ICT-Kring "Proximity Tour" Study Trip to Silicon Valley (March 29 - April 6, 2008)

The ICT-kring (ICT association) Delft celebrates its first lustrum with a symposium on May 22, 2008 and a study trip to Silicon Valley. Together with Daan Lenstra (dean Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, TU Delft), Geerlinge Pessers (secretary general) and Laura Zondervan (program manager Delft Research Center on ICT), I represented TU Delft on this study trip. FYI, I attended in my capacity as scientific director of the Delft Research Center on ICT. Other participants were about 15 ICT companies, TNO-ICT, and the vice mayor of Delft (economics affair portfolio).

Several participant have reported on the trip via their blogs (with a lot of pictures), have a look at the index page http://www.ictkring-delft.nl/volg-de-weblogs-over-de-studiereis-door-silicon-valley-139.html. A short news item was broadcasted by TV West in the program Questie van Zaken on April 12, 2008, see: http://televisie.westonline.nl/mms_video/2008%252F1204-zaken.wmv (goto last 4 minutes).














I will limit myself to summarizing personal lessons learned during this trip.

• The success of Silicon Valley has not only to do with the presence of excellence universities (Berkeley, Stanford) and investors, but very much with the culture and willingness to take *personal* risks. Starting a company requires not only investors to put a lot of their money at stake, but also the entrepreneurs involved to bet their "financial lifes" on the success. In Europe/Netherlands, many entrepeneurial initiatives rely on national or EU grants, without the need to take personal risks. This culturally deeply embedded risk avoidance is one of the big difference between Silicon Valley and Europe. Do we want to change that, and if so, how?


• The difference in attitude or even culture toward one's education and career is remarkable. In the Netherlands, it is accepted that a student fails an exam one or multiple times, but failing in the professional career is unacceptable. In the US, it is rather the opposite. Failing an exam is fatal, but failing to get a company started adds to one's credibility...


• Role models are very important in Silicon Valley. The entrepreneurial spirit is all over the place, may living examples are around, and one cannot avoid running into entrepreneurs, business angels, and capital investors on a weekly basis. Entrepreneurship seems to be talk of the town. In the Netherlands the situation is far from that. If we are serious about entrepreneurship, we need more role models. Bring them over from the US!


• Silicon Valley is what it is and it is unlikely that another region worldwide will soon take over. I recon that the best bet for the Delft region is to become a "gateway to Silicon Valley". Start-ups incubate and grow in the Delft region, but if things get serious, they move to Silicon Valley. Some people say this is a bad thing, but my take on this is that being the gateway to Silicon Valley is a position that is to be preferred over what we currently have.


• The Netherlands has a very good name in Silicon Valley. The image is that Dutch are liberal and open-minded, the state of technology is very advanced (thanks TU Delft!) and people are very accessible because we all speak English quite well and because of our frankness (not to say boldness): what you hear is what you get. We have met multiple organizations in Silicon Valley that are eager to setup partnerships with Dutch counterparts. Let's create and advertise those counterparts!

So, the trip was really worthwhile. I believe that thanks to this trip, future connections between ICT companies and TU Delft/ICT research will become a quite a bit easier. I have to say that jointly digesting the information offered to us by the variety of companies, business angels, investors, and academicians was crucial to that. But also the joint digesting of food and music has played an important role!