Hello and welcome!
My name is Bart and I’m an entrepreneurial improviser based in Belgium.
And… well, I’m also a public speaker, dance teacher, pianist and self-proclaimed geek.
My name is Bart and I’m an entrepreneurial improviser based in Belgium.
And… well, I’m also a public speaker, dance teacher, pianist and self-proclaimed geek.
In many ways, I view entrepreneurship as a journey.
Like on a journey, you must enjoy the ride itself, not only the desination. In my opinion, it's enjoyed most with a clear goal in mind, but no strict planning on the way. It can only succeed if you are able to cope with many unforeseen situations and keep on going through the unknown.
My own journey as an entrepreneur started in 2005 when, after being employed for 50 weeks after graduating, I decided to quit. I had not planned my next move and had no connection whatsoever with start-ups or other entrepreneurs. I remember having that moment about € 3000 on my bank account, rent to pay and no source of income.
If anything, I should have explored entrepreneurship much more at school or university. I find it a shame that in my school time it was never presented as a career path. My whole education prepared me for a lifetime of being an employee.
Don't waste your time, or time will waste you.
Zeropoint HR helps start-ups and SMEs reliably expand their digital work capacity through hiring in South-Asia. Zeropoint takes care of the hiring, office space and payroll of this remote workforce. Both local and offshore team members are trained to work effectively in virtual teams.
In the early eighties I was raised in Saudi Arabia where my father was working. My younger brother was born there.
Later, our father lived in Malaysia and China (北京), while I completed my university studies in Norway.
When my younger brother turned 18, my parents moved to China (上海) again. Meanwhile, my younger sister lived in South Africa and is currently raising her children in Switzerland.
This has sparked in me an insatiable interest in foreign people, languages and cultures.
In 2005 the northern areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India suffered from a major earthquake. My friend happened to be in Islamabad when it happened and decided to volunteer for the rescue mission of the United Nations. Later, I joined him from home.
This experience lead to us to realising the following:
Early 2007, Zeropoint opened office in Pakistan and Belgium, bridging the gap between the labour markets in those two countries.
Ever growing investments in technology increases the pressure on companies to hire technically proficient talent. However, a strong decline of IT graduates can be noticed in the EU and US.
On the other hand, an English speaking generation, well versed with digitally maintaining relations across the globe has entered the global economy. At the same time, more and more companies are seeing the benefit of remote working, be it from home, satellite offices or international branches.
These trends lead to Zeropoint finding its place in the market in Belgium and the neighbouring countries for helping companies set up their own offshore teams in South Asia.
In 2012, Zeropoint was approached by a Belgian/Sri Lankan company for supporting their offshore operations. Long story short, in 2013 Zeropoint secured private capital investment and proceeded to acquire the Sri Lankan side of their business.
This means that Zeropoint's recruitment area from now on covers a population of about 200 million people.
In 2014, a management buy-out of the investor completed the merger of Zeropoint Pakistan and Zeropoint Sri Lanka.
The long term goal is to help solve the global work force puzzle.
Zeropoint envisions a future where any company can source the global talent pool to expand its workforce. We are riding the wave of the ongoing globalisation and digitisation of our society.
This means we are open to discover any recruitment opportunity on our planet en help establishing and maintaining long term professional relationships between organisations and international employees.
Villa Vespa was founded in 2006. Through our local contacts in Pakistan, we procured old Vespa scooters from people who were looking for a new ride, preferably one with lower consumption, to save money. Due to the optimal weather conditions in Islamabad, we were able to guarantee the highest quality chassis of the 1960-1965 motorcycles for our workshop. Soon we were employing six full-time workers in our workshop in Islamabad, refurbishing on average one full container worth of Vespa VBBs ready to be shipped to Belgium.
In Belgium we had set up shop in Paal selling the vintage machines to individuals, both old and young.
To keep up with the capacity of the production in Pakistan, we decided to pivot the business to wholesale. We started looking for buyers of complete containers, which saved us a lot of last-mile hassle.
