Slash 16 - In English

16 DECEMBER 2016

THE MAGAZINE OF EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

TU/e turns down fundraising road: Donating to your Alma Mater

STARTUP AMBASSADOR CONSTANTIJN VAN ORANJE:

‘UNIVERSITIES SHOULD DEVOTE MORE ATTENTION TO TECH TRANSFER’

SPECIAL HEALTH: TU/e RESEARCH FROM THE HEART

02

FORWARD/

Jan van Hest (1968), Professor of Bioorganic Chemistry. Last summer he switched from Radboud University Nijmegen to set up a new research group, divided between the TU/e Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Chemistry.

j.c.m.v.hest@tue.nl

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Learned in Capsules the cradle..

‘After my study of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at TU/e and having then obtained my PhD in Eindhoven at Bert Meijer, I worked in America for eighteen months as a postdoc and three years at DSM as a researcher. Subsequently a professor’s position became vacant at Radboud University. I actually thought it came too early for me - I was only 31 -, and yet they appointed me. Better still: they decided to create an extra professorship so that they could appoint both me and my colleague Floris Rutjes, who is only a bit older. At the time this was a risky, visionary step on the part of the university, which fortunately turned out well.’

‘In Nijmegen I gathered a lot of experience in creating minuscule capsules in which you can enclose medicines, enzymes, or other substances. We have already succeeded in even integrating them with live cells, where they function as artificial organelles.

We make these capsules through self-assembly: if you put the right molecules together in the right order and under the right conditions in a beaker of water, they will form spontaneously.

You need to be very precise, but we know the required procedures down to the last detail.’

Two Departments

‘In fact Nijmegen was excellent for me, but a new environment provides new inspiration. The opportunity to switch to Eindhoven came at an ideal moment for me; an entire generation of PhD candidates were completing their studies and my daughter is going to school for the first time. Besides, what TU/e offered was very attractive indeed because I have ended up on a 50/50 basis at both Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. This fits in precisely with my two main research lines: nanomedicine and mimicking live cells.’

Advanced Grant

‘It is thought that the precursors of our mitochondria, the organelles that function as the energy factories of our body cells, came into being when a bacterium once nestled inside another bacterium. That is an intriguing insight. Recently I was awarded a European Advanced Grant of €2.5 million, which I would like to use to try and mimic that process with our own artificial organelles, in order to find out which functions you could add to a cell in that way.’

Life

‘Creating artificial life yourself, that is the dot on the horizon.

For this you need to be able to build a system that can maintain itself, can replicate itself and can adapt to the environment.

When you see the amazing progress that has been made in the past ten years, I would not exclude that in twenty years from now somebody manages to do this. You see that this fascinating prospect attracts great thinkers with varying backgrounds.

If somebody succeeds in bringing together all that knowledge at a certain moment, beautiful things may result from that.’

On page 47 backward / with Jos Smeets

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

no.16 DECEMBER 2016

16

World record under tension for TU/e

26 SPECIAL Health under the microscope

10

Startup ambassador Prince Constantijn

COLOFON Slash is the magazine for external relations and alumni of the Eindhoven University of Technology and comes out three times per year.

Total or partial use of Slash’s articles can only be done in consultation with the editors and with acknowledgment of their source. The use of photographs or illustrations is only allowed in conjunction with the creator’s permission. www.tue.nl/slash

18

Winning the Van Damme grant, and then what?

Editorial Address Eindhoven University of Technology Communications Expertise Centre, Postbox 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, e-mail slash@tue.nl, Tel (040) 24733 30/247 4020 Head editor Han Konings Final editing and coordination Brigit Span Translation Benjamin Ruijsenaars Magazine concept Maters & Hermsen Journalistiek, CEC. Design Natasha Franc

38

The spark: ‘Annoying’ vortices for science

Editorial advisory board drs. Steef Blok, prof.dr. Carlijn Bouten, mr.drs. Ben Donders, prof.dr.ir.Maarten Steinbuch Do you want to advertize in Slash?

Please inquire with H&J Uitgevers, Tel (010) 451 55 10 Do you want to receive Slash?

Register at: www.tue.nl/slash ISSN: 2212-8468

KEEP IN TOUCH Interested in collaborating with TU/e or in studying, working or getting your PhD with us? Or would you like to keep in touch as an alumnus?

Here are our contact details:

42/43 PLANNER/ VENTURER Architect versus film festival director

32 BACKGROUND

45 GETTING STARTED

The university as a charity: fundraising

‘New-fashioned’ outdoor games with Picoo

Collaboration (strategic partnership, contract research) TU/e Innovation Lab, +31 (0)40 247 48 22, Innovationlab@tue.nl Employment or PhD candidates Personnel Department +31 (0)40 247 20 90, jobs@tue.nl Designers Education Stan Ackermans Institute +31 (0)40 247 24 52, sai@3tu.nl Studying (bachelor, master)

Education and Student Services Center, +31 (0)40 247 47 47, studeren@tue.nl Alumni +31 (0)40 247 34 90, alumninet@tue.nl Press Office and Communi­ cations Expertise Center +31 (0)40 247 48 45, cec@tue.nl, www.tue.nl

04 05 TEXT BRIGIT SPAN PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

within TU/e.

for the images comes from various groups

LEDs can depict all kinds of things. The inspiration

onto the surface of the chimney stack and these

and across its full height, LEDs have been fitted

the campus into a genuine eye-catcher. Around

the chimney stack at the former boiler house on

which light artist Har Hollands has transformed

AnTUEnna is the name of the light art work with

ANTUENNA

The university boasts three permanent light art objects which it reaped as fruits of its participation in Light festival GLOW in November. Across the campus a route was laid out called GLOWscience: light objects designed and developed by TU/e employees.

