Empowering you with tech!
The ever-changing world we’re living in requires you and your business to constantly learn and adapt.
myinnovationcenter.brussels is a not-for-profit resulting from a public-private partnership between Microsoft and the Brussels Capital Region. Through our activities, organized under 3 pillars (Digitalization, Innovation and Training), we use tech to empower people, businesses and organizations, helping them understand, anticipate and get trained on IT tools.
#Digitalisation
Helping your business in its digital transition and development.
SME and Digitalisation
Belgium is a land of SMEs; they account for around 70% of employment in the Belgian private sector, hence the importance of supporting them in their digital transition.
A study conducted by Agoria in December 2019 showed that for half of the companies surveyed, digitalisation did not arouse a sense of urgency. And yet, the crisis has changed the situation in just a few weeks, leading companies to work remotely and to rapidly digitize some of their operational processes. We believe that every difficult times opens the door to opportunities
Each SME is unique and has a different digital maturity. To help them follow their digital path, mic.brussels has set up introductory sessions for Brussels SMEs. These sessions are organized for the specific company and can be set up either for all their employees or for the management team (by webinar or in person). No specific pre-requisite skills are required for people attending.
- Introductory sessions on IT topics like Artificial Intelligence, remote working, the changing world of work, the technological trends, Cybersecurity and the Cloud. Learn from the experience from other SMEs. Interested in setting up a session for your SME? Contact us and tell us more about your needs.
- Crash course on Teams. You’ve already implemented Microsoft Teams but still struggle to have an optimal collaboration between all team members and departments? We came up with these small tips’n’tricks session for Teams and are more than happy to help you through a 25-minute call!
Teams, which is part of Microsoft 365, offers great features for remote work, such as:
- Chat and phone calls
- TV and video conferences
- Virtual events or consultations with your colleagues and clients
- Edition of a same document with several people at the same time
- Using a digital whiteboard to display information quickly and clearly
Please fill-in the adequate form below. The call can be done with one or more people from your team so don’t hesitate to involve anyone who can benefit from it! You can also start your learning journey and contact us afterwards if you have remaining questions.
Réservez une session en français !
Boek nu een sessie !
Book a session in English now!
If your company is ready for digital innovation and prototyping, check out our prototyping internship under the 'Innovation' tab of this page!
Grow and reach scaleup levels!
You’ve turned your business idea into a product. You’re heading towards a solid product-market fit and are ready to step up to scaleup levels.
The Amplitude+ program, led in collaboration with ICAB, gives you the support to do so. Our seasoned coaches will empower you to accelerate your venture towards a mature company ready to generate sustainable profits. This 18-month program will offer you :
- 3 stand-alone modules with gains at each phase
- 100+ hours of individual & collective coaching
- a mentoring through a board of experts
- a focus on your growth challenges
Join the startups that benefited from our programs. Learn from their experiences and boost your growth!
Check out amplitudeplus.be or get in touch directly with us!
Meet and hire your next IT talents!
There is a strong demand for software developers. As a company, you want to meet quality developers who not only know how to code, but who also understand your business.
With our “Dev Talk” series, we're putting companies that recruit junior developers under the spotlight. This allows these developers to understand the sectors in which the companies work, to exchange with them and to make the right choice when starting their career. Our dev target audience consists of junior profiles composed mainly of IT bachelor students and Digitalcity developer candidates.
Do you want to exchange with students and maybe hire your next talent? Contact Alexis and schedule your dev talk!
#Innovation
Ready to prototype your innovative idea as a business or as a developer?
Discover our prototyping internship program
The objective of this program is to support student developers' learning path while boosting the companies' businesses through the development of a Prototype or Proof of Concept. The program lasts for 15 weeks, from February to May. The students and the companies' projects are screened and selected and the projects are followed-up by a team of expert coaches.
How does the selection process work?
We collaborate with all the IT schools in Brussels to find the best student profiles out there. Interested students can register to a test session where we assess both their technical skills as well as their mindset and motivation. This way, we insure that they have the required level and attitude to work on a 3-month project.
In parallel, we assess interested companies' projects through a technical screening to make sure the project is interesting from a student's point of view. We also insure that the scope is defined and that it's feasible for Bachelor 3 IT students.
Once we have validated the projects and selected the students, we proceed to a matchmaking based on the projects' needs. Therefore, students can work alone or in group of 2 or 3, depending on the project's size and complexity.
What’s so special about the internship?
The big difference lies in the structure of our internship program. Indeed, our students are rigorously followed-up through the duration of their internship. They spend 3 days a week in your company, where they learn how a professional environment works, and 2 days in our offices where they receive extra coaching and workshops from our team experts. This is an added value that companies can leverage by proxy since it guarantees a top-notch understanding of the company’s needs in relation to technical tools as well as the ideal project management.
Finally, this long-term collaboration is a great opportunity for the companies to recruit new IT talents. Since they see the students work on a weekly basis, they can define whether or not they match the companies' values and vision.
Who submits the project?
Startups, SMEs & companies from Brussels with an IT project. The only requirements for the project are that the core technology is Microsoft-based and that the structure submitting it is legally established.
