Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels

Over 20 outstanding individuals have volunteered their time to support you during the MIC Boostcamp Brussels. As a MIC Boostcamp Brussels participant, during the three expert days you’ll get personal attention from 12 of them in 1½ session each! You will be able to ask them questions about your business, reach into their impressive personal networks, and get them to share the tips and the tricks of their various professions.
These are just some of the names…

Ben Piquard http://be.linkedin.com/in/benpiquard is Director of all Microsoft Innovation Centers across Belgium. He has an enormous and diverse experience in the software industry. Over the past 20 years he has exercised different functions and responsibilities: consulting, sales, pre-sales and business development for companies such as Business Objects, Siebel, PeopleSoft and SAS before joining Microsoft a few years ago. His encyclopedic knowledge of software-based business models is second to none, and his vast network of industry contacts will be a huge asset for the moment you’ll need to verify the assumptions that go into your business model.

Bipin Nambiar (http://be.linkedin.com/in/bnambiar) is the Managing Director of Applied Development, one of the fastest growing software development offshoring company for small and medium sized projects. While studying for his MBA at the Vlerick School, Bipin founded ValueSource, an offshoring company that was subsequently acquired by KBC Bank. Thereafter, Bipin started up Applied Development, a company that not only provides software development services to established companies but has also helped start-up companies grow faster by providing flexible and cost-efficient development services without compromising on quality. Having been involved with two start-ups right from early stage to maturity, Bipin understands the challenges an entrepreneur faces when building up a company and shares his experience in sales which he sees as one of the key success factors.

Boris Lemaire http://be.linkedin.com/pub/boris-lemaire/0/817/4ab was part of one of Belgium’s most exciting startup stories in recent history – Proximus - as the company went from 0 employees in 1994 to 2300 in 2007.
At Proximus, Boris was responsible for specific markets in all areas: from strategy to operational plan, from marketing to product management, and of course the budget. He created operational and business plans, built product roadmaps and communication. He – above all – made choices: huge as resources were, they still had limits – and so did the market. Of course he managed products and did (a lot) of internal communication – and at the end of the day, his key responsibility was people.

Boye Hartmann’s http://be.linkedin.com/in/boyehartmann LinkedIn profile reads like a novel (and is almost as long). He’s a Danish entrepreneur, business angel and board member of a very, very large number of companies. In these three roles he’s helping start ups across Europe with their business development and financing initiatives. As a web innovation expert, he’s also up to speed on all that’s new and cool in web technology.

Bruno Nortier’s http://be.linkedin.com/in/brunonortier previous job was helping tech startups & university spin-offs grow by providing them with capital (fund raising) and coaching (financial services) – he worked at NivelInvest, regional authority for supporting entrepreneurship. Today he works for himself – as an entrepreneur in retail and design.

Bruno Wattenbergh http://be.linkedin.com/in/brunowattenberghbelgium is the Chief Operational Officer & Founder of the Brussels Enterprise Agency (ABE-BAO) as well as the President of the Board & the Credit Committee for the Brussels Guarantee Fund (Fonds Bruxellois de Garantie). He is also an Economic Editorialist at BEL RTL, an MBA Professor at Solvay Business School, and President of the Executive Committee at Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels. Through all his roles Bruno expresses fully his entrepreneurial nature and his enormous enthusiasm for supporting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.
Bruno is very active as a teacher – and the Business Model Canvas is his specialty. He was one of the coaches at the MIT Sloan School of Management for the “Entrepreneurship Development Program”, and he continues to give lectures on the subject in Belgium at ICHEC and at a variety of grassroots events such as Startup Weekend Brussels.

David Hernie http://be.linkedin.com/in/dhernie is IT Evangelist at Microsoft Belux. For well over 15 years David has worked in a variety of technical roles, predominantly in the mobile space. He started as a system engineer and worked his way up to CTO of Vision IT Group Mobility before joining Microsoft in 2009.

Gilbert West http://be.linkedin.com/in/blueclock is a web-developer-turned-web-entrepreneur who has seen more than his fair share of startup presentations. He enjoys getting complex technical ideas over to a non-technical audience and will help you pick the most appropriate features to highlight to your audience whether it’s a potential customer, partner or an investor.

