At appealing locations, top technology companies give a peek into their organization. As a valve to the Dutch Technology Week, the High Tech Discovery Route brings you along all high tech hotspots in the region. For young and old, for professionals and lovers, this day is full of surprising discoveries for everyone! There is a lot to see, to do, to experience it’s a day where you experience, as a visitor, that you are living, working in a high-tech country where you can be proud of. In a series of articles, E52 already took a look at the DTW High Tech hotspots. Today it’s Holst at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
Discover how technology, science and business come to the smartest and most creative solutions together. Research centre Holst Centre started with this philosophy eleven years ago. It grew from 15 employees to about 250 and produced revolutionary devices such as solar cells interwoven in a T-shirt with which you can charge your phone or sensors in clothing or in a patch that measure the body’s performance. They are working from the smartest square kilometre in the world, the High Tech Campus and on May 20th they are showing what is possible if you work together with other companies.
The research centre arose from a collaboration between the Dutch research organisation TNO and the Flemish IMEC, with the support of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Companies can join an investigation through an ‘open innovation’. The business model is to bring several industrial parties together and do joint research. That way the costs and risks of the research are spread and the “time-to-market” is shortened.
“If you work together on innovation, you’re much faster than the rest of the world.”Ton van Mol, Managing Director Holst
“An IT professor Henry Chesbrough already wrote about it in early 2000: There used to be many large companies that had an own research institution”, says Ton van Mol, Managing Director at Holst. “For example the Philips NatLab that used to be here. The disadvantage of that was when you invented something that wasn’t part of the core business of the company, it stranded. Even though it might have been a very good technology or a good product.”
Holst is currently focussing on the ultrasound technology together with Philips. “Philips has a very big position in the medical market and they make all sorts of imaging devices to analyse a body with. For that they use ultrasound technology. Together with Philips, we want to approach other companies to see whether we can use that technology for other applications.” Philips Innovation Services (PInS) has the knowledge of the technology, they make the MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), that enable that ultrasound and Philips Research has the knowledge of the ultrasound.
“One of the most spectacular applications of ultrasound, but for in the far future, is the 3D-haptic feedback”, says Van Mol. “With that you can feel holograms. One of the disadvantages of touch screens is that you don’t feel what you’re doing. By projecting ultrasound, a wave pressure in the air, very focused on your hand, you can feel a hologram. But you can also see if pipelines are still good and use them for a continuous measurement of blood pressure.”
Visit these hotspots on the 20th of May, from 11:00 till 17:00: De Ontdekfabriek and Strijp-S (Eindhoven), Philips Innovation Center Eindhoven North (Best), High Tech Helmond – De Peel (location HVL – MCM in Liessel/Deurne), High Tech Campus Eindhoven and Kempen Tech (Hapert).