Additional resources
- Read BECI's article about the Program
- Watch the 2019 testimonial video
- Watch the 2018 testimonial video
Want to be part of the prototyping internship 2021 (February - May)?
- For companies - Submit your IT project and let's discuss it!
- For students - check out the next Test Sessions and register to the one that suits you the best!
Stay relevant
Developer is one of those jobs that requires you to constantly learn and stay up to date with the latest discoveries in the field. That's why we offer junior devs and student devs, but also IT pros, hands-on sessions to help them understand and experiment with the latest tech & programming languages (Big Data, IoT, AR/VR/XR, etc.)
Check out our agenda to see what we offered and what we have planned and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter or drop us a line if you don't want to miss on the good stuff!
Hackathon: an event, usually lasting several days (often during weekends), in which a large number of people meet to engage in a collaborative computer programming experience resulting in great pitches and solutions and a significant consumption of beers and pizzas.
We believe in the power of Hackathons, not only to accelerate the prototyping of ideas but also to better understand time management and team collaboration.
That's why we collaborate with IT and business profiles to organize meaningful Hackathons based on business needs from companies. The goal is to offer the devs a concrete experience and the companies a solid Proof of Concept.
The last Hackathons we organized involved various structures such as the startups Permafungi and OUAT!, the SME SatellIT and the public organization (that happens to be one of our founding members) CIRB.
Find below examples of previous hackathons we organized in the past:
Get in touch with us if you are a company or an organization with an interest in prototyping.
#Training
Never stop learning, continuous training is the key to your success!
Public entities, boost collaboration and remote working!
Many employers and employees see mobility, flexibility, and connectivity as key elements of their work environment. The Covid-19 crisis has only reinforced this teleworking phenomenon. Microsoft 365 - formerly Office 365 - offers collaboration tools in this context: you can easily share files and co-edit them in real time.
"Smart City" also goes hand in hand with continuous training and the reinforcement of digital skills; it is essential to understand and use IT collaboration tools that allow a remote collaboration, saving time and increasing team efficiency.
The training offered (webinar or face-to-face) is therefore aimed at employees of municipal and regional public entities in the Brussels-Capital Region. Through this training, you will explore the technologies to use them in your daily life.
We can adapt the session according to your needs and cover the following tools:
- Teams
- OneDrive for Business
- Office Suite
- OneNote
- Planner
- Forms
- SharePoint
- Microsoft Flow
- Microsoft Power Apps
- Delve
Click here to schedule a workshop with your team!
My Digital Class
Sessions for primary and secondary schools and municipalities
The recent OECD TALIS (Teaching and Learning international Survey) report shows that, in the French Community, teachers are not always well trained in the use of digital technology in the classroom.
Acquiring ICT skills was cited as one of the most important needs for training by the majority of teachers in OECD countries (18% of those surveyed) alongside special education (22%) and teaching in a multicultural or multilingual setting (15%). Thanks to continuous training, it is never too late to learn how to use collaborative tools that benefit both teachers and students.
In collaboration with Microsoft, the mic.brussels offers free training workshops for teachers, school IT managers, principals and school administrators.
The topics covered are varied:
- Office 365 Education and its pedagogical tools
- Manage my virtual course book with OneNote and extend my class virtually with Teams
- Optimize teamwork (pedagogical and administrative) with Teams and OneNote
- Boost my learning materials with Sway and evaluate with Forms
- Game-based learning with Minecraft Education
- Manage school machines remotely with Intune and Powerapps to create my school applications
- Manage Office 365 for my school
Organize your session now!
Find out more:
- Facebook page “Ma Classe Numérique”
- Sway Office 365
Prepare your future now!
The gap between our skills and the digital needs of the labour market is increasing. According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, 50% of all tasks performed by humans at the work place can already be automated today. OECD figures from 2018 moreover show that 46% of all jobs have a 50% chance of disappearing or at least of changing substantially.
What will that mean for the jobs of the future and the skills sought on the labour market? Mainly that your curriculum doesn’t know how to fully prepare you for your future job. In other words, lifelong learning will become your new mantra. At the mic.brussels, we believe that AI is happening now and we want you to understand what AI means for your field of studies, whether you study languages, geography, medicine or engineering.
We offer University Students a workshop of 4 sessions where you will learn what AI is and work on your own use-case. Student unions, feel free to reach out to us to discuss this further and schedule your workshop.
If you are an IT student, lifelong learning applies to you, too! Check out our 15-week prototyping internship!
The need for life-long learning
The gap between our skills and the digital needs of the labour market keeps growing. This does not mean that everyone has to become a programmer all of a sudden. Nonetheless, it is crucial for new workers to have a basic understanding of the possibilities of the digital shift. Think of it as a language. Not everyone learns English in order to become an interpreter but whoever wants to be part of his or her field of expertise and hold a conversation with stakeholders cannot do so without a smattering of English.
Lifelong learning is therefore the only and most sustainable path to self-development. We learn by doing, and that is how we all grow in our position, develop experience, expertise, confidence and trust, and find out for ourselves which professional path we ultimately want to take. This process is still not stimulated sufficiently at the workplace.
Find a session to increase your digital skills and read our blog article to learn more about lifelong learning!