ON TU/e CAMPUS

‘AFTER-GLOWERS’

NOW/

a light snake of 120 meters, that is LumenUS. The tubes light up when touched by the public. This art work will be given a permanent place in the kiosk in Laplaceplein.

computer with an algorithm.

This helps to mimic the

given a place there.

this light art work will be

Atlas) has been completed,

Hoofdgebouw (new name:

Once the renovation of the

the Van Abbe Museum.

László Moholy-Nagy in

effect of an art work by

Forty connected constructions of three tubes each which together form

controlled via a super

LUMENUS

with 20,000 LEDs. These are

cube measuring 3x3x3 meters

‘the cube’. An intelligent light

GLOW it went by the name of

and space, though during

Photonic modulation of light

‘THE CUBE’

06 07

MEMO/

Warm welcome for Team STORM Despite the cold, the rain and the wind, the reception for the 23 students of Team STORM was decidedly warm on Wednesday night November 2 on the TU/e Campus.

Executive Board member Jo van Ham proclaimed the members of the team, who traveled around the world within eighty days on an electric touring motorcycle which they had designed themselves, heroes of TU/e. www.storm-eindhoven.com

Breast-friendly, radiation-free alternative to mammogram in the making Every year approximately one million women in the Netherlands have mammograms made for the timely detection of possible breast cancer.

It is an unpleasant procedure, which involves X rays. TU/e researchers are working on a ‘breastfriendly’ method, without radiation, which is more accurate and yields 3D instead of 2D images.

In the new technology patients are lying on a table with their breast suspended freely in a cup. By means of special ultrasound (inaudible sound waves) a 3D image is made of the breast.

A potential cancer is clearly recognizable on the

images generated; therefore the researchers expect that there will be a marked decrease in the number of false positive results.

Decen­ tralized selection for four TU/e programs TU/e is going to prepare the introduction of decentralized selection for the Bachelor study programs of Industrial Design, Biomedical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences and Computer Science and Engineering.

The intake restriction will be implemented only if it is inevitable and not before the academic year 2018-2019.

TU/e is growing faster than was planned.

The growth target set in 2011 for 2020, from around 7,500 to 11,000 students, has almost been attained already.

According to vice-president Jo van Ham expectations are that the eventual number will be between 12,000 to 13,000 students.

‘That growth is forcing us to spend too big a chunk of our resources on education.

In the meantime our funds for research have not increased, and devastation was threatening to occur there’, says Van Ham. Referring to protests from the business community against the intended student quota, Rector Frank Baaijens indicated that TU/e certainly wants to respond to the call for more engineers, but that small-scale education with intensive contacts between lecturers and students is absolutely necessary if TU/e is to train the engineers that society and the business community need. However, in some programs the number of students per scientist is threatening to explode, which calls for the introduction of upper limits.

‘It is by no means easy to accommodate extra growth with extra scientific staff members and the funding from the government is lagging behind the growth of student numbers’, Baaijens explains.

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

UNIQUE ACCESS TO NANOWORLD WITH NEW TU/e LAB ‘NANOACCESS’

Car parks as ‘lungs of the city’

When particulate matter is captured in underground car parks in the city center of Eindhoven, this may reduce the concentration of these fine particles in the city by as much as 50%. This is the conclusion reached by TU/e researchers on the basis of airflow models and computer simulations of the inner city.

Under the guidance of Bert Blocken, Professor of physics of the built environment, the Eindhoven researchers modeled the buildings in Eindhoven’s city center in great detail. Into this area, with a surface of 5.1 square kilometers, they incorporated the location of 16 underground car parks. The researchers calculated the effect on the concentration of particulate matter in the city if the particles in these car parks are captured by 99 or 594 air-purifying systems.

The presence of 99 air-purifying systems usually leads to a visible reduction of particulate matter by around 10% round the car parks.

Better still, in case of 594 air-purifying systems there are indications of a far greater area, occasionally up to one kilometer away from the car parks, with at least 10% less particulate matter. In certain places this increases by up to more than 40% and 50% less.

Since November TU/e can boast a new laboratory: NanoAccess.

Here an atomic thin material can be made, manipulated and studied layer by layer with nanoscale accuracy. NanoAccess is the only facility in the Netherlands that offers scientists all these possibilities at once by means of one instrument.

The lab was established thanks to an NWO Groot subsidy amounting to almost €2m and with support from NanoLabNL. In the lab a great deal of cooperation will take place with NXP, DIFFER and Holst. The facility will also be made available to external users, such as research groups from other universities or businesses.

World record for nanowire solar cells Researchers of the TU/e Department of Applied Physics have obtained a new world record for the efficiency of solar cells on the basis of nanowires: 17.8%. Although this type of solar cells has only existed for a few years, in terms of efficiency it is fast making up for its arrears in comparison with other types and is hence promising to make a contribution to supplying sustainable power.

Unlike other types of solar cells, nanowire solar cells do not consist

of massive layers. They consist of a ‘lawn’ of erect wires approximately two hundred nanometers thick, i.e.

