“When I show foreign company executives around Belval, they can’t believe the impressive ecosystem that has been created here and are amazed to discover this secret, little known quarter that serves as a teeming laboratory.” These are the words of Laurent Probst, Partner, Economic Development, Digital transformation and Innovation at PwC. Quarters that, like Belval, have a mixed profile, commercial, technological, institutional and residential at the same time, are accelerators for innovations and form a pool of emerging technology solutions.
Your remit at PwC is to assist institutions to enter the current techological revolution. How does this take shape in practice?
L.P.: I guide them in adopting technologies that will lead to economic growth opportunities and job creation. The aim is to help institutions determine which technology to invest in and then to guide them in setting up suitable infrastructures or training for the future workforce (often new digital jobs that need to be invented) and then to help them adapt their regulatory framework. I worked with AGORA when Belval was in its infancy, where the Luxembourg government had identified from the start the potential of digital technology and the knowledge economy to develop the territory. Cybersecurity, green technologies, e-health tools and new aerospace activities are all promising fields of activity for cities that I take a look at from a technological and economic point of view. My work is on the border between managerial knowledge and that of the digital expert, who has a good understanding of the evolution of artificial intelligence or the challenges of cloud computing, for example. These are all sectors of activity that feed the economic and intellectual life of Belval and gradually position it as an attractive technology hub for start-ups and major companies in the digital sector. Luxembourg dreams of becoming a start-up nation. Belval has a front row seat.”
What concrete examples in Belval would you use to illustrate its character as an ideal territory for start-ups wanting to test new innovative ideas?
L.P.: “In Belval, we have, for example, a company from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LSCB), which has created an artificial brain reproducing a network of neurons capable of regenerating and multiplying. It’s amazing. In addition, the LCSB is collaborating with high-tech companies such as Ksilink to develop treatments for Parkinson’s disease. I would also like to mention Food4All, a fast growing company that facilitates ecological shopping.The app provides access to hundreds of quality short date products at great prices. There is also Odysseus, which provides services covering all phases of a satellite’s mission, from the mission concept to the operation of the satellite in space, or Orbitaire which is focused on developing solutions for personal satellite communications to meet the ever increasing need for connectivity that we all have.”
Why are new quarters outside major centres prime spaces for this development through technology and start-ups?
L.P.: “Digital transformation goes hand in hand with the development of new ultra-dense cities. If cities were once industrial, then turned towards the knowledge economy, today they have no choice but to turn to the digital economy and to a “transversal” vision of the world. Those that stand out are cities with multiple profiles. The industrial revolution had led us to build the identities of our cities on a single base. That doesn’t work in the digital economy. We need to return to a vision of the city as a complete ecosystem, with shops, public authorities, schools, technology companies, residential spaces and public squares that involve passers-by in the dialogue. From the point when the ecosystem is sufficiently developed to become autonomous, it becomes a laboratory in itself, necessarily generating new experiences.”
How is this ecosystem being deployed at Belval in particular?
L.P.: “In Belval, all of the conditions are met. Efficient infrastructures, trained international population, social relations spaces, good dynamics of exchanges with the outside world, Luxembourg regulatory framework. The ecosystem is also favourable because the local actors understand the technological challenges very well. The site meets the need for trust, security and performance, in addition to offering a guarantee on digital assets and providing quality digital infrastructure. Belval, from its first breath, had the DNA of an urban testbed. Most importantly, the quarter has based its development and economic life on disciplines such as data analytics, health tech or artificial intelligence, all of which are priorities at the national and European level. So the local agenda is totally in line with the national agenda and the European, if not international, agenda. There are few sites like this in Europe.”
And how can Belval become a territory for even more advanced experimentation?
L.P.: “The next stage would be to conduct larger scale experiments. Let’s imagine, for example, the simulation of a power failure lasting more than a week, on the site. A full-scale exercise to test the power of the generators, to experiment with the generator systems, to test the various emergency protocols. Simulating a crisis situation to create a model for managing that crisis and then being able to replicate it elsewhere in the country when a real crisis occurs. It would be really exciting to be able to do this kind of test on a small scale in a territory like Belval.”
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