The magazine noted that Flanders was "quietly building up world-class capabilities in a few key areas". Although the tech economy was dominated by small and midsize businesses, some larger players were contributing to the region's success.

Names mentioned in the article included Innogenetics in biotech; IMEC, Europe's largest independent microelectronics R&D house; and Lernout & Hauspie together with Flanders Language Valley, the cluster of speech, artificial language and language-technology developers.

Each of the 46 "hotspots" was given a score of up to four on each of four factors:

• The ability of area universities and research facilities to train skilled workers or develop new technologies
• The presence of established companies and multinationals to provide expertise and economic stability
• The population's entrepreneurial drive to start new ventures
• The availability of venture capital to ensure that the ideas make it to market

Flanders scored four on the first point, three on the third and two on each of the others - a total of 11 out of a possible 16.