300 times thinner than a hair. Those nanowires capture the light and convert this into electricity. Since its invention, less than 10 years ago, their efficiency has increased to 17.8%. That is an increase which took the other types of solar cells forty years. The old record, of 15.3%, was held by the university of Lund in Sweden.

08 09

MEMO/

After renovation Atlas the most sustainable educational building in the world Atlas, the former Hoofdgebouw of TU/e, will upon its completion at the end of 2018 be the most sustainable educational building in the world. Says BREEAM-NL, which confers the highest sustain­ ability designation ‘outstanding’ on the design for the renovated building. Before long it will be the

fifth building on the campus that can do without a gas connection.

Via the internationally recognized BREEAM index (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), building and demolition projects can be assessed and ranked for sustain­

ability. Around the world this index has already been applied to 250,000 buildings. The highest score, ‘outstanding’, requires a minimum score of 85%.

With Atlas, TU/e scores 93.86%.

performance. The University of Groningen was conferred the same designation for its Energy Valley, but that is a new development.

TU/e is not the only Dutch university with an ‘outstanding’

Building the most sustainable house in the world TU/e students hope to build the most sustainable house in the world in 2018. Notably in Dubai, where the new team VirTUe will take part in the Solar Decathlon Middle East. Architecture, construction, innovative content, energy management, comfort, communication - these are several aspects according to which the house of the Eindhoven honors students in the United Arab Emirates will be assessed. There they will compete with 21 other teams from all over the world, from Qatar to Malaysia and from Australia to the United States.

Linde van Beers, a third-year student of Industrial Design, expects that the team will spend one to two months in the Asian metropolis. On the site all the participants will first be given ten days to construct their houses.

‘That in itself is a formidable challenge already.’ For this reason a large portion of the ‘TU/e house’ will be (pre)fabricated and assembled in Eindhoven, and will then be transported from here to Dubai. www.teamvirtue.nl

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

New series of TU/e Open Lectures in 2017 Thanks to great success this year, TU/e in cooperation with High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE) will in 2017 offer a new Open Lectures series. These lectures, which are intended for alumni and students of TU/e and for employees of HTCE, are presented by TU/e scientists.

The following speakers have been scheduled: ir. Carmen van Vilsteren, director of Strategic Area Health TU/e on March 21 and dr. ir. Massimo Mischi (see photo), researcher of new medical imaging techniques, on April 10. Other speakers expected include prof. Edwin van den Heuvel (statistics of medical research) and prof. Menno Prins (biosensors).

The lectures will be presented on the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, from 16.00 to 17.00 hours, followed by a network drink. Access is free.

More information and registration on www.tue.nl/openlectures.

Give your career a boost during the Career Café for young alumni Discover your talents, expand your professional network, give your career a boost! Come to the Career Café on Thursday February 9, 2017. You can take part in various interesting activities and workshops, such as coaching talks with coaches and HR professionals, the ‘Personal branding’ workshop and you can have your CV checked during the network drink.

Apart from the Career Café there are other interesting activities - especially for young alumni - to advance your career: Career workshops, individual career advice and individual coaching. You can also use the Alumni Coach Network. More information about the career activities for young alumni on www.tue.nl/careeractivities.

Are you still living in digs?

Our database thinks that some of our alumni still live in digs…

That is why you need to update your data in alumninet so that we can keep in touch. Are you not registered yet? Register now and take advantage of our offer for alumni. https://alumninet.tue.nl/

10 11

FRONTRUNNER/

He jokingly calls himself the ‘fresh prince of hot air’, but is not afraid to lay his finger on the vital maladies in the Dutch startup climate. Prince Constantijn van Oranje utilizes his exceptional position, his international experience and network in order together with the government, the business community and knowledge institutions to create the proper preconditions for starting entrepreneurs in the Netherlands.

‘Universities can focus more attention on tech transfer. There are many places where this is done better than with us.’

Constantijn van Oranje Ambassador StartUp Delta

12 13

FRONTRUNNER/

TEXT ENITH VLOOSWIJK PHOTOS VINCENT VAN DEN HOOGEN

L

Looking posh in his dark-blue bespoke suit, he rather contrasts with his environment: a hip building full of second-hand furniture and scaffold timber, from which dozens of young tech entrepreneurs are besieging the world. While Constantijn van Oranje winds up his meeting, a millennial is tearing away on his scooter towards the lunchroom. The 47-year-old prince and the millennial symbolize exactly what StartUp Delta represents: bridging the gap between the world of starting entrepreneurs and that of the industrial establishment.

Neelie Kroes preceded him as ambassador of StartUp Delta. Their acquaintance dates back to his days in Brussels, when she was still Euro commissioner (for ICT and Telecommunication) and he was her adviser and later deputy chef de cabinet. Looking back on the eighteen months in which Kroes made efforts to put the Netherlands on the map as the Valhalla for startups, Het Financieele Dagblad concluded that the startup climate has seen some improvement.

For one, more attention and money was generated for startups. Allegedly an important problem has not been tackled, though: for starters who want to grow further, it is still difficult to find investors. There is a dire shortage in particular of investors daring enough to take the risk of making considerable investments in high-tech.

Although Van Oranje recognizes the complaint, he qualifies it as well. ‘That complaint was voiced by both sides. Investors complain that there are

too few startups able to scale up, whereas the startups say that the investors lack sufficient vision for making long-term investments. Both sides probably have a point. Sometimes startups arrange for their financing in such a way that it becomes very difficult indeed to be refinanced later. A follow-up investor comes with demands of his own. For example, he may have to deal with too many shareholders who will not or cannot take part in the investment.’

