Our fourth session of this strange year took place in a magnificent place: the old water tower of Schimmert, now called De Reusch. This federal monument with distinctive architecture has seen a transformation from said water tower to a restaurant cum brewery cum education center with a clear philosophy about sustainability. The current owners and exploiters are very clear about their vision: everything you get at De Reusch comes from a 60 km radius. “As far as the eye can see”. OK, coffee, salt, and pepper excluded.
André Köppen, the current person in charge, gave us a tour of the tower, after which we could sample all the local products over a 3-course meal.
But first we enjoyed two presentations from organizations that are working with talent, and can help us gain access to that very talent. Which is becoming gradually more difficult than ever before.
First off was Luc Lebens of Soapbox. They are an agency that organizes several activities with and around students, in order to steer them in the right direction with their studies and careers. Attracting talents by Youth Marketing, he calls it. Much activities center around Challenges for students, such as Captain Fanplastic. Luc put quite some emphasis on behaviour: norms & values, peer pressure, triggers & nudges, it all plays a role when engaging with the young folk. Customers of Soapbox can also make use of the students via a challenge platform. Food for thought.
Next stepped into the limelight Cyriel Mentink of Chill. They are a public-private institute on the Brightlands Chemelot Campus, which offers students a place to do their internship, combined with assignments from industry. The use of experts as coaches ensures the best possible outcome of the assignments. Students do a meaningful internship, companies get fair-priced research results… what’s not to like? Especially for SME’s and start-ups with limited budgets and facilities, this opens up new perspectives.
