IO Innovation Bites

There will be a new version of the Tech Xperience Week, which was conceived in 2018. This time with more candidates (not ten but twenty), a stricter selection and several ‘challenges’. The goal, however, remains the same: to grow ambassadors who tell the story of Brainport Eindhoven and Brabant in their own country. “So that their colleagues, family or friends have our region on their minds when they consider looking for work or setting up a start-up in high tech”, says Brabant Branding’s Sandy van den Hoogen.

The set-up of the Tech Xperience is slightly different from the first edition. “This time we try to match interested candidates based on their profile as well as a possible fit with the companies they will be visiting so their background fits with what the companies are doing”, says Yvonne van Hest of Brainport Development. “That makes the visit more interesting for both the talent and the company. At the same time, we also want to appeal to people with more different backgrounds.” The campaign focuses on people from outside the Netherlands, but within Europe.

Want to join a challenge? Visit innovationorigins.com for more info.

This is stated in the study ‘Now we’re talking: learning by explaining your reasoning to a social robot‘ presented by UT. The study continues to build on the understanding that explaining out loud to yourself or to others what you are learning about leads to a better grasp of a subject. However in situations where someone is working on their own, it’s not such an obvious thing to do.

A social robot can be of help.

More on innovationorigins.com

German start-ups raised more money last year than ever before. This is a ray of hope following the realization that the German economy has seen the weakest growth in six years. The favourable news about the appeal of German start-ups to investors can be found in the start-up barometer published by Ernst & Young. These concern companies that are no older than ten years old.

German start-up entrepreneurs were able to raise more capital in 2019 than ever before. This amounted to €6.2 billion in total. Which was an increase of more than a third (36%) compared to the previous year. Aside from that, the number of investment rounds increased by 13% to 704.

Berlin profited the most from this sum. Start-ups in the capital were boosted by €3.7 billion, divided over 262 financing rounds. This represents an increase of 41% in comparison to 2018.

15% of all public transport buses in the Netherlands are now electric, e-bus builder Ebusco says. “The European Union has set stringent objectives for reducing CO2 emissions in the very near future. The Netherlands is the most progressive EU state in this regard. In 2016 the Dutch government signed an agreement with all public transport providers stipulating that no new diesel buses may be sold from 2025 and that from 2030 no diesel buses will be allowed to operate.” By the end of 2018, there were 360 electric buses in the Dutch public transport system, by the end of 2019 the number had already reached 770. This represents 15 per cent of the entire Dutch fleet (5,236 buses).

Researchers at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Avellino (Italy), have now developed a simple blood test that reveals whether a child is not getting enough sleep. This is evident from the concentration of certain molecules in the blood. These are linked to the amount of sleep children and adolescents get. The so-called microRNAs show whether the sleep behavior “corresponds to the standard recommendations,” Giuseppe Iacomino and his colleagues explain.

Without phosphorus, there would be no life as we know it. The mineral is present in our DNA and cell membranes and is an important building block for our bones and teeth. Besides calcium, phosphorus is the most common mineral in our body and it provides the cells with important energy. Scientists have long been trying to solve the mystery of how and where it came to Earth. A group of international astronomers has now used the new results of the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the ROSINA-InstrumeAstronont on board the Rosetta (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) to trace the origin of phosphorus from star-formation regions to comets.

This revealed where phosphorous-containing molecules are formed, how they get into comets, and how a particular molecule may have played a crucial role at the beginning of life on our planet: phosphorous monoxide. “Life appeared on Earth about four billion years ago, but we still don’t know what processes produced it,” says Dr. Víctor Rivilla, a researcher at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory of INAF, Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics.

Germany is split on the subject of electromobility. On the one hand, “green scientists” are in a hurry to make the transition from combustion to electric motors. This is the only way to become CO2 neutral and the only way for the automotive industry to survive. On the other hand, there is the car lobby that puts on the brakes, supported by “grey scientists” who think the German energy transition is too expensive and nonsensical as long as the rest of the world doesn’t participate. Volker Quaschning, professor of sustainable energy systems at the University of Technology and Economics (HTW) in Berlin, is clearly in the first group.

Earthworms, polar bears, bees and buttercups. Which animals and plants are best equipped for climate change? Which species can adapt or migrate and which ones will simply disappear? This is a question that researchers at the Senckenberg und LOEWE-Zentrum für Translationale Biodiversitätsgenomik (Senckenberg and LOEWE Center for Translational biodiversity genomics) want to answer on the basis of genetic material. A study in the journal “Evolution Letters” shows this.

The recently opened Volumetric 3D Videostudio in the Eindhoven Effenaar will also get a research branch. In the project ‘Chronosphere‘, creative content makers, research institutes and technology companies will investigate the possibilities of 3D scanned persons. In the Volumetric 3D studio dozens of cameras simultaneously record all the movements of a living subject. These recordings are converted into a fully moving and digital image, creating an image that can hardly be distinguished from the real thing.

Simply reducing CO2 emissions is probably not enough to meet the Paris climate targets. The amount of CO2 that’s already in the air must also be lowered. Students at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have come up with an innovative solution: They want to convert CO2 into formic acid. A chemical that can be used as a sustainable fuel, among other things.

Doctors, nurses or shift workers often suffer from an irregular work schedule. They are more easily irritated, more tired and their normal sleep/wake rhythm is completely disrupted. In order to solve this problem, Toine Schoutens devised special light therapy glasses to support a healthy sleep-wake rhythm. Propeaq. His invention was viewed with scepticism for quite a while at first. But those days are far behind him, as Olympic athletes have been using Propeaq products since 2006 and their number is increasing. Meanwhile, the Tilburg company already supplies its glasses to fourteen countries so that athletes can start their competitions in peak condition and without any jet lag. Schoutens travelled to CES for the second year in a row to promote his glasses.

The universities involved are Monash from Australia, the Technical University of Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute IMS in Duisburg.

Students of today are the engineers of the future. They are facing major societal challenges in areas such as sustainability and the environment. But what is it like to work on a groundbreaking innovation when you are in your twenties? A new year offers new opportunities. This year Dirk van Meer, a student at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and his team will build the first factory capable of recycling metals like cobalt and lithium. This might resolve the impending metal shortage. As the captain of Team CORE, he is determining the course and at the same time pursuing his own dreams. This isn’t always easy. Especially since he has Asperger’s, a form of autism. 

Much more on innovationorigins.com

An American soldier who was released after a period of captivity by a terrorist organization is planning an attack on his own turf. This is the beginning of the first season of the TV series Homeland. But could a series like this help you prevent these kinds of attacks in the real world? Well, yes, according to Peter de Kock from Pandora Intelligence, an independent security company specialized in security risks. The company uses a scenario-based approach to discover narratives in unstructured data, which helps organisations to mitigate risks and enhance opportunities. The company combines historical information about such attacks with books, series and other stories in order to do this. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, De Kock hopes to bring new investors on board. It’s buzzing with rumours: is Pandora Intelligence going to be the next Dutch unicorn?