Last October 23, as part of the KIKK Festival, several delegations of Belgian and foreign visitors headed off at the same time to travel to the four corners of Wallonia. Their common goal: to discover the talents of the Walloon and Brussels digital creative industry. An opportunity offered by a particularly ambitious programme, wake! by Digital Wallonia.

‘When I got here and saw so many people in the hall, I thought, “Wow, something is really happening here”.’  Thierry Dutoit, facing us, is wearing a broad grin. It is a little past 13.30 and the Director of Science at the Mons-based creative hub Le CLICK can barely contain his enthusiasm when we ask him what he thinks of this first edition of the wake! Tour: ‘It’s incredible, because 5 or 10 years ago we would never have been capable of displaying something on this scale. And now we are at a point that, when foreign visitors come here, we can really showcase the Wallonia-Brussels Community’s firepower in the cultural industries domain. It is really stunning.’ 

Indeed, there is good reason to feel happy, because an hour earlier a coach full of the inquisitive from every part of Belgium but also from abroad – we spot some Spaniards, Poles and English people – had drawn to a halt in front of the Mons creative hub. Entrepreneurs, investors, but also representatives of the public services coming to discover the Walloon exhibitors on-site.

Big hitters to demonstrate Walloon know-how

Amongst them, a renowned figure of Walloon digital tech: Nicolas d’Alessandro, one of the founders of the Hovertone digital agency, which specialises in phygital interaction design. ‘Today, I have been invited to take part in a panel on the role of immersion, interactivity and new technologies in exhibitions and public spaces. The aim is to show how you can get people onboard, how to affect them emotionally with these new technologies in order to get messages across. To do so, I am taking them to MUMONS, where they will be able to see one of our productions.’

This production is a video-projection onto the very walls of the cellars of the University of Mons’ museum, which was once a convent. The experience gives the floor to two spectral nuns, who come back to life for long enough to tell the visitors their stories, as well as the history of the premises. 

To be able to directly show one of his flagship experiences to so many people is a priceless opportunity for the founder of Hovertone. ‘Yes, it’s important. Something like this was necessary to be able to bring together so many people here, in Wallonia. And what I find really valuable about the wake! Tour is that it enables the professions and the know-how to be demonstrated directly. There are, of course, many theoretical things which you have to know, but our industry is also and above all know-how, and that is passed on thanks to events such as this, by contagion, as I like to say.’ 

A little further on, it is another entrepreneur active in the digital creative industry who is grabbing the attention of the visitors. Chadi Abou Sariya is the founder of MiamMiam Creative Lab, a Brussels startup whose exhibit has caught the eye (or rather the ears) of many of the people present. ‘My creation is called Spherix 360. It is designed to rethink and offer a new dynamic to 360 degree spatialised sound. In short, it serves to eliminate the digital automations we today have on the sounds of video games and films, for example. It is they which normally decide how the sound is distributed on these media: from which side it comes, according to what intensity, etc. What I am doing here is, I code. I recode everything, I create an audio rendering engine, controllable, I decide everything. And that is how it works.’

And it is an understatement to say that his concept is attracting attention, as he emphasises with a smile. ‘Apparently, there is a big buzz around it, and I’m delighted by it. And what’s more, I feel there is goodwill here, I sense a coming together. If you look at it on a macro scale, to be able to be here at an event like wake! Tour, which is part of KIKK, it’s a massive plus. For my part it means I no longer have to be a nutcase, isolated in my basement to work on these concepts. It allows me to share my creations and find the right people to show them to and discuss them with.’

One banner to bring them all

But to get a good grasp of the dynamic of wake! Tour, it is first and foremost necessary to understand the wake! concept. And who better to talk about it than the project coordinator, Delphine Jenart: ‘wake! brings together the digital creativity actors’ ecosystem in Wallonia. It owes its creation to the fact that KIKK has been mandated by the Walloon government to become the key go-to actor of the cultural and creative industries (CCA) at the heart of the Digital Wallonia strategy. Amongst KIKK’s activities are in particular the creation and distribution of 3D animations, immersive experiences in cultural sites or at major events, be they in VR, XR or AR, videomapping or in video games.’

Thanks to its influential profile and its pivotal role as a promotor of creative and digital know-how in Wallonia, KIKK will fully play its ‘sherpa’ role in guiding political leaders in their understanding of the sector, so they will be able to aid and support the sector’s project owners. 

