Arcadis launches new digital hub in Amsterdam

Arcadis has launched the ‘Digital Innovation Hub’ in Amsterdam as part of its broader digital transformation programme. 

The new hub will help to explore and test new ideas and is part of Arcadis’ city-centric vision and strategy of continued digital innovation and growth. It will house the three-month Arcadis City of 2030 Accelerator, powered by global entrepreneurs’ network Techstars and a new digital studio incubator to create new innovative services and products aimed at shaping the cities of the future.

Patrick van Hoof, global director innovation at Arcadis, said: “By 2030, two in every three people will live in cities so it is critical we lead initiatives to identify and carefully grow new opportunities across our urbanisation programme. We are serious about being a digital frontrunner in our industry, working with partners to co-create through early stage ventures like these.”  

As part of the City of 2030 Accelerator, Arcadis has chosen ten early stage start-ups selected from a pool of hundreds of applications received from across 50 countries. UK based start-up, Mela Works made the final cut and specialises in digital tools to empower field workers and engineers to collaborate and share real-time information to improve project efficiency and delivery.  

In partnership with mentors from Arcadis and Techstars, Mela Works will join the nine other start-up businesses in a three-month intensive digital bootcamp to scale their ideas and grow their business. They will also be preparing for fundraising and a demo day to showcase their ideas in May.

Riccardo Chiarelli, co-founder of Mela Works, said: “The ever-increasing pace and scale of digital change has created an exciting opportunity to develop new technologies, ideas and solutions to support engineering and construction workers in the field. Our software gives the ability to seamlessly share information and business intelligence, and by working with a partner like Arcadis we now have fantastic access to the breadth of project data and feedback we need to help refine the technology and upscale our ideas for practical application.” 

Tom Morgan, UK client development and strategy director, added: “Arcadis has more than a century of industry experience in helping develop and shape cities, but we need to stay ahead of the curve.  How people live, work, move and play is changing at an astonishing rate and our tomorrow will be shaped by our actions today.  Working closely with Mela Works and the brightest start-up talent will make sure we are at the very forefront, innovating outside-in and bringing to market some of the most exciting ideas to improve quality of everyday life.”