Nowadays, the community consists roughly out of 80% young innovators which mostly entails senior students and young professionals between 20 and 32. The other 20% concerns senior innovators who also have a significant part in the organisation’s activities. As mentioned before, not only the target audience is relatively young, also the ᒪᐯᑎ team thrives on the efforts of students and junior professionals. By constantly recruiting new and qualitative additions to the team “we ensure to be ever dynamic, innovative and open-minded” (Sid). The healthy mix between fresh faces and core members guarantees a non-stop exchange of divergent expertises. As a result, team members have unlimited opportunities to develop their own skillset and eventually transfer it to the whole community of Leuven. In this way, ᒪᐯᑎ functions as an accelerator for young innovators who might have great ideas, but lack the necessary know-how and environment to put an idea into practice. Through the events of the organisation, people come together and are able to brainstorm with like-minded individuals and pitch their ideas to a wider network. The underlying logic essentially means that “together, we can achieve more” (Tim). It is clear that ᒪᐯᑎ can be considered as an ever evolving ecosystem, which also shows in its activities. Whereas the focus initially laid on mostly organising events, it has grown towards a full-scale community including close partnerships with big players like Leuven MindGate, KU Leuven, UCLL, Cronos, City of Leuven and many more (check our website for all the partners).
Even though ᒪᐯᑎ came a long way already, it still maintains high ambitions to keep developing. The energy and enthusiasm of the team to keep on building has no limits. The outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, was an unforeseen challenge every organisation or business eventually has to face in its lifespan. “In the end it’s not the virus which defines us, but the team who redefines the organisation based on the circumstances, just like in any other ever changing business environment. The fact that we couldn’t organise physical events anymore was not regarded as a limitation. We took the time to review our activities and worked on the internal communication” (Jente). As a result, ᒪᐯᑎ started to set up new, online events like the completely sold out first edition of Startup Stories “where young entrepreneurs could share their experiences” (Dieter). Through its digital endeavours, the network kept on growing and proved once more the agility of the organisation’s team. “More concrete, we grew in terms of flexibility, efficiency and creativity” (Sid).
