Jelmer's story: Out of office

My journey to Innisfil doesn’t exactly read like the lyrics to a country music song, but certainly like a winding country road, and a liberating road at that. I would never have imagined my life, north of the city and working as a civil servant no less. What a difference a couple years makes.

I immigrated from Holland, got a degree in sports management and with my passion for athletics and a little business savvy, I started my own business. Being recruited to develop a cycle program for the City of Mississauga, I quickly realized it wasn’t for me: a large city spends too much energy in mitigating risk rather than driving innovation. Sadly.

Innisfil hires differently. When it comes to hiring, they’re looking for individuals with a different mindset and real passion. Here, I’ve been able to create my dream job. I have the freedom to incubate an idea and take it all the way through to completion. Whether the Female Entrepreneurs Digital Marketing Bootcamp or developing the partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University (Ryerson) for our Tech Accelerator, it’s all pretty wicked.

Being able to have a real impact and influence on a bigger scale has always been important to me. The Toronto Metropolitan University DMZ partnership will enable us to attract and support a higher number of start-ups (compared to us building our own accelerator from scratch) and accelerate the impact we make on the community, economy and the establishment of our local tech cluster.

Working here feels like I get to build my very own ecosystem. It’s wicked. Did I already say wicked?

Yes, by the time you read this bio, whatever state our project was in will have surely morphed since the time I first wrote it.

While our north star for Economic Development here in Innisfil remains the same, my role in how we get there is left entirely to me.