will be able to storm the tech job market over the coming four years. In practice, this will result in a more diverse and inclusive tech scene in Amsterdam, filled with men and women of all ages and cultural backgrounds. Homegrown talents will be trained to become coders, data analysts, ‘growth hackers’, UX designers and tech administrators.