SuperNova festival brings the future to Antwerp

From 27 to 30 September 2018, the SuperNova festival will be making its presence felt in Antwerp. SuperNova is an ambitious, future-focused international event organised by Flanders DC and Scale-Ups.eu with the support of the Flemish government that will be taking over Antwerp’s Eilandje at the end of September. SuperNova comprises a conference with world-class speakers and experts in the areas of groundbreaking technology and innovation, a technology fair where businesses can shine the spotlight on groundbreaking solutions, Europe’s largest scale-up event which links the cream of the international venture capitalists with successful technology firms, and a free public event at the weekend that will astonish curious visitors with the most important evolutions that will shape our future. SuperNova wants to show both professionals and the wider public how business and daily life will evolve over the coming years thanks to these future technologies. The four-day event will be the largest meeting place in Flanders where ambitious entrepreneurs, companies, investors, researchers, and creative people can shape the future along with the general public. Its motto: Tomorrow is unstoppable.

1958 saw the historic exhibition that showcased a rapidly changing world to the general public. In the 1980s it was the turn of the cutting-edge technology fair Flanders Technology International. Now, 60 and 30 years later, it is the perfect time to stage SuperNova and again astonish both young and old, professionals, and individuals with the lightning speed at which technology is evolving and the inevitable impact that it will have on our future.

At the SuperNova Conference, a paid two-day conference for professionals on 27 and 28 September, international speakers will take the stage, such as the world-renowned marketing pioneer Seth Godin; Philip Inghelbrecht, founder of Shazam and Belgium’s prodigal son from Silicon Valley, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, one of Bill Gates’ five personal heroes. Further names will be announced in the coming weeks and months.

The investor programme SuperNova Investor Pitching is aiming to become the most significant scale-up pitching event in Europe in three years and will be rolling out the red carpet for the world summit of venture capital funds that invest in technology companies. Fifty-five highly promising European technology scale-ups, co-selected by nine internationally recognised venture capital funds, will have the opportunity to convince niche investors of their credible ambitions to conquer the world. They will have ten minutes to sell their technology and solutions to multi-million, ‘deep pocket’ investment funds. This will be followed by discreet negotiating rounds at SuperNova.

At the SuperNova Tech Fair, the organisation will group together (inter)national firms and knowledge institutions such as imec, the umbrella organisation IoT.be, and the fintech platform B-Hive, which set the main themes for tomorrow’s technological solutions and knowledge economy. They will present concrete solutions involving the Internet of Things, smart wearables, smart materials, machine learning and artificial intelligence, blockchain, and digital marketing to the SuperNova audience.

Antwerp, which is described in Lonely Planet as ‘Belgium’s capital of tech and cool’, will be the perfect host city for the public event SuperNova Expedition. This public event invites both young and old to experience ‘Tomorrow’s life’ today, thanks to interactive installations that will highlight the various aspects of our future in the realms of living, work, food, mobility, shopping, health, and entertainment. Visitors can experience how robots, cobots, and exoskeletons will change the workplace. How self-driving cars and boats will shape future mobility. How we can make our homes smarter and more durable thanks to new materials. And what the hospital room of the future will look like.

Flemish Minister of Innovation Philippe Muyters: “The world around us is changing at lightning speed. Exciting new innovations are popping up everywhere, which will have a real, concrete influence on how we live, work, eat, travel and so on. At SuperNova, we want to give everyone the chance to sample the future. We stand on the threshold of a fantastic new era. A visit to SuperNova will make you even more enthusiastic about all the technological developments that await us.”

 “With SuperNova, we want to showcase the world to Flanders, and vice-versa. On the one hand, we want to demonstrate to our companies that the future has arrived. That regardless of what sector you work in, technology and new business models offer opportunities and are also a necessity. On the other hand, we also have a great deal to offer here in Flanders with fabulous companies and world-class knowledge institutions. It is time for us to become less modest and to get out and showcase all of this to the rest of the world.” – Pascal Cools, Managing Director of Flanders DC.

