(Editor’s note
: We started the Eindhoven Business Briefing in 2017, because we had more news in our headquarters city – which has a huge expat population – than we could possibly post. The future really is being invented here. Send your news to: [email protected])
We’ve written ad nauseam about High Tech Campus Eindhoven, the smartest square-kilometer in the world. It is darned impressive, not to mention a beautiful place to work.
But another mega-campus is coming to Eindhoven. Brainport Industries Campus Eindhoven is a 500-acre project on the east side of Eindhoven Airport and 11 kilometers from HTC. BIC is meant to be a center for high-tech manufacturing and the “factory of the future,” where the digital world and the operational world merge.
The BIC concept brings together manufacturers and suppliers to collaborate in one place. That’s just the start. Per the Dutch Way, BIC will have all the pieces of Manufacturing 4.0 from ultra-high-tech manufacturing capabilities to supply chain to new educational strategies to stay competitive in global terms.
Summa College will bring 1,600 students to the campus as soon as August.
Of course, to build these factories of the future, you need a contractor. The first tenant will be an integrated developer/contractor.
Systabo designs, builds and even finances factories. The firm is building a 40,000 square meter (431,000 square feet) facility.
From the Systabo video:
Systabo started in November 2017 with the construction of the Brainport Industries Campus (BIC). BIC will be the first location in the Netherlands where the manufacturing industry will share facilities for production, storage, logistics, research and innovation on a large-scale in a so-called ‘Factory of the Future.’ The construction of the 60,000 m² building is progressing steadily. Meanwhile, 2/3 is under roof and several floors have already been poured. The building will be completed in phases from May 2018.
Systabo is part of VolkerWessels, a global construction company based in Amersfoort, Netherlands outside Utrecht.
Other BIC tenants include:
• California-based enterprise resource planning software company Fujitsu Glovia
• Yasakawa Benelux, which makes servo drives, frequency controllers, industrial robots and industrial control technology
• KMWE, a supplier to Boeing and Airbus
• Anteryon, which makes high-tech mirrors, sensors, lenses and opto-mechatronic devices
Forget electrons … photons are the future
TON BACKX
While the rest of the world tries to catch up with ASML and other semiconductor companies based in Eindhoven, Technical University of Eindhoven is working to keep this innovation center ahead of computing trends.
Right now, the conundrum is how to move beyond the limiting architecture of etched microcircuitry and conventional computer chips. To that end, TU/e has an interesting post titled, “How photonics will topple electronics.”
The post is a Q&A with Ton Backx, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of both the Institute for Photonic Integration and Photon Delta at TU/e. Backx believes the digital world is about to usher in an era where photonics replace photolithography.
For the uninitiated, conventional computer chips rely on streams of electrons on microcircuitry to conduct the ones and zeros that make up the basis of computing.
Next-gen computers will rely on photonics, using photon, or packets of light energy on indium phosphide, not silicon, as the semiconductor.
Photonics will replace transistor microcircuitry because there’s basically no choice. IoT, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube and, well, everything depends on ever-faster computer chips soaking up more and more power. Using light instead of electrons, Backx says, will be faster and more efficient. The interview is full of futuristic technology that seems strange now, like LIDAR and optical coherence tomography, but will be every-day stuff in a few years.
Or as Backx says, “What we can do with photonic integrated circuit technology is reduce a cabinet of electronics to a single photonic circuit – and with higher accuracy and higher resolution. ”
We always like to say the future is being created in Eindhoven. It ain’t bragging if it’s true.
HighTechXL startup alumni hiring as they mature
Every innovation center in Europe is looking to startups to boost their economies and tech eco-systems. We have a metric that validates Eindhoven’s approach: The number of startups graduating from HighTechXL’s accelerator now adding talent to their teams.
This has been a phenomenal few weeks for HighTechXL alumni, with several getting serious funding. That success is translating into new career opportunities.
Here’s a sampling of what HighTechXL alumni are doing:
In a crowded field, medtech start-up Bambi Medical stands out, closing an A Round of 4 million euros with private investors.
The startup is developing the Bambi Belt Solution, the latest generation of their wireless neonatal intensive care vital sign monitoring device. Their technology replaces adhesive electrodes used to monitor preemies with a wireless monitoring device and a base-station that processes the signals in patterns of breathing, heart rate and temperature and sends them to the patient monitor.
More than 20 hospitals from all over Europe and Asia signed LOI’s with the intention to participate in clinical trials and/or buy the product when it comes on the market.
