We already went to the moon, now let’s go to Mars!

Ever wondered what it would be like to walk on Mars? I have. As the Director of the Fiber for Belgium programme, my ambitions are sky high. And that's a good thing. Because aiming higher gets you places. In our case: aiming higher means: getting 70% of Belgians on fiber by 2028. Crazy? Not in our book.

Let's take NASA as an example. In 1969, they put the first man on the moon. Everyone cheered. It was the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. But then … not much happened for a long time. They fulfilled their dream, put a big golden bow on it and everyone gazed at it in admiration. This all went on for a while, and that golden bow began to collect more and more (moon)dust … Until, a couple of years back, a little company called SpaceX came on the radar – and started to shake things up. NASA is knowing a leap now because it opened up to external partnerships, such as with SpaceX, Proximus is doing the same with new partnerships.

A similar thing happened at Proximus. We went to the moon. We launched digital TV, we put everyone on the best VDSL network in Europe and then … we kind of lost sight of our bigger purpose. Not anymore. With Fiber for Belgium we have an ambitious plan to get everyone on the digital spaceship, leaving no man behind. But we realised we can't do it alone. Just like NASA joined forces with SpaceX to help them innovate and bring in new talent and funds, we're teaming up with new partners too.

These joint ventures – like the one we have with Fiberklaar and Unifiber– help us become more agile and see things from a different perspective. We are, much like NASA heading a great powerful spaceship and our partners, they come with an alternative approach. We learn from them, they learn from us and together, we keep course and accelerate to light speed.

As we embark on this new adventure, it's important we're all looking in the same direction: Forward and upward, driven by a shared sustainable ambition. forward and upward. My job? To turn this mission into a success. And, if we can all believe we're part of something bigger than ourselves – something bigger than we ever even imagined – I'm confident we can. You know that saying: “If you shoot for the moon, you'll land among the stars?” Well, if you shoot for Mars … who knows where you'll end up!