Starting entrepreneurs run the risk of being hugged to death

NOTEWORTHY ‘Businesses are often slow in attracting good advisers or mentors. We are plodding away by ourselves and are not very good at asking others for help.’

‘In the area of the Internet and the shared economy there are just a few winners.

If you are not fast enough, someone else will do it and that someone may just as well be from all across the globe. You need to have an ambition of international growth to survive.’

‘Everybody is busy claiming designs for themselves.

While we are all trying to become a block chain capital, or an impactventure-capital, or a FinTech-capital, we should actually try to cluster more.’

The prince adds that it is not only from lack of funds that Dutch startups often fail to continue to grow.

Indeed, starting entrepreneurs can also be hugged to death if they are given the opportunity to work on their product for too long.

‘We often still see that companies endlessly keep tinkering with their prototype and chasing funds.

They manage to find some subsidies here, and find some money elsewhere, but at the end of the day they are spending a lot of time on other things than their business. This route easily leads to frustration at a certain moment. You’ve got your fantastic product, it simply needs to be put on the market, surely anybody can see that? Well, no. Even the finest product will not fly off to a scalable company if there is no product-market-fit.’

Among high-tech entrepreneurs this is also a common problem, says Van Oranje. ‘I think that the high-tech entrepreneurs, and engineers anyhow, are inclined to keep developing for a very long time and to be strongly attached to their product or technology. That is where things tend to go wrong.

When a business is not strong or a team is not good, people simply need to be told so: you have a really great product, but there is no market for it. Or maybe there is a market for it, but you need to work via other channels. An outsider will often pick up on this very quickly.’

As many high-tech startups have a development period of five to ten years, their view of the market soon gets blurred. Not only do they need to keep a closer watch on the market while on that development path, they should also check more frequently whether they can make some money at an earlier stage already,

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

CAREER OF CONSTANTIJN VAN ORANJE Constantijn van Oranje (1969) graduated in Civil Law from Leiden University and followed an MBA at INSEAD. An important part of the prince’s career took place in Brussels, where among other things he was head of RAND Europe, a research and consultancy agency in the area of policymaking. He worked as adviser and deputy chef de cabinet for Euro commissioner Neelie Kroes for Digital Agenda. On June 1 of this year he took over from her as ambassador of the StartUp Delta Nederland, a public-sector organization with the object of improving preconditions for startups in the Netherlands.

Van Oranje is married with three children.

says Van Oranje. ‘See whether you can make some money even with a product that is not entirely finished yet. Maybe you have a spinoff, or a consultancy firm.’

‘It certainly could. We tend to think that investors are always rich people who are going to make a lot of money. But they are the fire that keeps this whole industry burning.’

Incubators and accelerators, such as High Tech XL in Eindhoven, have this adjusting role mainly upon the start of a business. According to the prince, investors should take over this baton more often.

‘During the growth phase many businesses are not only looking for money, but also for support: how should one scale up, how should one interna­ tionalize? In Silicon Valley, which has a very healthy financing climate, investors themselves are entrepreneurs as well. They provide a great deal of knowledge, which may well be more important than just the financing.’

A country which the prince thinks has worked actively to attract such investors is Israel. ‘There they really made excellent use of tax incentives to reward and encourage investments. You get to keep a large portion of your turnover, which you can reinvest.’

When asked whether the Netherlands could take more of such tax measures, he nods with conviction.

Silicon Valley is the place mentioned most in the context of high-tech entrepreneurship. It is especially the close ties between entrepreneurs, investors and universities that provide a fertile startup climate.

How come the lines are so short there and why does it appear to be so hard to accomplish that in the Netherlands?

‘Entrepreneurship at university is far more normal there’, says Van Oranje. ‘An enterprising professor is a rare phenomenon here. Also, you see there that entrepreneurs who are successful become investors.

Often these are PhD candidates, who are already at university, which means they have networks with considerable overlap. We don’t have that here. Here you are either one or the other. In general researchers at universities are encouraged to write articles.

And they get rewarded for that. For startups it is not really easy to connect with the university.

‘Investors are the fire that keeps this whole industry burning’

14 15

FRONTRUNNER/

In the end, there are not that many scalable high-tech companies emerging from the universities, in any case not in comparison with universities like MIT.’ Universities and polytechnics can play a more prominent role in encouraging entrepreneurship, the prince thinks. For instance by presenting the setup of a business as a real work option. ‘They can also devote more attention to tech transfer: putting the technology that is developed at the university in the market in a more efficient manner. There are many places where that is being done better than in the Netherlands. In Stanford, for example, intellectual property is given along against a certain equity stake of the university. When you are a researcher and you want to take a technology that you have assisted in developing outside the university in order to set up a business, they give you a wide berth to do so.

They co-invest and part of the investment is the intellectual property you obtain. They don’t claim that you should leave the intellectual property with the university, or with the department.’

Not only the universities, but also the Dutch govern­ ment should accept responsibility for encouraging entrepreneurship. According to the prince, rigid interpretations of legislation and regulations too often obstruct entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

‘The problem is that certain starting entrepreneurs create entirely new things, for which legislation was never written. This results in prolonged uncertainty, which entails entrepreneurial risk. Uber is a wellknown example. They create a market in which there are all kinds of regulations for taxis, when they don’t own taxis and do not employ drivers either. Subsequently the legislator is at a loss what to do about this.’

