Asbru (area)

Asbru is a new name to a former Nato military base Naval Air Station Keflavik next to the Keflavik international airport. After Nato evacuation in 2006, the base, was re-invented as a community of entrepreneurs, students and business. Ásbrú offers ambitious new academic programs at Keilir, has the largest university campus in Iceland, one of the largest business incubators in Iceland, as well as many other exciting projects such as a Iceland’s first international Data center. Asbru is located within the municipality of Reykjanesbaer [1]

History

From the second world war, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Nato had facilities at the Keflavik International Airport. The base was known as Naval Air Station Keflavik or NASKEF. In september 2006, the US military evacuated the base and the icelandic authorities were given full command over the area[2] [3].

Kadeco

Keflavik Airport Development Corporation or Kadeco was founded by the Icelandic government on 24 October 2006 following the deactivation of the Naval Air Station Keflavik. KADECO is a private limited liability company owned by the State that is intended to guide the development and alteration of the former military area. The object of establishing the company was to ensure that properties owned by the State in the area are put into organised, advantageous civil use as soon as possible, with the goal of ensuring that positive social effects will be as substantial as possible and that negative impacts on nearby society would be as minimal as possible.. [4] [5][6]

Education

The first development project was founding a center of education, Keilir, which was established during the summer of 2007. Keilir has four core fields: green energy, aviation, creative studies and health studies.

Keilir began gradually with a pre-university diploma and graduated 85 people after only one year of operation[7]. Fall 2008 there are over 400 students at Keilir, many of them doing university level studies. [8]The Keilir Aviation Academy has recently purchased brand new teaching airplanes and will start aircraft mechanics courses next year. Keilir has been making research agreements with several companies in green energy fields such as wind pumping[9].

Student Campus

In August 2007 some of the apartments in the area were converted into student housing [10] [11]. In February 2008, A large part of the available apartments on the base were sold to one large investor, Haskolavellir, which continued developing the University Campus, the largest one in Iceland. In November 2008 there are 1.800 inhabitants on the campus both students at Keilir as well as students at other universities in Reykjavik. Connected to the University campus there is a student orientated restaurant and café opened and a Samkaup convenience store.

Data Center

Verne Global, a start-up company jointly owned by international investment companies Novator Partners and General Catalyst, has purchased buildings to operate a data center[12]. This will be the first green data center in the world. The total investment of the first phase is expected to be around 300 million USD. [13].

Entrepreneurs

Eldey incubation center was opened during the fall of 2008. Eldey is a joint venture between Kadeco, Keilir, Innovation Iceland and the University of Iceland. To date there are seven entrepreneurs moving into their new offices. Innovation Iceland is already looking towards having more companies at the area.

One of the entrepreneurs in the Asbru area is HBT which has created an electric power quality correction device called ElCorrect