6th edition of Orange Fab, dedicated to Smart City
Yesterday, at BeCentral in Brussels, was the 6th edition of the Orange Fab start-up Accelerator Program. After a thorough preselection and pitch process, Builtwins, Shayp and Trigrr have been chosen by a jury to enter the operator's Accelerator Program for the duration of six months. The goal of this program is to build a long-term business partnership between Orange Belgium and the start-ups and stimulate the development of tech talents. This year, for the first time, Orange Fab also welcomed two key partners to the program: IRISnet and Paradigm under the theme “How to make public buildings smarter to reduce their environmental impact and to ensure the users’ comfort”.
Developing tech talents through win-win partnerships
Orange Fab has developed the first corporate accelerator network in the world. Worldwide, Orange has accelerator programs in 20 countries, covering four continents. In Belgium, since 2016, Orange Fab has received 276 applications leading to 16 accelerated start-ups and five signed partnerships.
Once joining the Orange Fab acceleration program, start-ups will benefit from a tailored support from the team in charge, according to their needs and business priorities. Start-ups will enter the Orange ecosystem and have access to Orange experts on various topics, whether it is legal, marketing, communication or technical. Orange will help start-ups get in touch with its B2B and B2C customers and support them in their internationalization. After 6 months, if the collaboration with the start-up demonstrates added value on both sides, the fruitful collaboration might be contractualized via a commercial partnership.
Smart public buildings to reduce environmental impact as an extra focus
For this 6th edition, the program reinvented itself with, for the first time, two key partners: IRISnet and Paradigm. Together they have selected 3 start-ups to work with Orange Belgium in making public buildings smarter to reduce their environmental impact and to ensure the users’ comfort. The objective is to co-develop in 6 months an innovation solution for public buildings of the Brussels-Capital Region with the support of IRISnet and Paradigm. If this proof-of-concept (POC) is a success, the partnership could be expanded to other buildings and markets.
Marc Van den Bossche, Deputy Managing Director of Paradigm, and member of the pitch competition jury, adds: "This partnership will bring together worlds that traditionally know very little about each other: innovative and ambitious Belgian start-ups on the one hand, and the public sector on the other. By adding Paradigm to the exploratory phase of new projects, and by providing a concrete case to work on, namely the Iris Tower, we are supporting start-ups so that, in the future, they can better respond to changes in the way users work (well-being, recording and controlling ambient temperature, air quality, brightness, noise, etc.) and to changes in the services linked to this building (maintenance, occupancy rate, energy efficiency, cleanliness, etc.)".
For more information, visit the External linkwww.orangefab.be