Entrepreneurial Alumni

Ward Viaene

Posted 01 November 2015

New York Program

August 2011 Intake

Ward is the co-founder of in4it, a webhosting business specialising in working effectively and efficiently with (Big) data using state of the art Machine Learning techniques. He is based in Brussels, Belgium.

Ward gives the following account: "In May this year I moved from London to Brussels to start my own company. I was pretty happy working in London, but I always wanted to build something myself. Our company is still in the bootstrapping phase. We don't use external capital, only internal cash flows and savings, hence the reason why I moved to Brussels. Our company focusses on improving software delivery using cloud computing. I also deliver training courses to companies all around the world, thanks to my contacts in London. I think having done the New York Mountbatten program really prepared me to take my career to an international level. I'm now very comfortable travelling to different countries and places like Romania, San Francisco, Seoul, Doha, to give specialised IT training. Eventually, our goal is to build our own software product and get funded, but that doesn't happen overnight. There is still a long way to go. The most difficult step to get started is to quit your job and start building something yourself. Starting a business is in some way the same as joining Mountbatten, you have to give up some security, but afterwards you will see it was worthwhile. For anyone thinking about setting up a business themselves, think about when you gave your notice while not even being sure you will get into the program, but afterwards, it was all worth it" Check out Ward's website at www.in4it.io.