A dynamic model of Cyber-entrepreneurship and cluster formation: applications in the United States and in the Low Countries Harry Bouwman a, * , Wim Hulsink b a Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands b Faculty of Business Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands Abstract Policy-makers and captains of industry in the Netherlands and Flanders have come up with plans, actions, and measures to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in the ICT-in- dustries. Inspired by the vision and experiences with new business development and cluster formation in Silicon Valley, Route 128 and Silicon Alley, they seek to create indigenous technopoles in the Low Countries. Some of these new ideas and plans have recently been put forward: Amsterdam Multimedia Corridor, Louvain Technology Corridor, Flanders Lan- guage Valley, Twente and Dommel Valley. This paper seeks to address the following research questions: Is it possible to emulate the success of Silicon Valley in the polders of the Low Countries? And what are the preconditions for growing a Silicon Valley in the Netherlands and Flanders? In order to explain the path-dependent rise of ICT-technopoles in general, a dynamic model is presented and discussed. Furthermore, analyzing and comparing the aforementioned ICT-clusters in the Netherlands and Flanders validates the model. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The geographical structure of high-technology industries is often very concen- trated, with a multitude of linkages between core firms, their spin-offs and local subcontractors, top-class universities and research centres, and local/regional Telematics and Informatics 19 (2002) 291–313 www.elsevier.com/locate/tele * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-15-278-80-69; fax: +31-15-278-79-25. E-mail addresses: h.bouwman@tbm.tudelft.nl (H. Bouwman), whulsink@fbk.eur.nl (W. Hulsink). 0736-5853/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0736-5853(01)00018-1