The Dutch legislation often obstructs high tech entrepreneurs

According to Van Oranje it should become much easier for startups to discuss legal obstacles and possible solutions with government representatives.

‘In Singapore there is a kind of sand box in the area of FinTech, where legislators and supervisory bodies meet those starting businesses. They try to figure out how those businesses can still comply with the rules, while offering an entirely new product. You should make that platform wider. People who look at things from a tax or legal angle and say, alright, you are confronted with all kinds of barriers, but are they real barriers? Or are they barriers that hinder you from doing something that is actually desirable?’

As ambassador for StartUp Delta the prince hopes that he can smooth out the barriers between entrepreneurs, universities and authorities. Whilst it is clear that he is taking this role very seriously indeed, on an earlier occasion he jokingly called himself ‘the fresh prince of hot air’. He smiles when the subject is mentioned. ‘When it was announced that I would succeed Neelie, a small press conference was held.

There somebody called me ‘fresh prince of startups’ or something, so I made a joke and said ‘fresh prince of hot air.’ As government we are working hard on policy, structure, preconditions, processes, things like that, but in the end it all boils down to the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur who has the guts to start on something, to hire people, to take out a second mortgage loan on his house and really to sweat for the company which he eventually sets up. Those are the people who are actually doing something specific and they are the people we work for. So it is in that sense that I say that what I do is a bit of hot air.’

16 17

IN FOCUS/

EXPLODING WIRE TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

A flash of lightning eighty meters long, generated by applying a potential difference of 400,000 volts to a copper wire 0.25 mm thick. A world record, no less; the old record for the longest flash of lightning generated by people, set in New Zealand, was sixty meters.

‘Exploding Wire’ was one of the ten attractions on the TU/e

Campus within the context of the Eindhoven light festival GLOW. Near the lawn at Gemini and Flux containers had been positioned in which the necessary power was generated: +200,000 volts on one side, and -200,000 volts in the other container. Between them an 80-meter-long copper wire was stretched.

Every quarter visitors could

witness a spectacular flash of lightning: as a result of the power generated the copper wire evaporated in an instant and a luminous plasma arose along the length of the wire.

The public was kept at a safe distance.

‘Exploding Wire’ was a cooperation between the Electrical Energy Systems group of the Department of Electrical

Engineering, the Equipment and Prototype Center (EPC) of TU/e and the Elementary Processes in Gas Discharges group of the Department of Applied Physics. In addition, light artist Ivo Schoofs was involved in the project.

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

400.000 volts

tension between ends of copper wire

18 19

ALUMNI/

TEXT ANTOINETTE VAN DER VORST PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE AND SUDHENDU KASHIKAR

How did three women who won a Marina van Damme grant fare?

POWER WOMEN

working on their dreams TU/e has its share of grants and other forms of support to give (former) students a leg up in taking important steps in their careers. One of those is the Marina van Damme grant. Name giver Marina van Damme was the first female PhD of Twente University, who had an impressive career in science and industry.

With her prize she intends to encourage young female engineers in science or in the business community to deepen or broaden their scope in their careers. Slash spoke to three former winners of the grant.

What did the grant bring them? Stories about the American Dream, visible use and winning and losing.

At Erica Coenen (35) in Houston, Texas, it is seven hours earlier.

She starts her working day early; the interview for this Slash is scheduled at 2.30 p.m.

Dutch time. The Skype connection fails to mate­ rialize. Houston, we have a problem. Fortunately her passion for her profession and her love of her new home country is great enough for an old-fashioned telephone conversation. The enthu­ siasm is oozing from the line. A discussion about winning the Marina van Damme grant, working with top talents and living the American dream.

Erica Coenen, director of engineering

From grant to American dream

I

t is 2013 when Erica Coenen is awarded the Marina van Damme grant.

At that time she works at TNO, in the Material Solutions group.

In the years before that she studies Mechanical Engineering at TU/e followed by a PhD. Mechanical Engineering is her profession, and she loves her work at TNO. However, deep inside there is an entrepreneurial yearning burning. ‘Due to my technical and scientific training and work experience I had cold feet for entrepreneurship.

As an engineer you are very

much focused on details, which occasionally makes it difficult to zoom out. I wanted to seize the opportunity to learn more about entrepreneurship and business strategy. My project plan for the Marina van Damme grant was focused on that.

When I won, that afforded me many opportunities.’

Erica spent the money from the grant on programs around entrepreneurship.

In Switzerland she followed a summer MBA. ‘There I learned about business economics, strategy, management.

I sank my teeth into a case study

‘Where your ambition lies, is your energy’

about the merger of two European cement giants. I have learned so much from that.’

For Erica the grant was a starting point for many good things.

‘When I applied for the grant, I voiced my wish: ‘I want to be an entrepreneur. From that moment on people knew what my ambition was. And where your ambition lies, is your energy. It sets things moving, and in the end you arrive at the point where you want to be.’

After having won the grant, Erica continued her work at TNO for two years. ‘I saw a lot of things there to do with technological development and learned: when is a technology actually ready for

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

the market? In 2015 I thought ‘now is the time for me to put a technology onto the market myself’. And I had yet another dream. My husband and I really wanted to live and work in America. When an opportunity presented itself through my husband’s job, we seized it.

