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A large Belgian technology delegation has wrapped up a trip to Atlanta, building on momentum from last year’s royal trade mission and showing again how the city’s tech sector is drawing attention from the highest levels of Belgian government and society.
While Prime Minister Alexander de Croo canceled his participation due to nuclear-power negotiations at home, the high-profile mission led by the Agoria tech association brought some 60 participants to the metro area to explore “the future of digital” while meeting with influencers in Atlanta’s tech ecosystem.
The trip came a year and a half after Belgium’s Princess Astrid led some 300 companies here, a group some billed as the largest delegation to Atlanta since the Olympics. It also came about a month after Belgian Ambassador Jean-Arthur Régibeau visited the city.
Fittingly, for a country known for its beer, the Belgian group capped visits to Atlanta Tech Village and beyond with a reception at New Realm Brewing on the Atlanta Beltline organized by the Atlanta-based Belgian-American Chamber of the South.
Atlanta boosters did their best to seize the moment, saying that Georgia is at once the top state for doing business and home to more Belgian-owned companies than any other in the U.S.
Metro Atlanta Chamber President Katie Kirkpatrick, who visited Belgium this summer, said she was grateful to be able to return the welcome she experienced in the country.
“That was my first trip to Belgium. I was thoroughly impressed with the people, the innovation that I witnessed, the technology, but quite honestly the warm hospitality that reminded me here of home,” she said.
She pitched Atlanta as a place where a strong corporate community mingles with a growing cast of…
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