But little by little, a self-evident truth will dawn on the various actors involved in this project. Amongst them is Sébastien Nahon, founder and director of the Media Innovation & Intelligibility Lab at the UCLouvain and coordinator of the international strand of the HiTT strategic initiative (for Human interactions technology transfer) dedicated to immersive technologies. 

‘I will give you the most classic example we keep on returning to. When the time comes round for South by Southwest (we for that matter had the good fortune to discover it), the American festival which is THE unmissable event in our sector, we, the Belgians, turn up there completely dispersed. And we do so whilst all the other countries are very centralised whilst they have a very distinct brand image. We, we don’t have either a brand, or a logo, or anything which would enable this Belgian Touch we represent to be showcased.’ 

This lack of a global standard-bearer, in his opinion, means there is no way of attracting the world’s attention: ‘we have this surrealist creative aspect, we are the little minnows who don’t have many resources, but who despite everything manage to be on a par in terms of creativity with other much bigger countries. And it is for that reason that the creation of wake!, whose mission is to bring together all of our talents, is very important.’ 

An assessment shared by Thierry Dutoit: ‘It is a little like electrons whose spins align to go in the same direction. It is also important for us because we know very well that the cultural and creative industries have not been supported enough by the Walloon government. They are considered as an industrial sector which is a little bit behind the five Walloon priority sectors (of the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3)). So it is important that we mobilise and put ourselves forward in this way.’

A year to reflect and act

The issues having been identified, a working group was established at the beginning of January, 2024. Its role: to get to work in terms of coordinating and uniting the ecosystem around this mandate. The first mission: to bring around the same table the actors and institutions the most concerned and the most capable of developing solutions, as Delphine Jenart explains: 

‘we have brought together both investment funds such as NOSHAQ, Start-invest, Wallimage, universities such as the UCL, the UNAMUR, the UMONS, research centres, as well as digital creativity spaces. Here we have the TRAKK, the Grand Poste, Le CLICK. We have also tried to ensure a certain representativeness of the territories and the operators which drive and boost the ecosystem, rather like events such as KIKK, Meet and Build (we were there as well), but also initiatives which are underway in Brussels, such as Stereopsia.’

A large number of public actors, therefore, to which are added private actors such as Dreamwall, Motion Sense, Davanac and Amplo for all the human resources sector of the CCI. They share their observations, their feedback, as well as their solutions to further raise the profile of the Walloon digital creative industry. Together they are creating a standard-bearer, a label hosted by the Digital Wallonia environment. 

These discussions and reflections led, in July of the same year, to the creation of a white paper weighing in at over a hundred pages, written with the political leaders in mind. A means of establishing the theoretical foundation of the wake! ecosystem. 

A showcase in which to sparkle

But while the theory is all well and good, nothing is better than putting the concept into practice. And that is where the wake! Tour springs into action. And as there is not one single specific Walloon hub but several, this tour has been conceived as a roadshow throughout the region. 

Three routes are available for the visitors:

• The first takes them in the direction of Namur and TRAKK, for a session dedicated to digital communication, hosted in particular by renowned actors such as Digizik, Poum Tchak, MR81 and Alex GD. 
• The second route offers an immersion in Liège in the world of music and of Music Tech, and a visit to the city’s three most iconic musical innovation hubs, organised by Leansquare’s Wallifornia Music Tech.
• Finally, Mons and Le CLICK, which is where we ended up going with kingkong, offers a circuit on the theme of Culture & Entertainment Tech, including several of the city’s museums.

‘With these routes, we have established the design of this showcase. And as regards that, now, thanks to the KIKK Festival, we have been able to give life to it. What is amazing is that all of it existed already. But before, everyone was sort of doing their own thing, because there was no unifying umbrella. The wake! Tour means that our know-how can be spotlighted in the way it deserves,’ happily points out Bérengère Fally, Innovation Manager at Technocité.  valoriser notre savoir-faire comme il le mérite”, se félicite Bérengère Fally, Innovation Manager chez Technocité.

Delphine Jenart, who is most definitely everywhere, meets us and adds:  ‘all of the operators are here: the knowledge, the know-how, the potential. And we are extremely well situated. Belgium, don’t forget, is the heart of Europe. We are very close to the major capital cities, and so, with this type of event, we are able to boost our profile.’