Thanks to our international network based on expats in Islamabad, Villa Vespa soon found itself shipping containers with refurbished VBB scooters to Belgium, Spain, the US and Germany. Highlight was a large article in Der Spiegel which generated a lot of buzz around our product!
Near the end of 2010, I left Villa Vespa to concentrate on other ventures. I'm very happy with the knowledge that the company is in safe hands and still existing under the new name Vintage Vespa.
In 2016, the US embassy in Islamabad released a video featuring Vintage Vespa!
The story of The DataTank starts with a now abandoned online tool called MyOwnDB. MyOwnDB was a pet project by Raphael Baudoin, founder of FOSDEM, the largest free European event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. It was a Ruby on Rails implementation of an easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, online database tool.
I represented MyOwnDB as a finalist of the European start-up pitching event Plugg in 2008.
Later, most of the codebase from MyOwnDB was separated into an AGPLv3 FLOSS project called Dedomenon. MyOwnDB then became the company monetizing the Dedomenon source base as the premier online platform based on it.
Later, it became clear that our start-up needed another pivot. We rebranded to The DataTank and focussed on collecting and hosting open data sets for public usage. Especially government agencies were identified as our target market and a lot of time was spent talking to the various governments in Belgium.
Together with iRail we organised many events like hackathons to promote the platform and gained some traction when we published the schedules of the national railway in Belgium, NMBS. My efforts at The DataTank later led me to co-found the Belgian chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation.
Later still, I decided to leave the start-up into the capable hands of the OKFN-BE team, who are still successfully managing it as a free, online platform for organisations to publish their open data sets.
3910 seconds is a physical escape room in Neerpelt, a small village in the north east of Belgium with 3910 as its postal code. We design and build our own escape game adventures. Our first room opened 1st April 2017 and our seconds shortly after on 16th September 2017. We are the first ones to offer a Virtual Reality team building game.
I suppose the secret to happiness is learning to appreciate the moment, Bill Watterson has Calvin say this in his iconic comic series. I have made it my own little secret too.
I'm an entrepreneur, geek-for-life and public keynote speaker. My love for the stage has lead me to become a professional improviser, dance teacher and pianist as well.
I was an active member of the Scout Movement in Belgium, where I was assigned a totem animal describing my personality: Lively Lion Tamarin.
This little monkey has a long, silky coat with a mane on its head. The Lion Tamarin is pleasant and cheerful all day and very lively. It is handy and a fast climber. The Lion Tamarin lives in family groups and takes good care of the young, even if they aren't its own.
There are a lot of things I enjoy doing. As my hobbies, I consider:
There are more things I thoroughly enjoy and consider as my jobs:
There are a lot of things I enjoy doing. As my hobbies, I consider:
There are more things I thoroughly enjoy and consider as my jobs:
In the early eighties I was raised in Saudi Arabia where my father was working. My younger brother was born there.
Later, our father lived in Malaysia and China (北京), while I completed my university studies in Norway.
When my younger brother turned 18, my parents moved to China (上海) again. Meanwhile, my younger sister lived in South Africa and is currently raising her children in Switzerland.
This has sparked in me an insatiable interest in foreign people, languages and cultures.
In 2005 the northern areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India suffered from a major earthquake. My friend happened to be in Islamabad when it happened and decided to volunteer for the rescue mission of the United Nations. Later, I joined him from home.
This experience lead to us to realising the following:
Early 2007, Zeropoint opened office in Pakistan and Belgium, bridging the gap between the labour markets in those two countries.
Ever growing investments in technology increases the pressure on companies to hire technically proficient talent. However, a strong decline of IT graduates can be noticed in the EU and US.
On the other hand, an English speaking generation, well versed with digitally maintaining relations across the globe has entered the global economy. At the same time, more and more companies are seeing the benefit of remote working, be it from home, satellite offices or international branches.
These trends lead to Zeropoint finding its place in the market in Belgium and the neighbouring countries for helping companies set up their own offshore teams in South Asia.
In 2012, Zeropoint was approached by a Belgian/Sri Lankan company for supporting their offshore operations. Long story short, in 2013 Zeropoint secured private capital investment and proceeded to acquire the Sri Lankan side of their business.
