Today, Voka Oost-Vlaanderen and Wintercircus presented their joint Tech Manifesto at the Ghent Wintercircus, in the presence of Prime Minister Bart De Wever, ministers Van Bossuyt and Simonet, Prince Constantijn of Orange (special envoy for TechLeap.nl) and more than 800 entrepreneurs. "Belgium faces an important choice. If we want to strengthen our economic position, technology and artificial intelligence must take centre stage in our policy. Technology should not be a separate domain for innovation, but must be structurally embedded as a lever for productivity, competitiveness and sustainable growth," said Hilde Schuddinck, managing director of Voka Oost-Vlaanderen.

The Belgian economy is currently growing at just over 1 per cent per year. Productivity growth, the true engine of prosperity, has fallen to a mere 0.4 per cent. At the same time, the population is ageing and the labour market remains structurally tight. Job creation alone will no longer sustain our prosperity. Future growth will need to come almost entirely from higher productivity.

International data show that countries which decisively invest in digitalisation, AI and scalable tech companies grow faster and are more resilient to economic shocks. AI and digitalisation are not a hype. They are the most important productivity driver of the coming decades. If we want to safeguard our prosperity, we need to make choices now.

It is five minutes to midnight, technology, AI and robotics are changing our world at an unprecedented pace, and it is our tech companies that will help shape the future. Today, Europe is falling behind the United States and China. With the Tech Manifesto, we want to wake up the government. We have the knowledge, we have the talent and we have the capital — all we need now is the vision and the ambition.

• Louis Jonckheere (CEO Wintercircus and tech entrepreneur)

Ghent is proof it can be done

The launch was no coincidence: the fully renovated Wintercircus is today a thriving technology hub where innovation takes centre stage and a dynamic ecosystem is home to forty tech start-ups. Ghent currently counts 920 start- and scale-ups with a combined enterprise value of 35 billion euros, and is home to four Flemish unicorns: Lighthouse, Deliverect, Team Blue and, most recently, Aikido. The success of Ghent shows what is possible when talent, knowledge institutions, entrepreneurship and infrastructure come together. But it also illustrates the need for a clear national direction and scale.

9 concrete policy proposals

Belgium can be a technology powerhouse, but it needs to make clear choices. Voka Oost-Vlaanderen and Wintercircus put forward nine priorities.

Give our scale-ups wings. Make Belgium a hotspot for international tech talent, reform equity compensation so that talent participation becomes competitive again, and activate growth capital through a stable investment framework that mobilises private capital.

Accelerate technological adoption. Modernise government and open public procurement to innovation, deploy AI as a productivity lever in public sectors and make education AI-ready.

Position Belgium as a technological growth engine in Europe. Choose clear technological focus areas, use the European single market as a scale platform and ensure strong governance through a tech commissioner.

A choice for technological prosperity

According to Voka Oost-Vlaanderen and Wintercircus, an ambitious tech strategy need not mean budgetary derailment.

By deploying existing resources more effectively, procuring more innovatively and mobilising private investment, Belgium can match the scale of its neighbouring countries without new billion-euro expenditures.

• Hilde Schuddinck (managing director Voka Oost-Vlaanderen)

The call to federal and regional governments is clear: make technology a core priority of economic policy. This is not a story about the future. This is a choice for our prosperity tomorrow.