Since 2015 we have lived in Houston and it is great.’

talents and people with unparalleled experience in the industry.

It is such a rush jointly to make this lean technology startup lift off and to shape the development of the company. This is an incredibly instructive path. How do you introduce a product into the market? How do you structure your financing and ownership?

How do you attain customer engagement? I came to the USA with a great deal of ambition which I am now fulfilling. We live the American Dream here. I don’t know whether I would ever have had such an opportunity on such a large scale in the Netherlands.’

Erica is not yet entirely an entrepreneur in her own right, being director of engineering at Reveal Energy Services. ‘We are a service company in the oil and gas industry. We help our customers with the optimization of oil wells.

In North America there are lots The Marina van Damme grant is of oil reservoirs that do not flow still bringing Erica a lot. ‘We have automatically, or with great a splendid grant network, with difficulty. The rock around the which all the winners have teamed oil well needs to be cracked to up. All of them are very powerful release the hydrocarbons. individuals, each with their own We provide a unique diagnostic style of leadership. A bunch of technique that gives a direct power women together. We profit insight into how effectively this from the resulting cross-fertilistimulation proceeds. That gives zation and from each other’s companies more economically knowledge.’ viable oil wells.’

Reveal is going like a bomb, says Where Erica will be in five years’ Erica. ‘This spring we started time? In the USA, that much is with a team of four to launch an certain. ‘We are in possession of entirely new technology, which our green cards and have only is no small just started our effort, as the oil adventure. Just and gas industry ‘The grant network think: it’s always is a bunch of is a conservative sunny here and market and the people are posipower women oil price is extive and open. working together’ ceptionally low.

I see my work Nevertheless now as a magwe expect that we shall have ten nificent project which will keep employees when the year is closed. me more than busy for the time We constitute one of the growth being. Perhaps in the future I will centers within the sector.’ really start an enterprise of my own. I’m someone who can look Erica is crazy about her work, around very carefully. When the which she does with a ‘dream next opportunity comes along, team’. ‘I work together with top I’m confident that I’ll see it.’

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Tamara Derksen

Winning and losing, seeking and finding This is not (yet) a Marina van Damme grant success story. Nor is Tamara Derksen (35), who won the grant in 2011, a model winner.

Indeed: she abandoned the further spending of her grant when for a while after having been awarded it she did not get round to attaining the objectives of her project plan. What this story is about is seeking. About passion and mission.

About following one’s heart. And so: about what else can happen after winning a grant.

T

he photo accompanying this article is made on floor 6 of the building of the Department of Architecture, building and Planning of TU/e, the floor accommodating the Physics of the Built Environment group. That was the part of the study with which Tamara felt most affiliated, because of the human-oriented aspects. She studied Architecture, Building and Planning, graduating in ‘physical aspects of the built environment’. After her graduation Tamara ended up at a firm that was specialized in advice about property with a social function. When due to economic reasons she lost her job there in 2011, she decided: I am going to do this myself. Of course, a bit of support could not go amiss there: lo and behold the Marina van Damme grant. Tamara wrote a project plan and won. ‘I was determined to set up my own enterprise in building consultancy. It was my intention to elaborate the exploration that I wanted to conduct into issues about property with a social function that are related to fewer young people joining the workforce and the ageing population in a book. The money of the grant gave me that opportunity.’

In the period right after she had been awarded the grant, things changed. Tamara privately ended up in heavy weather, so that she lacked the energy to write the book.

Moreover, she found out that the focus of her own enterprise did not fit in with her true passion.

‘When you talk about fewer young people joining the workforce and the ageing population, you soon arrive at healthcarerelated property.

Whereas I felt that I was much more fascinated with non-residential building, offices, the human aspects in particular: what is a healthy building? Where can people work in a healthy environment? What does someone need to feel top-hole so that he can perform well?’

What Tamara appreciates very much, is that ‘Ms. Van Damme’ whole-heartedly allowed her to remain a member of the grant network, with which all the winners are affiliated. ‘Upon being awarded the grant I said: although I am very pleased with the money, the true value for me lies in the network. I always keep track of a number of winners because they inspire me. All of them have a clear vision and opinion, which usually differs from the mainstream.

Very valuable.’

‘I want to contribute to people’s happiness’

‘Returning the grant was not failure, but a quest’

That may all be very nice, but in fact the grant - and the money coming with it - had been awarded for an entirely different plan.

In consultation with TU/e Tamara decided to do what she did not doubt for a second: not to spend the remaining money of the grant.

‘I felt bad about this for a while.

I felt as if I had failed. Later I understood that it was not failure, but a quest. My own quest for what I want to do most of all.’

Since her having been awarded the grant, Tamara has worked as a (freelance) adviser in physics of the built environment, as a teacher, coach and program manager with the Stichting Techniek­ promotie. ‘The thread in my career is making a contribution to people’s happiness’, is what we can read on her LinkedIn page. She does so among other things by contributing to optimal working environments and by enabling people to experience their quality. Now Tamara is facing another crossroads.

‘I am leaving my current employer and can go one of two ways: either I choose the certainty of a permanent job, or I start working for myself again.

I’m inclined towards the latter.

The difference between who I

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was at the time of my project plan for the grant and my plan today, is big. I’m reaching more and more clarity about my own vision and I dare to stand up for it with increasing confidence. I want to try and win people over to my ideas and work them out together. At this moment I don’t really have a profession, but I do have a passion and a mission.’

