The Chocolate Factory convinces young people to choose a technical career
How do you convince young people that a technician’s job can be challenging, rewarding and even considered cool? The answer: Entertain them while you teach them about technology, in a fantastic setting like The Chocolate Factory in Veghel, the Netherlands.
The government of the Netherlands, in an effort to close the widening gap between technical job openings and qualified people to fill them, launched the Techniekpact in 2013. This national initiative set in motion an effort to increase the number of students choosing technical career paths. Schools, businesses and local governments have joined forces to ensure that the educational programmes take a more hands-on approach and teach the skills coveted by industry.
Actemium, which has 25 business units in the Netherlands, is fully aligned with this goal. The company needs a huge swathe of skills to provide customers with innovative industrial solutions and services, so its training efforts are both rigorous and creative. Actemium’s Industrial Technology Centre in Veghel serves as a hub for technical training across a range of industrial automation and engineering jobs. The heart of the centre is Edulab, where students (high school to graduate school) can get hands-on experience while completing internships or graduate projects.
The Chocolate Factory, an initiative of the local government, educational institutions, and business community, is a perfect fit for Edulab, and Actemium has been involved from the beginning.
Youth Edutainment
The Chocolate Factory is an ambitious example of the kind of edutainment that can appeal to young people over a large age range. It occupies a tower in a disused animal feed factory, with the top floor offering commanding views of Veghel, a food-industry town that is transforming itself in part by creating a Cultuur Haven along the canal where boats once served the feed factories.
Each floor of The Chocolate Factory has a different challenge, with big machinery mixing with high-tech VR experiences to create a kind of living video game. On the 6th floor, Actemium has installed the hagelslag machine, a highly automated and innovative setup with three robots, where visitors can create and fill their own recipes.
Starting at the end of February, The Chocolate Factory will welcome paying visitors from Wednesday to Sunday. On Mondays and Tuesdays, the factory will become a hybrid learning environment to gain some hands-on experience with mentors for their internships or to work on assignments.
Ahead of the official opening, employees of Actemium and the other companies involved (QING, Mars, FrieslandCampina and VanderLande Industries and more) brought their families to put the leisure side of the project through its paces.
Local Collaboration
In addition to offering an inspiring edutainment experience, the factory also provides a hybrid learning environment for students from nearby (technical) schools. Students work alongside professionals from participating companies on The Chocolate Factory’s machines, gaining valuable hands-on experience.
It’s a project that has brought together local educational institutions, municipal governments and companies in a common effort to spread the word that technical jobs are rewarding
said Eus de Haas, country director for the Netherlands at Vinci Energies, Actemium’s parent company.
There are more than 2,500 job vacancies in the technical installation field, an area where Actemium is very active, de Haas said, adding that companies in industrial automation, another key area sector for Actemium, were dealing with similar conditions.
Interns and hands-on experience
Actemium made a five-year commitment to The Chocolate Factory, with enhancements to be planned and executed by interns and graduate students.
“Over that time, we will define challenges for the students and give them funding and guidance to complete them.” said Peter de Wit, brand and business development director at Actemium Netherlands. “This allows us to maintain and create innovations on the hagelslag machine.”
It’s really great see professionals from Actemium and the other affiliated companies working together with students from technical schools and universities around the region to maintain, improve, and renew the tower
said Henk Maas, who is the full-time development director at The Chocolate Factory.
Hybrid education programmes like this bring learning and work closer together — this is so important now because work is changing so quickly.
Henk Maas continues: “The local stakeholders, businesses, and educational institutions that built The Chocolate Factory form an ecosystem where different groups can meet and exchange ideas. The combined energy of all the parties involved, which made this project a success, can also be sustained in the future. Together, we show that working in technology is both fun and rewarding.”
When asked what he considers a sign of success, Maas responds: “It’s a success if, in the coming years, more students from the region choose a (further) technical education. The more students who choose technology and gain relevant hands-on experience, the better it is for the job market and the region!”
The first cohort of 20 students will arrive in September and stay until February 2026, when another group will come in February and stay until the summer holiday. Actemium is providing full-time employees to manage the students’ learning environments.