Concrete Plans for Unmanned Valley Valkenburg

On 21 June 2016 a coalition of businesses, public organisations and universities have offered a bid book for 'Unmanned Valley Valkenburg' to the Executive Council of the ‘Provincie Zuid-Holland’ Adri Bomb-Lall and alderman of the city of Katwijk Klaas-Jan van der Bent. The bid book was handed over by Hester Bijl (TU Delft) and Prince Pieter-Christiaan van Oranje (initiator of Unmanned Valley) and advocates the development of a test location on the former airport Valkenburg for industry, academia and the public sector as a place where new drone technologies and unmanned vehicles can be developed and tested. These technologies have many areas of applications, including safety and security, and provides the opportunity to create new business activities in the area.

Bid Book presents concrete plans

The development as proposed in the bid book builds on the success of the RoboValley initiative in attracting new investments in South Holland. It also makes it easier for Dutch drone startups to quickly develop technology and compete in international markets. In addition it also attracts new downstream technology companies.

The bid book was developed by Jeroen Engelkes (programme director Unmanned Valley, RoboValley) and Lucas van Oostrum (co-founder Delft Aerial Robotics) in collaboration with InnovationQuarter. The proposal is supported by the consortium Unmanned Valley Valkenburg, consisting of RoboValley, TU Delft, ATMOS UAV, The Hague Security Delta, Aerialtronics, Ampyx Power, City of The Hague, Leiden University Centre of Data Science and other partners in the Triple Helix of South Holland.

Unmanned Valley Valkenburg will also be looking for opportunities to cooperate with other Dutch testcentres, such as Twente Airport.

Read the bid book (English).

Read the HSD report on Drones.