WATT The Health will be the hotspot for HealthTech companies: ‘The biggest added value is the entire HealthTech ecosystem present on our site.’
by Laure Oomens, Bloovi
‘Alone you go faster, together you go further’, this African proverb might just come from the mission statement of WATT The Health. This is the brand-new home base for HealthTech, MedTech and SportTech companies on the Maria Middelares site in Gentbrugge. More than that: this business and event centre will be seamlessly interwoven with the polyclinic, the sports medical centre, the residential care centre and the community health centre already located on the site. The goal? To stimulate synergies between tech companies and the healthcare sector while boosting Belgian innovation.
The place where health takes centre stage
Anyone walking past the Maria Middelares site in Gentbrug today has no idea what a multifunctional gem is in full development here. Julie Daelman, on the other hand, community manager for WATT The Health, already sees it vividly.
The idea for WATT The Health, and the overall project around it, sprung from the mind of property developer Revive. ‘Fifteen years ago, Revive originally started as a brownfield developer. We remediated large, polluted and industrial sites and gave them a new – often residential – purpose,’ Daelman explains. ‘We evolved very quickly into a B Corp property developer that develops according to ESG principles. In concrete terms, this means that we don’t just turn our projects into residential areas, we look at it much more broadly. We take into account the community out there and involve them from the very beginning of a project.’
We have very quickly evolved into a B Corp property developer that develops according to ESG principles. Specifically, this means that we don’t just turn our projects into residential developments, we look at it much more broadly.
At the request of Maria Middelares hospital, Revive sat down to redraw the site’s future plan. ‘At the site, we have numerous healthcare actors: the day clinic, the sports medical centre, the residential care centre and the district health centre. We wondered if we couldn’t connect that health and business in a deeper way and thus boost the tech innovation that Flanders is rich in.’
Cross-pollination as the breath of life
The companies renting office space in WATT The Health are not just a motley crew, we learn. ‘We focus on the tech companies that are suppliers to the healthcare sector. And we also keep a space available for their suppliers. Every high-tech company needs high-quality expertise. Just think of companies doing IP for the tech sector. Or organisations that help with go-to-market for the US market, for example,’ the community manager gives some examples.
SportTech is among them. ‘We are seeing quite an evolution in the health scene. There is a shift going on from ‘we see a symptom or a disease and we are going to treat that’ to ‘we are going to keep people healthy’.’
Anything high-tech needs high-quality expertise. Just think of companies doing IP for the tech sector. Or organisations that help go-to-market for the US market, for example.
‘The biggest added value for companies to rent an office on the site is the whole tech ecosystem that is there,’ Daelman replies when we ask her about the biggest asset for entrepreneurs. ‘We ensure that a lot of inspiring activities are organised with us. For instance, companies only have to go up one floor, to the event space, to gather new knowledge. Concretely, companies renting an office in WATT The Health will be able to count on the knowledge of both Imec.istart and MEDVIA. At set times, experts from MEDVIA will be present in WATT The Health and can be booked by entrepreneurs, and Imec.istart will host their open office hours. Nice bonus: Imec.istart will also give their HealthTech start-ups the chance to reserve a free coworking spot in WATT The Health. This way, amidst more mature entrepreneurs and experts, they can further develop their business.’
And there is another asset we discover. ‘The community is central to us. Our existing offices like the WATT Factory and WATT The Firms prove that. That goes far beyond organising the occasional afterwork. We create something for everyone, from ping-pong tournaments to barbecues on the rooftop. And in the afternoons, we will organise numerous sports activities such as spinning, boxing, yoga or hiking. There will also be a park where all these sports activities can be practised. Tech companies are struggling to find staff. Attracting and retaining people is an important factor. With our facilities, we try to contribute to that for our customers,’ Daelman says.
Translating innovation into practice
The community between the companies is crucial, but wider support is also central to the project. ‘Now suppose you want to develop a monitoring device for elderly people with cardiac arrhythmias, our companies can check with the hospital whether that development is indeed useful.’ Is there already a prototype? Then it can be tested by the intended target group. So Flemish tech can be quickly tested and brought to market. That’s a problem we are running into in Belgium now: getting innovation to market quickly. ‘Vice versa, it works the same way: at the request of the various healthcare actors, useful tech can be worked out,’ it sounds.
The ambition is to push Flanders forward. By allowing tech companies to accelerate faster than our neighbouring countries, we create a lot of impact.’
Re-new, re-purpose, re-balance, re-connect
Parent company Revive says it develops according to ESG principles. So what about sustainability in the broadest sense at WATT The Health? ‘We are very strict about that,’ Daelman echoes. ‘For example, all our projects have to have an e-level of no more than 30, although for us ‘sustainability’ means more than being ecologically developed. We look at that whole neighbourhood and make sure people can live and work healthier, longer and happier. Our ambition when we develop such a neighbourhood is that there is more greenery afterwards than before. We did the same here. We built a 6,500-square-metre park with a walnut orchard. Even the parking goes completely underground. There can be electric charging, there is a bike shed for electric bikes and there are several options for shared mobility.’
‘We also believe that for a city neighbourhood to be sustainable, multiple audiences must be able to use the site. That is why we have partially removed the literal and figurative walls, so that the hospital, businesses, but also local residents can enjoy everything the site has to offer, such as the lunch bar or the neighbourhood barn,’ the Ghentian continued.
‘For us, building is a means, not an end. If a building is good, we choose to preserve and renovate it. This has less impact on the environment,’ she says of their building approach. ‘Moreover, we also always look at what we can recover. For that, we look at the total carbon footprint. Recycling materials is good. But it is no longer ecological if you have to move it 500 kilometres to do so,’ she shakes her head. ‘Moreover, we also host a proptech programme ourselves through which we investigate what innovation is emerging within real estate development and what can be useful for our projects. For WATT The Health, for instance, we chose concrete core activation for the heating and cooling of the building, among other things.’
Whether there are international ambitions? ‘Ghent is our home port. Meanwhile, we are in the whole of Flanders and even in Poland and Portugal. We are working on further internationalisation, but Flanders remains our testing ground. We know it very well here, which makes it easier to test new things,’ Daelman concludes.