On 19 June 2018, the Life Sciences Café made a welcome return to Café Restaurant Polder in Amsterdam Science Park. Organised by the Amsterdam Economic Board in collaboration with EY, the Café’s new series takes inspiration from the upcoming move of the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam. It brings a mix of Life Sciences professionals and members of the business community together to learn about and discuss innovations and challenges in the sector.

The agro-food industry produces 55% of the total amount of industrial waste in the Netherlands. At present, 80% to 90% is digested to make biogas, composted or processed into livestock feed. The rest is ploughed into the ground or incinerated. Yet a proportion of this waste is suitable for much higher-grade recycling. The Board supports parties in developing their business case and business model for higher-grade food waste processing.

The festive launch of the TechConnect programme was all about the Amsterdam region as a tech hub. How can you attract new tech talent? And how can you increase diversity in the tech scene?

The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is one of the biggest data centre hubs in the world. The economy is digitising and there is an explosion of demand for server capacity to run data-driven applications such as video streaming, online games, self-driving cars, the Internet of Things or blockchain applications. All this data has to be stored on servers, which are often housed in data centres. Apart from the huge market for new IT equipment the region offers, this also means that a growing stream of used equipment is becoming available. Can we organise this according to circular principles so that valuable raw materials circulate as long as possible in the region’s economy?

On behalf of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA), the City of Amsterdam issues a competition in order to select the best design(s) of digital applications to stimulate the circular economy in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Do you have creative, smart and innovative business idea that will strengthen the competitiveness of the Metropolitan Area? Join!

The Amsterdam Economic Board and EY are pleased to announce the revival of the Amsterdam Life Sciences Café. Inspired by the moving of the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam, we kindly invite you to attend a debate on drug regulations and its impact on new drug discovery and development.

If data is the new gold, a key question is how we all may profit of the new possibilities. Amsterdam Data Exchange (AMdEX) is a possible answer, as initiated by the Amsterdam Science park and the Amsterdam Economic Board. This initiative, as illustrated in the report below, aims at trusted data sharing for companies, public bodies and the public at large. Inspired by the European Commission’s Open Science Cloud, the initiative wants to reach out to similar developments elsewhere in Europe. And finally, to become part of a global movement to facilitate data sharing.