How Flevoland Is Emerging as a Serious High-Tech Region
No hills, no fog, no bay. But anyone looking for the next hotspot for technology and innovation does not have to fly to San Francisco. The answer is right here in the polder.
Flevoland has now existed for 40 years. There is no centuries-old industry, no established university, and no infrastructure that was built decades ago for a different era. What it does have: space. Physical space, but also the freedom to try things that would never have got off the ground elsewhere. That combination is attracting more and more attention, far beyond the national borders.
Why Flevoland in particular
A young province, an agile governance culture, and a population that is used to change. Flevoland has hardly any legacy, and that makes the difference. Where other regions have to fit new technology into what is already there, in Flevoland it can be the other way around. The city is still building entire new residential districts from the ground up, and these are immediately equipped with the latest digital applications. Innovation is built into the foundations here.
On top of that, there is no single dominant large employer dictating the direction, no single company or institution on which the region depends. That creates freedom, and that freedom attracts people who want to build something new.
Innovally, the link in the ecosystem
In this landscape operates Innovally, a public-private platform set up by the municipality of Almere, the province of Flevoland, and VodafoneZiggo. Originally established as the Green Innovation Hub, it grew into a fixed link in the regional ecosystem. In January 2026 a deliberate repositioning followed, with a new name and a sharper focus: no longer primarily sustainability, but high-tech, digitalisation, AI, and dual-use innovation — applications that serve both civilian and defence purposes.
Innovally brings together businesses, education, and government. Danny Frietman, project director, describes this bridging function as one of its most important assets: access to both city councillors and policymakers as well as the private sector makes it possible to help companies navigate an environment that would otherwise be complex.
What does this mean in practice? It means that parties are brought together who would otherwise not easily find each other. High Tech NL is based at the Innovally location. Horizon serves as an extension in the investment value chain. UpAlmere connects the local entrepreneurial network. VodafoneZiggo has been a partner from the very beginning. And through a collaboration with Tech Barcelona, one of the largest tech hubs in Europe with more than a thousand members, Innovally is also explicitly looking across the border.
“Almere has everything it needs to grow into a leading high-tech region: quality space, an open mindset, and the will to innovate.”
— Khadija Imaalitane, Programme Director High Tech Almere
From self-driving buses to AI avatars
Walk through Almere in the near future and you may well come across a bus with no one behind the wheel. In the innovation zone that has been opened there, tests for the city of tomorrow are already in full swing. A driverless shuttle, lamp posts that interact intelligently with the grid, and smart batteries.
And this is only illustrative of the scale on which Innovally operates. In a single year, the platform organised 125 events, drawing some 3,000 visitors. At Innovally itself, students from Windesheim work together with companies on a digital human, a lifelike AI avatar. In the CityLab there is a prototype of a sustainable house based on a Minecraft design, which cools itself using harvested rainwater. And it doesn’t stop at Almere itself. The city is increasingly being cited nationally as an example of urban innovation.
“The global high-tech race isn’t stopping. If you don’t do it, someone else will.”
— Danny Frietman, Project Director
The search for talent
One of the most pressing questions for the region is not technological but human: how do you find, retain, and develop talent in a city without its own university? Flevoland has strong representation in higher professional education (HBO) and vocational education (MBO), but the connection to the high-tech sector isn’t fully there yet. Some of the skills needed for the technologies of the coming years are still unknown. For example, the defence sector is recruiting gamers for drone applications — an illustration of how quickly the demand for talent is shifting.
Several organisations within Flevoland, together with university partners, are therefore working on multiple fronts simultaneously. They are ensuring that HBO and MBO programmes better match what companies in the region need, and at the same time they are working towards a technical university.
“Ultimately, you want to create an environment where students can study, do internships, and after their education stay to work and live in the region,” says Frietman. “The way you see at Stanford or Harvard. An ecosystem of founders who help each other. That’s how you grow, both as a person and as a region.”
The dot on the horizon
Look five to ten years ahead and the ambition is clear: Innovally as the outpost of high-tech in Flevoland, a region that has established itself as a serious player in the European technology market.
Frietman is direct about the urgency: if the region doesn’t solve its own energy challenges, the whole of the Netherlands has a problem. Innovation doesn’t arise in a vacuum, but in places where urgency, space, and collaboration come together. Flevoland has all three.
Source: De Ondernemer — https://www.deondernemer.nl/branded-content/hoe-flevoland-uitgroeit-tot-serieuze-high-tech-regio~50378cd