The vision is there alright with Tamara. It is about her ‘basis’ physics of the built environment, and more. ‘Talk to a CEO of a company and you see that sustain­ ability and energy account for some 1 or 2% of the budget. 90% of the money is allocated to the capital of a company, the people.

So that is where your investments should go. I love to connect technology with people’s needs. Find out together: what do people need to feel top-hole so that they can perform well? And then dissect that to architecture and technology.

My balance there hovers somewhere between training and coaching employees and offering advice about physical modifications in a building. All told, this is a totally different view of considering technology. At present I’m gaining clarity about the best way to go about that. And I am confident.

In that sense I am a genuine scientist. After all, what is science?

It is always searching, probing, analyzing, finding and continuing the search.’

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Jannie Wijnen, Assistant Professor UMC Utrecht

‘I want my work to have a visible use’ A ‘progressive female engineer with an exemplary role’. That is how the jury of the Marina van Damme grant described the first winner of TU/e, Jannie Wijnen (35) in 2010.

Six years later we meet Jannie at the UMC Utrecht where she is working as Assistant Professor on new MRI methods and imaging technologies in research into cancer and neurology.

T

he interview for this Slash begins at the main entrance to the University Medical Center in Utrecht. This is where Jannie regularly collects patients, so as to accompany them to the MRI scanner. There she gathers data for the patient studies she conducts into the effectiveness of chemotherapy on tumors. On the basis of the data it is possible to improve and further develop the MRI methods and scanners in the hospital.

‘There is so much variety in my work: I analyze scans and try to find a physiological explanation for what we see, at another moment I work together with our RF engineers to design a new arrangement. And I supervise PhD candidates and students.

I love to work in a hospital. With our research group we are very close to the clinic, to radiology and the physicians. The research is closely connected with its application.’

It is the Marina van Damme grant that took Jannie to this place.

‘I studied Biomedical Engineering at TU/e.

After that I started conducting research into the typing and growth of brain tumors by means of MR spectroscopy, at the radiology department in the Radboud UMC in Nijmegen.

I experimented with new techniques that I wanted to research further. In those days we had

brand-new equipment here in Utrecht, an MRI scanner with an extra powerful magnetic field of 7 Tesla. Given such a high magnetic field, MRI is far more sensitive, and the MR spectroscopy is promising for being used for therapy monitoring in cancer. It enables you to chart the effects of therapy, at a so-called metabolic level. An MRI scan produces anatomical images, while the spectroscopy method allows you to see: is there a great or a small amount of energy being consumed in a tumor?

Processes like that precede greater (anatomical) changes in a tumor.’

Jannie wanted to continue her research in Utrecht, gain expe­ rience there and subsequently go to America for a while so as to learn more about her area of expertise. Urged to do so by people around her, she submitted a project plan for the grant. ‘I myself thought: my plan is not really that special, or what? That grant is most probably not going to be for me.

And then I won.

It caused a snowball effect and brought me where I am now.’

No UMC Utrecht without a grant

The grant enabled Jannie to gather data for six months during a pilot study in the UMC Utrecht. Thereby she could show that the research was feasible.

This gave her a sufficiently strong basis to apply for (and be granted) other subsidies and to continue her research. Assisted by the Niels Stensen Foundation (which gives young researchers the opportunity to go abroad), Jannie spent a year in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA. ‘There I took back the research on humans that I had done here to animal studies. In that way you can broaden and deepen your research. It was a really great and instructive experience.’

Yet Jannie wanted to focus her attention on human research again. That is how Utrecht once more became her place of work.

‘I still do a lot of research myself in the form of patient studies.

I am also involved in protocol development: many hours of looking for and optimizing the best ways in which you can conduct (MRI) research on people.’

The hospital world is challenging.

Researchers do not always speak the same language as medical specialists, as Jannie knows.

‘It is my challenge to find out from physicians: what exactly is your research question? Which patient group will be helped by which research? I very much want my work to have a visible use for patients. As the steps that we make are so small, you need to be able to hold out for a long time in this job.

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Still, I enjoy working together with so many young enthusiastic people to attain such a beautiful goal. I see myself continuing to work here for the time being.

MRI is such a many-sided discipline, and there are so many questions waiting to be answered.

What I do is never finished.’

‘Everybody is fighting for something in their own way’

Put yourself forward as a candidate for the Marina van Damme grant 2017 Are you a talented female engineer, MSc, PDEng or doctor, graduated at TU/e, active in science, the business community or with the government? Do you nourish ambitious plans with your career or for deepening or broadening your knowledge? Then you can put yourself forward as a candidate for the TU/e Marina van Damme grant 2017.

On May 17, 2017, the grant worth €9,000 will be awarded for the eighth time to a female engineer, who wants to provide an impetus to her career, for example through an international orientation in the form of a study, traineeship or project or by deepening or broadening knowledge.

You can register until April 1, 2017. More information about the grant and the registration procedure can be found on www.tue.nl/marinavandamme

Jannie is still closely connected with the Marina van Damme grant, and the network of winners that comes with it. ‘Every year I try to attend the presentation of the grant and once a year Ms. Van Damme invites us all at her home. The network is a wealth of experience and knowledge.

A vast source of information and inspiration. Everybody is fighting for something in their own way and we can learn so much from each other, even though we all have different specializations.

At present we are joining forces to set up a new association so as to ensure the existence of the grant, even when Ms. Van Damme will not be among us anymore.

