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Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands paid a special visit on Monday to the startups of the Holland High Tech House, an exhibition at the Hannover Messe, the world\u2019s largest industrial fair. Having succeeded Neelie Kroes in 2016 as StartupDelta\u2019s \u201cspecial envoy\u201d and startup ambassador for the Netherlands, the prince was eager to meet the high-tech entrepreneurs. <\/span><\/p>\n At the fair booths, conversations stopped and heads turned in anticipation of the prince\u2019s arrival. Soon he made his way down the aisles, stopping to talk to several pre-selected startups. Onlookers crowded around in the hope of a glimpse (or a photo) of the prince, but he paid them little notice, showing genuine interest in the startups\u2019 technology. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe Netherlands has so much high-tech to offer.\u201dPrince Constantijn, <\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bas Zeper, CEO of Plasmacure, offers his thoughts on his interview with the prince. \u201cHe really wants to understand what you\u2019re doing. It\u2019s not just superficial interest. We hope to talk with him further to see how he can help take our solution forward. I like that he thinks big.\u201d<\/p>\n After meeting and greeting the startups personally, his royal highness gave the opening address to kick off the \u201cMeet the Giants\u201d competition, a collaboration between Holland Innovative, HighTechXL, StartupDelta, High Tech Campus, the Province of Brabant and Brainport Development.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you are phenomenal,\u201d he stated firmly, addressing the startups. \u201cYou\u2019re brave!\u201d He went on to laud the startups\u2019 decision to focus on the solution rather than the problem. He talked about how Dutch innovation is leading the way in the rest of the world. \u201cThe Netherlands has so much high-tech to offer.\u201d He credited the Dutch \u201cspirit of innovation\u201d and the people\u2019s willingness to challenge authority for the success of so many of the country\u2019s startups. He drew our attention to the impact that the startups\u2019 innovation can have on society and on the rest of the world. He suggested that next year, the Holland High Tech House should be much bigger, including many more startups. Then without changing his expression, he dryly ended his speech with the words: \u201cIt will be huge,\u201d a sly reference to the viral video<\/a> by comedians Arjen Lubach and Greg Shapiro that made its way across the world in January in response to Trump\u2019s election. The audience chuckled and then erupted in applause.<\/p>\n More pictures here<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands paid a special visit on Monday to the startups of the Holland High Tech House, an exhibition at the Hannover Messe, the world\u2019s largest industrial fair. Having succeeded Neelie Kroes in 2016 as StartupDelta\u2019s \u201cspecial envoy\u201d and startup ambassador for the Netherlands, the prince was eager to meet the high-tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1628,"featured_media":521861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3009],"tags":[10452,10454,10456,10458,10460,10485,827],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-92091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startup","tag-constantijn","tag-hannover-en","tag-hannover-messe-en","tag-hannover-messe-2017-en","tag-hm17-en","tag-plasmacure-en","tag-start-ups"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Kate Brunton","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/kate-brunton\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/DSC01298-300x169.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Start-ups<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Start-ups<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Constantijn<\/a>","Hannover<\/a>","Hannover Messe<\/a>","Hannover Messe 2017<\/a>","HM17<\/a>","plasmacure<\/a>","start-ups<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Constantijn<\/span>","Hannover<\/span>","Hannover Messe<\/span>","Hannover Messe 2017<\/span>","HM17<\/span>","plasmacure<\/span>","start-ups<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 25, 2017","modified":"Updated on April 25, 2017"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 25, 2017 11:14 am","modified":"Updated on April 25, 2017 11:14 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=92091"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=92091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}