A series of innovations today marked the end of the fourth edition of HighTechXL. XL Day is the world’s High Mass for High Tech Hardware startups. And this edition of XL-Day again was a fine day for a lot of news. We made an overview.
No more patches and wires for premature babies thanks to Bambi Belt. And Amber One: a brand new electric car designed for car sharing. These are two of the innovations that participants of the accelerator program of HighTechXL presented on XL Day today in Eindhoven. Investors from across Europe, the United States and Asia were in the audience.
Cars will be built in Eindhoven again
Startup Amber Mobility had already unveiled prior to XL Day that it is creating a new car sharing platform together with a large Dutch bank and a large car leasing company. But what it has kept quiet until today, is that it is going to do that with an electric car they have designed specifically for car sharing. The Amber One has a range of 400 km, a top speed of over 150 km / h and accelerates from 0 to 100 in 7 seconds. This is the first car in the world designed specifically for car sharing, with a lifespan of 1.5 million kilometers. It is completely modular, making maintenance easier and cheaper. The first prototypes will be on the road in 2017 and production will start one year later. The car will not be for sale, but customers can drive it for 33 euros per week. Read more on Amber here.
Bambi Belt: no patches or wires for premature babies
Patches and wires attached to newborn babies? That could be done differently, according to neonatologist Sidarto Bambang Utomo. He invented a band that monitors the baby’s functions wirelessly. No more pain when changing the patches and more frequent and more comfortable kangaroo mother care means a better brain development for the baby. His son Fabio felt that this should not stay just a good idea and started working with his father on Bambi Medical. More on Bambi behind this link.
HighTechXL: from idea to startup to scale-up
With the help of the Eindhoven Startup Alliance (such as Philips, ASML, EY, BOM and NTS Group) HighTechXL has become a broader initiative than just an accelerator program. HighTechXL also mentors companies in the ideation and scale-up phase at High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. That is “the smartest km² in Europe” with more than 140 companies and institutes, and some 10,000 researchers, developers and entrepreneurs working on developing future technologies and products. Campus companies (a.o. Philips, NXP, IBM, Intel) are responsible for nearly 40% of all Dutch patent applications.
Today, HighTechXL announced the members of the advisory board of the Eindhoven Startup Alliance:
Jan Peter Balkenende, former Prime Minister and currently a senior advisor at EY.
Marcel Boekhoorn, Dutch investor with a wide array of business interests.
Hans de Jong, CEO of Philips Benelux.
Frank Landsberger, senior advisor at INKEF Capital.
Peter Wennink, President and CEO of ASML.
A couple of XL-alumni – scale-ups already – also brought home some good news. A collaboration with NASA for example, and a new high-tech underwear line.
The scale-ups were present on XL Day in the form of alumni teams of the accelerator program sharing their progress with the audience. For instance, Manus, which makes robotic gloves to control virtual reality, elaborated on its partnership with NASA. And LifeSense launched a new high-tech underwear line.
Collaboration with corporates
HighTechXL is working closely together with corporates on innovation. HighTechXL organized an accelerator for internal teams for several multinationals. During XL Day Philips and EY showed how this stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship from within.
Final statements by HighTechXL founder Guus Frerikx:
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