New CEO: Ynte de Vries
As of February 1, The Green Box has a new CEO: Ynte de Vries. The former COO of Koolen Industries is making the switch to The Green Box to accelerate the development of the cleantech campus even more.
A new opportunity, while remaining on campus
In addition to Ynte, Rien Veldsink is also transitioning from Koolen Industries to The Green Box team. Opportunities, sometimes you come across them in life and you have to take them! And this is one of those: A new opportunity while remaining on campus.’
With his experience in developing complex technical systems, he will also make a significant contribution to the further development of the campus. Rien starts working as a Business Development Manager.
Developments
Since its launch in early 2020, The Green Box, located on the old Eaton site in Hengelo, has been developing into a sustainable cleantech campus where established entrepreneurs and young talent work together on cleantech solutions for the energy transition.
The Green Box is rapidly developing as a real cleantech campus with already 12 tenants, and a lot of interest from other cleantech parties to also rent office and production space on site. At the same time, a complex energy system is being built, with many MegaWatts of installed PV capacity, intelligent charging stations, and battery systems for balancing the grid. In addition, efforts are being made to establish more connections with educational institutions, including ROC van Twente, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Inholland University of Applied Sciences and the University of Twente.
“The ambitions for the coming years are great. We want to play a much more emphatic role in building and exchanging knowledge with and between cleantech entrepreneurs, but also with young talent from educational institutions. In addition, we are working on developing a unique, sustainable, own energy system with almost 7 MW of PV capacity, intelligent charging stations, energy storage and our own energy management system. With the aim of having an almost independent sustainable energy system that can serve as a real-life example for many real estate entrepreneurs and industrial estates. This campus will be the place in North-West Europe to work on the energy transition," says Kees Koolen, the spiritual father of The Green Box.
‘The energy transition is happening. And it’s already working well in many places, even though we’ll still have to work and develop reliable solutions in many sub-areas.
We want to show these sub-areas what is possible and how this works. We also want to bring people and companies together at The Green Box campus to work together on our clean future.'
Ynte: “The transition and acceleration to sustainable energy and mobility are more important than ever. It’s of great importance to have a physical place where cleantech entrepreneurship and innovation come together and where the much-needed technology and products are made tangible. A place where young and old can learn, get inspired and play a role in the transition. The Green Box is that place and it’s fantastic to work towards this with this team”.
The Green Box team
The current team now consists of Annemarie van Loo, Eva Velt, Ivo Keizer, Rien Veldsink and Ynte de Vries. We look forward to working with our tenants, schools, universities, Koolen Industries companies and other stakeholders to build the campus where the energy transition really comes to life.
For questions: info@thegreenbox.com
