The Enterprise Park prides itself in offering a varied selection of entrepreneurship, education and business facilities, including academic programs, aviation training, fitness development, medical tourism projects and international data centres.

The Keilir, Atlantic Center of Excellence, also located within the Enterprise Park, consists of four different schools: the Health Academy, School of Energy and Technology and the Aviation Academy. Each school has the same objective in preparing students for further studies at university, whilst providing excellent specialist training.

In 2006, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) abandoned its military base in Keflavik, leaving over 900 local people unemployed. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of the departure, the local population looked at the opportunities and consequently established the Asbru Enterprise Park.
To view the new Asbru Enterprise Park website visit, http://asbru.is/English/

The Studio is located in a former aircraft hanger which was used by the american military when they had a navy base in Keflavik during the cold war. The building is 5.000 square meters, divided into a 2.200 sq.m. (24.000 sq.ft) Sound Stage and 2.800 sq.m. of support areas. The building is surrounded by a 7.000 sq.m. fenced Studio Lot. The building has been under heavy renovations in the last few months and is now soundproof. Electricity has been updated to standards set by top film producing companies.

In the forthcoming weeks domestic and international parties will be given formal invitational tours around the studio. Foreign movie producers should find Atlantic Studios very tempting as the studio offers extremely competitive prices compared to other countries. This is due to the low value of the Icelandic krona. In addition to this, the Icelandic government are also offering a 20 percent rebate on film production costs incurred in Iceland.

The management team at Atlantic Studios believes that it will take at least three years to build up the knowledge and experience neccessary to run the studio at full capacity. Atlantic Studios will be able to provide lodging, access to swimming pool, gym facilities and much more in close proximity to the studio.

Atlantic studios is located only 5 minutes from Keflavik International Airport which has direct flights to major cities such as London, Copenhagen (3 hours) and New York (5 hours).

For more information visit www.asbru.is/English

The Keilir Institute of Technology (KIT) at the Asbru Enterprise Park in Iceland has recently announced its ambition to establish a top research library focused on science, technology, engineering, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship. The project title is: The Iceland Book Drive 2010.

In 2006, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) abandoned its Navy base in Keflavik, Iceland, since 1951, leaving over 900 local people unemployed. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of the departure, the local population looked at the opportunities associated with the new worldview and consequently established a new Institute of Technology, Keilir, focusing on sustainability, technology, engineering, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship in order to create new jobs in Iceland.

The Keilir Institute has come a long way since its foundation in 2007. The first students in energy technology and mechatronics have started their studies and the first energy laboratory is due to open in 2010.

However, today, Iceland finds itself in the middle of the largest financial crisis in history, where supports for new educational facilities are severely reduced. Again, rather than give up, Keilir is moving forward and looking for people willing to contribute to the resurrection of Iceland.

The Iceland Book Drive Project is an initiative to create a new library, providing research books, periodicals, etc. The Library will focus on books and periodicals about science, technology, engineering, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship. Books for the library will be collected in various ways such as donations and purchases. The library will not only serve students and teachers at the Keilir Institute but all other universities in Iceland, companies, and also the general public. The name of the library is The Library of Science and Technology.

In 2010, The Iceland Book Drive Project aims to collect at least 10,000 textbooks in Iceland and abroad in order to raise an amount of USD 50,000.

The Iceland Book Drive campaign will seek donations from individuals worldwide, friends, professors, donors, and book authors. The campaigners also plan to call upon support from international publishers, universities, and other organisations, which want to support education and industries in Iceland. They prefer books in English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German, French and Spanish.

To find out more information visit http://asbru.is/English/

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The idea of an expert international health facility at Asbru fits excellently with Kadeco’s recent work to develop a health village concept whereby businesses working in health related industries are clustering together to exploit synergies.

The company behind the idea, Iceland Health, aims to boost specialist treatment options and begin substantial medical tourism in Iceland. Iceland Health’s initial product offering will include joint surgery and obesity surgeries, including important post-surgery rehabilitation. Obesity services will also include a range of behavioural treatments against obesity.

Iceland Health will run its operation in close partnership with top experts from Scandinavia and the UK. To this end, important personnel have already been recruited for the project.

Iceland Health’s medical facilities at Asbru will also benefit from the support of a professional advisory council. The advisory council already has confirmed members including: Otto Nordhus, chest wall surgeon; Bjarni Sem, heart surgeon and Leif Ryd, orthopaedic surgeon. The council will also include obesity and rehabilitation experts.

The largest clients at the Iceland Health centre will be Scandinavian and UK authorities, as well as large Scandinavian institutions unable to fulfil their obligations to authorities with regard to the volume of required operations and therapy.