You can find the following job postings here.
Bambi has openings for:
- A senior systems lead/hardware architect/software architect
- A systems verification & validation engineer
- Regulatory affairs & compliance officer
byFLOW is a 3D food printing company. Dispatches talked with CEO Nina Hoff recently, and she told us demand for 3D food printers is expanding incredibly rapidly in Europe and the United States.
byFlow is seeking a salesperson (Note: The ad is in Dutch).
LiquidWeb has developed assistive technology, BrainControl, to give “locked-in” patients a continued link to their environments. These patients typically have degenerative neuromuscular diseases such as ALS or traumatic brain injuries.
LiquidWeb currently has job career opportunities in Siena, Italy. Send inquiries to [email protected]
- Business Development
- Software Engineer, Java/PHP Platforms
- Web & User Interface Designer
Manus VR has developed a high-end data glove that brings intuitive interaction to virtual reality. Its unique design and cutting-edge technology allows for truly immersive experiences, tracking your hands in real-time. NASA is just one of the global innovators using Manus technology.
Manus has openings for:
- Analog/Electrical Engineer
- Software Engineer
- Senior Marketeer
Othera.io, a fintech scale-up from Australia, is building up its R&D site in Eindhoven, close to European customers, to develop the core of the product. They are building their dream team in Eindhoven (and writing job profiles as we speak):
- Full-stack experience (Java/Scala, Akka/Play, Microservices)
- Frontend experience (React), – DevOps experience (Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetis, Azure/AWS)
- UX and design (Sketch, Axure, UxPin)
Read more about Othera founder John Pellew’s approach to building teams.
Usono is a medical devices startup developing equipment that allows clinicians to attach ultrasound scanners to patients rather than hold them. Usono devices are versatile enough to be used in conjunction with – and without interfering with – other monitoring technology. They also have adapted deep-muscle sonogram scanning to sports medicine and training.
Usono has internships open in:
- Biomedical engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Innovation management
Harnessing Eindhoven’s highly skilled internationals to solve global problems
A Dutch social entrepreneur is organizing a hackathon in Eindhoven around the United Nations’ sustainable development goals Agenda 2030.
Yama Saraj, an expat from Afghanistan who’s worked in international development, is organizing a hackathon in Eindhoven in September. Hackathon 4 Sustainable Development Goals is scheduled for 21 thru 23 September.
This is all about focusing Eindhoven’s immense talent on big global issues such as water and energy, Saraj said.
From our interview earlier this month:
The smartest people in the world come to Eindhoven. A lot of them have great ideas, and they know what’s happening in their countries of origin such as India, Bangladesh and South Africa. They could be our ambassadors. They could be our intermediaries. They could bring technologies and design solutions from Eindhoven to solve problems in their countries, and this could be done in a fair-trade way. Input from skilled migrants from the global south, together with our high-tech and design scene, could develop new (aid) products that make sense.
Saraj envisions fostering trans-national social entrepreneurship by harnessing the skills of Eindhoven’s highly skilled internationals. “There’s no dedicated organization doing these things, so I figured out maybe I should be doing that,” he said.
Saraj earned his degree at Tilburg University and works at High Tech Campus Eindhoven. We’ll have more about Hackathon 4 Sustainable Development as we get closer to the event.
BRIEFS
Brainport Event: With this ongoing expansion of the industrial base, Eindhoven and the Brainport Region that includes Brabant Province need talent. So today, we’re at the unveiling of Brainport Development’s new talent recruitment program.
As we’ve posted in recent weeks, ASML alone is hiring 3,000 people at a rate of about 250 people per month. There are an estimated 11,000 jobs open. So, we’ll see what the plan is and have a full post later.
It’s not just about semiconductors: Yes, we write a lot about the photolithography and photonics sector, and they’re huge here in Eindhoven. But there’s a lot of variety in the high-tech sector here.
For example, Teledyne Dalsa builds next-gen optical devices for a variety of application ranging from providing “vision” for robots to tracking parts and verifying every step of thousands of high-tech assembly/production processes. The Waterloo, Canada-based company has a number of open positions all across the Netherlands, and about a dozen jobs locally including project engineers and team leader positions.
Maker Faire: Eindhoven Maker Faire is back this fall. This is one of Europe’s best maker faires and is expected to draw 50,000 people. And in case you’re not familiar with the concept, maker faires are places where inventors and engineers get to show off their creations from robots to wearables.
You can see all the details here.