Boosting the profile, therefore, and showcasing, in one day, a large span of the Walloon ecosystem. And to be able to demonstrate the potential contours of a Walloon Creative Tech Valley, simultaneously dynamic and attractive, both within Belgium and internationally.

Credibility and the ability to convince

But to do so, what is required is investment, visibility and, above all, the support of the political leaders. Yet, as Thierry Dutoit said a little earlier, this particular variable is not necessarily the simplest to activate: ‘It is not only in Belgium, but in all the European countries, where you have the feeling that the political decision makers are still very lukewarm as regards our sector. We can quite rightly concede that it is not their profession, and that it is therefore to be expected that they find it hard to follow the technological and creative progress. That also means that we have to continuously show them the potential of the actors operating and of the sector itself in order to raise their awareness. So that they no longer view it as a murky underworld of idle dreamers and artists, but as a hotbed of hyper-pragmatic, hyper-rational actors, ready to take the Belgium and global markets by storm,’ Sébastien Nahon explains.

For Nicolas d’Alessandro, another difficulty lies in the ability to accurately demonstrate how this digital creative industry operates. ‘At the political level, I think there is still another hurdle to overcome. Then again, in terms of inspiring the decision makers to consider creativity as an economic muscle, quite a lot of progress has already been made. But personally, what I really like about this initiative, whether it is the wake! Tour or everything around it, is the passion to enable everybody to understand our industry. We are in a know-how sector, and it is not necessarily easy to explain. We must succeed in evolving on this point, vis-à-vis the politicians, the industries, the large corporate groups. It is by creating this contagion, so that everyone understands the issues, that we will manage to get this sphere of activity to skyrocket, be it in Wallonia or elsewhere. But the situation is that we are trying to do that here, and that’s wonderful.’

The beginning of a major movement

Whilst this first edition of the wake! Tour has been, there is no doubt about it, a resounding success, there is no question of leaving things there for the various actors involved in setting it up. ‘The follow-up is likely to be extremely hectic. What has just concluded is edition-zero. Now, we will get together, have a debriefing, as transparent as possible. There is the will, quite clearly, to do a wake! Tour 1, 2, 3, and to keep going. To see what worked, to see what didn’t work quite so well. And what we are already discussing internally, is that we have to get started on it tomorrow, after the KIKK festival, to begin creating the next edition. What is very interesting is that with the involvement in particular of Wallonie-Bruxelles Internationale, we are genuinely in a partnership. And that is something we really didn’t have before: co-building together, between the various stakeholders, one vision, a clear mission, and clear programmes. For me, we have already gained so many things,’ argues Sébastien Nahon.

An assessment of the profile boost beyond the borders shared by and extended by Bérengère Fally: ‘this morning I just returned from Canada (Editor’s note: Canada Digital mission organised by the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency and the WBI to Montreal – the Montreal Hub event held every year in the month of October – and in Toronto), where I met many businesses from the creative and digital sectors. And up until now, we had been hugely inspired by what was being done in Canada. Yet, and I say it without hesitation, we today have Walloon and Brussels companies at the same level, if not better. So I think we need to have a vision even more focused on the international scene to promote these companies. And to above all ensure that on our territory they can find the necessary skills to maintain their growth and their innovation, in developing adapted training programmes and encouraging local talents to remain here.’

Delphine Jenart is for her part already preparing for future challenges:  ‘The mandate of the previous Walloon government was for 2019-2024. We had this mandate until the end of its term of office. The idea is therefore to be enabled to be sustainable over a long period by the new government team which will be established. And of course, what we would like is to be able to continue with the same liberties and the same prerogatives as during this first year.’ 

A considerable programme, to which is added one which is equally as ambitious: ‘there is in-depth work to be carried out on the cartography of the sector, but also of the training offer, to see if it corresponds to the needs of the market. Because, in this regard, even though the offer has developed considerably over the past ten years, there are still many holes in the racket: another project in which the wake! dynamic may come in handy.’

A heavy workload in the upcoming years, therefore. But also and above all a great many sources of inspiration, in view of the extremely rich and creative breeding ground which our region – however so small it is  – contains within it. 

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