"The next big wave in the tech landscape will be the creation of scale-ups. By organising the biggest scale-up event in Europe, SuperNova, Scale-Ups.eu will put our Belgian scale-ups on the map so they can play a bigger role in the European tech landscape. There is broad support for the event by both the government and the private sector. Now we just need to make it happen." – Jürgen Ingels, Founder of Scale-Ups.eu.

SuperNova is organised by Flanders DC, the Flemish organisation for entrepreneurship in the creative industries, and Scale-Ups.eu, a platform that aims to help technology firms to continue to grow, set up by the Belgian fintech entrepreneur Jürgen Ingels. SuperNova is supported via the Department of Economy, Science and Innovation by the Flemish government, for whom the festival is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate what Flemish innovation efforts can lead to.

What is SuperNova?

SuperNova comprises five separate events: SuperNova Conference, SuperNova Tech Fair, SuperNova Investor Pitching, SuperNova Expedition, and SuperNova Talent Matcher.

• SuperNova Conference: A two-day paid conference with world-class international speakers in the areas of groundbreaking technology and innovation.
  The SuperNova Conference will be staged at Waagnatie in Antwerp on 27 and 28 September and is a paid conference.
   
• SuperNova Investor Pitching: The largest scale-up pitching event in Europe, which links the cream of the international venture capitalists to successful technology companies. Fifty-five promising European technology scale-ups, co-selected by nine internationally recognised venture capital funds, will have the opportunity to convince niche investors of their credible ambitions to conquer the world. They will have ten minutes to sell their technology and solutions to multi-million, ‘deep pocket’ investment funds. This will be followed by discreet negotiating rounds at SuperNova.
  SuperNova selects these European scale-ups based on strict KPIs in partnership with reputable funds in the Benelux region such as Fortino Capital, Volta Ventures, Prime Ventures, and Smartfin Capital. Also, top international players such as Columbia Lake (Showpad), Summit Partners (Uber), Runa Capital (MariaDB), HPE Growth (Airborne), and Idinvest (Blablacar) will be inviting some hidden crown jewels with ambitions to conquer the world. The Belgian Venture Capital Association is also involved in this.
  The SuperNova Investors event will take place at Waagnatie in Antwerp on 27 and 28 September. This is a paid event exclusively for investors.
   
• SuperNova Tech Fair: A technology fair where businesses can shine the spotlight on game-changing solutions. They will ensure that established solutions involving the Internet of Things, future-proof software for various sectors, smart wearables, machine learning and artificial intelligence, bitcoin, security digital marketing, and much more will be more visible, tangible, and comprehensible.
  The SuperNova Tech Fair will be staged at Waagnatie in Antwerp on 27 and 28 September for professionals (paid) and on 29 and 30 September for the general public (free of charge).
   
• SuperNova Expedition: This public event takes place at the weekend and offers the both young and old the opportunity to experience ‘Tomorrow’s life’ today, thanks to interactive installations that highlight the various aspects of our future in the realms of living, work, food, mobility, shopping, health, and entertainment.
  The SuperNova Expedition will be staged on the Eilandje in Antwerp on 29 and 30 September and is free of charge for the general public.
   
• SuperNova Talent Matcher: A state-of-the-art talent matcher where ambitious jobseekers can apply for vacancies at more than a hundred and fifty innovative and game-changing companies who will be present at SuperNova. The SuperNova Talent Matcher is an online platform that uses artificial intelligence to make matches on the basis of competencies and skills. All that jobseekers need to do is to upload their CVs via the website in the run-up to SuperNova. At the SuperNova Tech Showcase event, companies and jobseekers will have the opportunity to arrange one-to-one meetings.
  The SuperNova Talent Matcher will be staged at Waagnatie in Antwerp from 27 to 30 September.

For more information about SuperNova and the various different tickets, go to www.supernovafest.eu.