Jochen Boeykens http://be.linkedin.com/in/jochenboeykens is Associate at Hummingbird Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund based in Antwerp Belgium. He brings operational experience from his own software company KeyConcepts, based in Ghent’s iHub. He is an active advisor and/or investor in Belgian start-ups such as MobileJuice and Oxynade. Jochen has worked both sides of the fence and will give you pointers on pitching, business plan and venture deals.

Laurent Mikolajczak http://be.linkedin.com/in/jackmiko is a web starter, Web tech project manager and a starter coach. Cofounded studiorvb.com, soundoo.com, jackanova.com, vinogusto.com, vendredichic.com; this after having worked for Big corporates (IBM, Arthur Andersen). Father of a 6 year old girl. Volunteer for the red Cross, on emergency response team after natural disaster (Rapid deployment units in the day after disasters).

Leo Exter http://be.linkedin.com/in/exter brings to Boostcamp 15 years of marketing, consumer research and communications experience. He has worked in four industries (from soft drinks to software), both on the client side and on the agency side. He’s worked with a huge, established brand (Coca-Cola) and launched a new brand of portable GPS, Mio Technology, across Europe. After two years at a PR agency where he had an opportunity to learn about a huge variety of businesses, he stated westartup.eu, a community for entrepreneurs. In his role as westartup’s founder and coach he gives workshops on marketing to entrepreneurs and organizes some of Belgium’s most important events for entrepreneurs – Startup Weekend Brussels and Bizcamp Belgium.

Martin van Wunnik http://www.linkedin.com/in/arsima has over 15 years experience in different Finance/IT functions for multi-national companies. His own company, ARSIMA Projects, helps companies to realize their financial projects with a large IT component, with a focus on financial consolidation and reporting systems. Martin also offers “ad hoc CFO” assistance to start-up companies in (pre) seed-capital phase.

Sacha Vekeman http://uk.linkedin.com/in/svekeman has a huge amount of technology entrepreneurship experience – first working in high-growth startups, then launching one of his own.
Sacha started Mobiya Ltd., a mobile classified advertising platform in 2005 – and took it from concept to profitability and then to exit. His primary roles were strategy, fundraising, M&A and business development. These days he helps startups to refine their vision, to build roadmap, develop business plans and financial models, put in place sales and service automation, establish quality control, manage internal and external comms, press, and investors.
In an advisory role, Sacha is involved with a lot of cloud and mobile companies: Core Consultancy Limited, Planzone, Mobila, Oxopia, Nomadesk and Telemak.

Serge Kalitventzeff http://be.linkedin.com/pub/serge-kalitventzeff/3/186/a43 heads up the ICT business unit at the Brussels Enterprise Agency; he has been supporting ICT startups for the past 15 years through a variety of roles in public organizations.

Sidsel Graae http://be.linkedin.com/pub/sidsel-graae/0/26b/630 has worked with international business development across numerous countries. Sidsel came to Brussels in 1997 and after a MBA at Solvay and a entrepreneurship course she started up a management consultancy company in London. In the past 6 years Sidsel built up a headhunting company with a consultative approach to headhunting where she combined her management consultancy experience with the human resource business. As a career coach Sidsel support people in changing their career hereunder to start up their own business. Sidsel is passionate about the people aspects in any business success.

Tjorven Denorme http://be.linkedin.com/in/tjorvendenorme has over 10 years of sales experience in B2B environment. After working for The Man for a few years and building up a 50-people business unit in Gent, he started his own company, eMenKa with 2 colleagues. eMenKa is now 4 years young, has a team of 30 IT people, and has customers among Fortune 500 companies (and a few SMEs of course).

Xavier Corman http://www.linkedin.com/in/xaviercorman is a passionate entrepreneur, having launched and managed several companies. A few examples: www.ulyz.com; visibuzz.com; kickrush.com; wooz.eu. From 1997 to 2009, he was partner in a company active in promotional gifts (turnover: EUR 10M), managing the finance and IT side of the business.
Throughout his carrier, Xavier has been involved in all aspects of SMB and has gained thorough multi-disciplinary experience.