This autumn the Flanders Technology and Innovation (FTI) Festival will be held in cities across Flanders. take place in Flanders. The new FTI Festival will run from 16 October to 15 November. Events will take place in 8 cities: Antwerp, Brussels, Genk, Hasselt (Limburg), Kortrijk, Bruges (both West Flanders), Leuven (Flemish Brabant) and Mechelen (Antwerp Province).
Last year, the Flemish Government announced that it was to organsise FTI Festivals in 2026, 2028 and 2030. The Flemish Government says that the aim of the festivals is to position Flanders as an “ambitious top region for entrepreneurship and innovation”.
Flanders Technology and Innovation was the brainchild of the former Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon (nationalist). The Flanders Technology and Innovation Festival is reminiscent of the Flanders Technology fairs that took place in the 1980s. When he came up with the idea of the FTI festival, Mr Jambon state that he wanted to make Flanders a model region in the fields of technology and innovation.
8 locations have been chosen for the FTI Festival. At each of them events focusing on technology and innovation will be organised from mid-October and until mid-November. A total of more than 100 events will take place.
The current Flemish Prime Minister Matthias Diependaele says of the festival that “Our research centres, knowledge institutions, spearhead clusters, ecosystems and companies, all of which are among the best in the world, will showcase the best that Flanders has to offer in terms of technology and innovation”.