Heleen Rouw appointed as CIIIC program director

Heleen Rouw is leaving Cinekid after five years and starting January 1, 2025 as program director of the National Growth Fund program CIIIC (Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition), which aims to strengthen the Dutch Immersive Experiences (IX) industry over the next four years and put it on the map internationally.

Immersive Experiences (IX) are playing an increasingly important role in our lives. Think virtual worlds, 360-degree images and sound, augmented reality, chatbots, interactive animation and games - driven or not by AI. Globally, IX is seen as one of the drivers of the third major digital transition (after the advent of the Internet and social media), which will have a major impact on our daily lives, work, learning and recreation.

CIIIC, funded by the National Growth Fund, is a program of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to give the sector a major boost over the next four years (2025-2029). In it, CLICKNL is responsible for the program team.
More specifically, it aims to connect the sector and together with knowledge institutions, industry, governments and makers to use and tackle opportunities and bottlenecks of IX; for example, applications in culture, gaming, media and entertainment, events, but also healthcare, manufacturing, built environment and government services.

We now set to work on further building the program team

Bart Ahsmann, director CLICKNL: 'Heleen has a wealth of experience in the field of media and entertainment, culture, getting people moving and leadership. We gladly and confidently put her in charge of CIIIC and can now get to work on further building the program team'.

Barbera Wolfensberger, Director-General of Culture and Media at the Ministry of OCW: 'With her experience and knowledge, Heleen will make an important contribution to the creation and implementation of the growth fund program CIIIC. She is a committed director with strategic vision and perseverance. I look forward to working with her.

Future-proof and impactful

To Heleen Rouw the clean task of shaping the story of the (future) Dutch IX industry: 'Over the past few years, I have gotten to know the immersive world from a cultural perspective as director of Cinekid (one of the instigators of the Moonshot Digital Culture, an initiative to strengthen the digital culture field in the Netherlands); in doing so, I encountered an open-minded, creative field with a lot of potential.'

We will establish a strong basis for a future-proof creative immersive industry

'The CIIIC program offers plenty of opportunities for Dutch knowledge institutions, businesses and creators to grow together into global players in the field of immersive experiences. As program director I think it would be great to make the connections and ensure the coherence of the entire program, so that we can lay a strong foundation for a future-proof, impactful creative immersive industry.'