Today Prince Constantijn of Orange, Special Envoy for start-ups, announced  the Startup24 event at the opening of the schoolyear at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. This 24 hours event will be organized on 10-11 November in 12 major student cities simultaneously (Amsterdam, Arnhem, Delft, Eindhoven, Enschede, Groningen, Leiden, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, Tilburg, Utrecht and Wageningen)  for first and second year bachelor students at universities and universities of applied sciences.

Constantijn van Oranje: “With this event we hope to inspire student to take entrepreneurship classes, to test their entrepreneurial skills,  or even start their own company during their study. Becoming an entrepreneur is a serious career option that gives you the possibility to live your dreams and change the world! This event is really meant as a first step toward entrepreneurship. In 24 hours full of fun, energy, hard work and teambuilding we hope to inspire over a 1000 students in 24 hours to choose the entrepreneurial path.“

Jitse Groen,  CEO of Takeaway.com  is an inspiring example of a student, who started his business during his study and expanded it to the successful company TakeAway.com is today. Another good example  is Booking.com that was also founded by a student and now offers over 4000 young people a job in Amsterdam. Both companies see the importance of entrepreneurial education and are therefore the main sponsors of the event. The event is also supported by the Dutch Centres of Entrepreneurship.

12 local student-teams will host the events.  In each location there is room for approximately 100 students. It’s a first come, first serve principle and enrollment starts today at www.startup24.nl