This means that Zeropoint's recruitment area from now on covers a population of about 200 million people.
In 2014, a management buy-out of the investor completed the merger of Zeropoint Pakistan and Zeropoint Sri Lanka.
Our long term goal is to help solve the global work force puzzle.
Zeropoint envisions a future where any company can source the global talent pool to expand its workforce. We are riding the wave of the ongoing globalisation and digitisation of our society.
This means we are open to discover any recruitment opportunity on our planet en help establishing and maintaining long term professional relationships between organisations and international employees.
First and foremost, I see improv as an art form allowing some of the most free expressions of spontaneity. Improv is a method that can be applied through many different mediums: music, dance, theatre, comedy, ... and I am experimenting with all of these.
Improv deals with the process rather than the product. Improvisers train themselves and each other on the important traits of spontaneity, acceptance, listening and confidence. This makes improv a most ideal platform to base team building, public speaking and other corporate training on.
I have been performing on stage since primary school. In secondary school I started with straight acting and paced it up at university. In 2005 I discovered improvisational theatre and have been hooked ever since. In 2012 I turned professional as teacher and performer.
I gladly travel for improv. I have taught improv on three continents, was the resident artistic director at a theatre in Dubai and frequent many European improv festivals as a teacher and performer.
Since 2015 I redact a blog collecting and annotating quotes from improv teachers around the globe. All the one-liners and their brief discussion can be found at improblog.be.
The Bookends is an improvised show by two literature lovers.
When Kelly Agathos and Bart Van Loon met in Athens in 2016, they decided to embark on an improv adventure together and start performing together as The Bookends, travelling the international improv scene.
Trickle Improv is a Belgian theatre duo bringing improvised plays to the stage, usually with an unknown guest performer.
In 2013 I founded Trickle Improv, gathering talented players to perform regularly in Dutch and English at various theatres in Belgium and Europe.
Captain Enthusiasm helps HR managers develop essential skills in their workforce through events and training rooted into the principles of improvsiational theatre.
In 2013 I founded Captain Enthusiasm to facilitate team building and corporate training in positivity, openness, listening and collaboration.
Dubai based Courtyard Playhouse is the leading improv theatre in the Middle East.
From April to June 2016 I was the resident artistic director of this amazing organisation training well over 100 improv workshop participants and hosting 7 shows a week.
Do you want to see how improvisation can help you, personally or in your business? Contact me
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
After practicing martial arts for a few years, I took my first dance course in 1999. While I was queueing to subscribe for introductory dance classes, I met An Van den Ende. We were both looking for a dance partner and so decided to take up these classes together. Why not, right?
We danced together until 2003 when I left to Norway. In Trondheim I spent a lot of time on the dance floor, which eventually led to my winning a small trophy for rock 'n roll dancing at the Norwegian National Championships in Oslo. I still remember the national anthem of the country which I had to sing standing on the podium. :-)
When back in Belgium, An and I met up again and started to teach swingrock and slow dancing together. More than a decade later, we are both still very active as dance teachers.
In 2011 I founded swingrock.be, a platform to book dance instructors for simple initiations, single workshops, private lessons or complete series in swingrock and slow dancing.
2008
In 2008 I participated in the first pitching competitions for a number of startups I was representing.
2012
In 2012 I started teaching my first pitching workshops, bringing together my experiences as an entrepreneur and improviser.
today
The popularity of the pitching workshops has led me to work with over 200 founders, students, sales people, ... across Europe and the wider world to perfect their pitching skills.
Learn how to answer the number one question at networking events: What do you do? Get to highlight the value your idea, organisation, product or service brings into this world and ensure that your peers get the right message.
Immerse yourself into an investors world. Get acquainted with their language and finetune your proposal to maximise your chances of securing that much needed investment.
Make sure you deliver an effective message to close that deal. Prepare for counterarguments and deliver everything with confidence and grace.
Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.
Bart Van Loon
Phone: +32 16 79 50 82
Klauwierstraat 2
E-mail: bbb@bbbart.be
3970 Leopoldsburg, BE
LinkedIn: bartvanloon
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