Week 3: Grant holder of the Young Entrepreneurs Fund of the King Baudouin Foundation 1990
On 11 September 1990 I received very good news in a lovely letter from the King Baudouin Foundation: I was selected from 148 candidates for a grant from the Young Entrepreneurs Fund.
On 11 September 1990 I received very good news in a lovely letter from the King Baudouin Foundation. "Yesterday the Management Committee of the Young Entrepreneurs Fund unanimously endorsed the Jury's verdict and decided to retain thirty-three candidates. I have the honour and the pleasure of informing you that you too have been selected. It was not easy to compare and assess the quality, the creativity, the commercial feasibility, the prospects and the merits of so many candidates and their projects." See the letter below.
On 2 April 1991 the agreement was concluded between the King Baudouin Foundation and Ward Roef for Daylight bvba. Only the key points:
Art 1: Within the framework of the Young Entrepreneurs Fund, the Foundation awards Ward Roef a grant from the Young Entrepreneurs Fund.
4.1. The Foundation undertakes to:
4.1.1. award the Entrepreneur a grant, set at 100,000 BEF. (= 2,500 euros). This grant will be used for the benefit of the Entrepreneur in the form of the presentation and discussion of the various company forms and their applicability, provided by Vermeulen D&E.
On 9 November 1990 the grants were officially presented at the premises of RSC Anderlecht. Here the entrepreneurs were allowed to build an exhibition stand so they could present their company before and after the press conference at 11 a.m. and before and after the official presentation at 4 p.m. See the photos.
On the occasion of the presentation, the King Baudouin Foundation produced a brochure presenting the 33 selected companies that were chosen from 148 applications. Today I tried to find out which of these 33 companies still exist today. I found a number of them, which are also listed here with a link to their website and LinkedIn. To do this, I searched LinkedIn, Companyweb and Google search. I may well have missed some companies that are still very active because they have a different name. I would therefore like to ask these candidates to come forward so I can complete their details. I certainly do not want to do anyone an injustice, and I want to make as many of those candidates known as possible and connect with them on LinkedIn. I would also like to create a LinkedIn group of all the companies that were candidates, and ideally even of all the entrepreneurs who were selected by the King Baudouin Foundation in the various years that the Young Entrepreneurs Fund existed.
I used this grant for professional guidance in converting my sole proprietorship into a Private Limited Liability Company (bvba). This grant therefore gave my company a solid structure for the next 30 years. This year we will convert our bvba into a bv in line with the amended company law. For Daylight this was a keystone moment for the future. To this day I am still grateful that I was able to receive this grant from the Young Entrepreneurs Fund of the King Baudouin Foundation. I also have great respect for the staff of the King Baudouin Foundation who made this project possible and accepted my application.
In addition, in my application I found a document in which you have to describe who you are. Even today, 35 years later, I find Question 2 a fine moment of reflection. I am reproducing my answer from my application without indicating whether these are indeed things I have lived up to. Here is the question and the answer.
In your view, what are the most important personal qualities a young entrepreneur should have?
\- the will to achieve something personally
\- a huge amount of nerve and fighting spirit
\- a personal opinion, and the will to realize it at all costs, without wanting to be subordinate to a higher hierarchy in doing so.
\- a critical and analytical mind to see certain things in a different way (or sooner), and the ability to then fit them, with the necessary sense of reality, into a concrete context
\- a boundless ability to put things into perspective
\- a commercial mindset
\- an unshakeable belief in one's own abilities
Since I was able to celebrate Daylight's 30th anniversary on 28 March 2021, I have already shown GRIT. If you are a budding entrepreneur yourself, or simply want more information about GRIT, I recommend reading Angela Duckworth's book "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance".
Which of the candidates still has their King Baudouin pen (Caran d'Ache Swiss made) and the box? I still have the box ☺ see photo
A list of 33 candidates with their contact details can be found in the brochure below.
To a few whose websites I have found, I would certainly also like to say congratulations on their GRIT:
Remarkable Europe nv (Context) : Thierry Cattoir
Styling & Advertising Studio : Saskia Holvoet
Arbeids Consulting Team Desiron : Berthold Simons
Daylight bv (then: Hi-Light): Ward Roef
Verdonck Personeelsmanagement : Jos Verdonck
Barreau Traduction: Marie-Christine BARREAU
Groupe Delaunoit: Jacques Delaunoit
Otea Entreprise : Etienne OLEWICKI [](https://daylight.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Fonds-Jonge-Ondernemers-Brochure-33-kandidaten.pdf)
PDF Letter Young Entrepreneurs Fund King Baudouin Foundation PDF Het Laatste Nieuws Saturday 10 November 1990
Documents and photos
