The North's Talent Funnel in 2025

From Groningen to Leeuwarden to Emmen, we've been on the ground last year connecting students with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the numbers tell an incredible story.

3,300 students. 18 events. 60 workshops. 60+ industry experts. 3 provinces.

But beyond the numbers, what really matters is the journey these students took through our talent funnel, a carefully designed path that takes curiosity and transforms it into concrete entrepreneurial skills and mindsets.

The Talent Funnel in Action

We started each semester with Business Lunch Talks, a casual, inspiring sessions where students heard directly from founders and industry leaders over lunch. This year, we welcomed Virginia Yanquilevich from Dopper, Jouri Schoemaker from PieterPot, and designer Stieglitz, among others. The response was overwhelming: over 200 students in Groningen and around 160 in Emmen (nearly 10% of the entire school!).

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From there, students moved to Fuckup Nights, where we got real about failure. This year, we even piloted a special Medtech edition in collaboration with Life Cooperative, creating a space for honest conversations about the messy, non-linear path of bringing research to market.

Next came the Launch Game, a startup simulation that puts students in the driver's seat of building a company. This year was especially exciting as we tested a new research spin-off version, giving students from RUG, Hanze, and NHL Stenden hands-on experience with the unique challenges of commercializing academic research.

Finally, students wrapped up the funnel at the Business Idea Generator, where problems became opportunities and concepts became plans. Our Leeuwarden edition was the best-attended BIG we've ever had!

Helping valorisation

2025 wasn't just about scaling what works, it was about trying new things. For the first time, we partnered with UMCG to deliver a Business Development course for 10 PhD researchers and 10 master students, connecting them and helping the teams think about how their research could create real-world impact. We've already worked with Wetsus on PhD programming, but bringing this to medical researchers opened up exciting new possibilities.

What students say

You can hear the impact in their own words. Students talk about how they met new people, interviewed real entrepreneurs, learned how to pitch, came up with solutions to concrete issues and discovered how companies grow - even after setbacks.

They talk about creativity, collaboration, strategic thinking and the trust that comes when you move ideas forward together.

That's exactly what our talent funnel is for.

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Swipe and read what students are saying. ⬇️