A majority of the remaining clients will be people from the UK and Scandinavia unfortunate enough to have been forced to wait longer than three months for essential medical treatment.

Iceland Health’s initiative will make Asbru the biggest medical tourism facility in Iceland. Asbru is already home to several innovative companies in the health and wellness sector. More information can be found at: www.asbru.is

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Geysir Green Energy which is a geothermal company based in Iceland made an agreement with the Canadian geothermal energy company of Magma Energy Corporation.  Magma will take over 10.8% of the geothermal power company HS Orka from the company Geysir. This will help boost HS Orka’s project development.

Magma Energy owns a geothermal power plant located in Nevada in the United States. Magma is also involved with other geothermal operations and projects in both North and South America.

Geysir’s main focus is within Iceland and to optimize geothermal research within Iceland. Geysir, however, also focuses on the geothermal industries within China, the United States, Germany, and the Philippines and strengthens geothermal research in other countries when the opportunity arises. Asbru’s partner company Geysir also created a brand new 9.3 MW geothermal binary power plant in El Salvador, which was the first ever geothermal power plant completely designed and built abroad by an Icelandic company.

Asbru is the new name of the former NATO military base next to Keflavik International Airport. After the NATO evacuation in 2006, the base was re-invented as a community of entrepreneurs, students and businesses. Asbru offers ambitious new aviation and clean energy related academic programs at Keilir – Atlantic Center of Excellence, has the largest university campus in Iceland, a green energy business incubator focusing on clean energy innovation, as well as many other exciting projects such as a health village, a green energy research center and Iceland’s first international data center.

Geothermal energy helps the environment and creates a cleaner form of energy usage. This recent partnership not only creates international interest but creates a better future in regards to the environment and the human energy resource needs. This new Canadian partnership with Asbru’s partner companies definitely creates a new future for energy options.

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As well as Verne Global, Asbru is getting attention from all sorts of other companies wanting to invest in sustainability and green innovation using clean energy from Icelandic hydroelectric and geothermal energy sources. A clean energy research lab (Keilir) and a clean energy business incubator (Eldey) are all a part of the area’s strategy of creating a clean technology business park.

The Chief Technology Officer at Verne Global, Tate Cantrell, says that the data centre industry has a real need for a clean energy solution that drives down overall cost. Iceland, he believes, offers such a solution.

Tate Cantrell recently wrote an article on the subject for greendatacenternews.org where he states: “With energy costs fluctuating and going up more than down, and data centers consuming a tremendous amount of energy there is a real need in the market for a green innovation solution that reduces energy and drives down overall cost. Data centers have historically required large, expensive chilling systems to keep all of the equipment at a regulated temperature. Now more than ever, companies are scrambling to find ways to reduce dependencies on the status quo and become more energy efficient all around.

He went on to say that Iceland is an ideal place for cost free cooling every single day. “The mean annual temperature is -0.5°C (30°F) in January and 10°C (50°F) in July. Iceland is very much its own cooling system, standing by to draw the heat right out the computer servers.

“Using power generated by Iceland’s very accessible pockets of underground steam, we are able to utilize an extremely inexpensive source of electricity. As some data centers struggle to accommodate power densities as low as four to five kilowatts per rack – with high cooling costs – ours can handle 15-20 kW, thanks to good old Mother Nature. With a continuous supply of naturally chilled water, Iceland can also accommodate next generation water cooling for higher density data center racks simply and inexpensively making it perfectly suited for a direct water-cooled environment.”

Tate Cantrell’s main role at Verne Global revolves around product design and development and data centre operations. Mr. Cantrell has been involved in data centres and other high tech facilities for more than 15 years, starting as a research programmer for computational modelling on biomedical applications.

Further details on Asbru knowledge and entrepreneurial community on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, take a look at www.asbru.is/English

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Wind pumps will, it is hoped, provide a cheap and climate friendly way to raise the water level in the reservoirs of hydroelectric power stations with the aim of increasing reliability and even overall power yield.

Whole new areas of energy creation might become usable because wind pumps could also allow engineers to make brand new hydroelectric reservoirs in places impossible at the moment: while electric pumps are highly effective, it is considered counterproductive to create hydroelectricity from water which had been pumped into the reservoir by electrically powered pumps. Wind pumping would eliminate that problem altogether.

In addition to Keilir and the Icelandic Energy Company (IEC), Landsvirkjun has also declared itself open to future co-operation on the project. Landsvirkjun is Iceland’s state-owned utility company.

Before this new Keilir R&D contract, IEC and Landsvirkjun have been researching the economics of wind-pumping as a usage possibility of wind-energy since last autumn. IEC has been working alone on the idea and its application since 2007.

For more information on the Keilir Atlantic Center of Excellence and the Asbru educational community in which it is located, visit www.asbru.is/English