The grant can signify just that bit of extra support to broaden your view. It always remains relevant, and will be so in the future as well.”

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SOLAR INK WITHOUT ANY DROPS ‘Thin film’ solar cells are made by applying a photosensitive film of a special ink onto a substrate. This is done by means of spin coating, whereby the ink is distributed evenly across the revolving substrate.

During this process, drops are often formed, which causes the two components of the ink to be unmixed - resulting in a solar cell with far lower efficiency. Hans van Franeker (Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) managed to make the formation of these unwanted minuscule drops visible during the spin coating process. He paid special attention to changes in the color of the solar cell, and to the reflection and scattering of X-rays and laser light.

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

MUSHROOMS IN OUR BRAINS For the treatment of brain diseases it is important to understand how we record information in our brain. Rémy Kusters (Department of Applied Physics) provided the theoretical contribution to the Barriers in the brain project, in which it was investigated how variation arises in the strength of connections between brain cells.

He researched the genesis of so-called dendritic spines - the mushroom-shaped protrusions on extensions (dendrites) of brain cells, which fulfil an important role in transmitting signals in the brain. The shape of the spine, with a large head and a narrow neck, turns out to have a big impact on the number of receptor molecules in the head, and thereby on the strength of the connection.

5X1 minute

Slash dug through the stack of mostrecent theses in order to highlight five for you. In five minutes, you can soak up information that would otherwise take you hours to plow through.

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

MRI FOR DEEP BRAIN STIMULATION In advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease, more and more patients are treated with deep brain stimulation.

In this process an electrode is inserted to stimulate the subthalamic nucleus, an area of the brain measuring less than a cubic centimeter.

Expectations are that the treatment has the greatest effect when the electrode only gets into contact with the motor section of the subthalamic nucleus. Birgit Plantinga (Department of Biomedical Engineering) therefore used an MRI scanner with an ultrahigh magnetic field (7 Tesla) to obtain a more accurate picture of patients’ brains than can be achieved with the usual hospital scanners.

In addition, this technique allowed her to show the connections between the subthalamic nucleus and the rest of the brain.

THE MOST ECONOMICAL ROUTE In the acceptance of electric vehicles the concept of range anxiety fulfils an important role.

Uncertainty about the range and limited charging options still scare off potential buyers.

Jiquan Wang (Department of Mechanical Engineering) therefore analyzed the energy consumption of the electric test car Lupo EL, and designed a model that predicts this consumption with an accuracy of 10% for a chosen route on the basis of public route information and the weather forecast. This forecast is adjusted during the ride on the basis of various measurements.

He also developed an algorithm which determines the most energy-efficient route to a given destination.

FLEXIBLE POWER The transition to sustainable energy comes with challenges for our power grid.

For instance, the amount of power that is generated is becoming increasingly dependent on weather conditions.

The peak load will increase also, as a larger portion of our energy need will be covered by electricity instead of gas or petrol. On the other hand, the energy transition provides opportunities as well, for the demand for electricity will also become more flexible. Elke Klaassen (Department of Electrical Engineering) investigated that flexibility of the electricity need of households, as well as the extent to which this need can be adjusted by means of smart appliances and time-dependent electricity tariffs.

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TEXT NICOLE TESTERINK ILLUSTRATIONS ISTOCKPHOTO

STRATEGIC AREA HEALTH: THE HEART OF TU/e

At TU/e a lot of research in the area of health is taking place. It is up to director of Strategic Area Health Carmen van Vilsteren to join all those forces and to try and establish a good fit between academic knowledge and social and industrial needs concerning high-tech healthcare.

‘T

he social relevance of a subject like healthcare is quite obvious. People want to stay healthy longer, want to get fast and more accurate diagnoses, want new medicines with fewer side effects and wish to monitor their health and disease as best they can.

All of these areas are objects of research at TU/e. Still, it should not end with technological development, it must also be applied’, says Carmen van Vilsteren.

entails major social health issues, on the other hand because Philips is an important player within cardiac research and diagnostics.

Philips is one of our strategic partners within SA Health, in addition to the UMC Utrecht, Catharina Hospital and several other parties.

Cardiac research is a great common divisor, for what we do both internally and with our partners. After this comes a long list of other health topics, such as aging, perinatal care and oncology. A focus area added recently is Data Science. Within healthcare the way in which we deal with data and what we can do with it is becoming more and more important, and we are now exploring in depth how we can make a contribution to that.’

‘Invest in the innovation of the future’

Carmen van Vilsteren. Photo: Vincent van den Hoogen ‘Within the Strategic Area we have four focus areas. Cardiology is one of the chief applications.

On the one hand because cardiac failure is cause of death number one and therefore

MORE HEALTH AT TU/e

‘Within the TU/e IMPULS approach, set up to foster cooperation between the university, research institutes and the industry, we have started two big projects from Health together with Philips, the so-called flagship programs.

A total of fifty new PhD students are going to start on various health topics. It can be no surprise that a great deal of attention is devoted to cardiac research. Still, there are other partners with whom we conduct fertile cooperation. Thus, there is a lot of perinatal

New cooperation concerning brain aging The joint research focuses on accelerated brain aging among people, epilepsy, but should also provide insight into general cognitive aging, for instance in dementia.

research being conducted jointly with the Máxima Medical Center and quite recently a new platform was set up for research into brain aging

by TU/e, Ghent University, Ghent University Hospital and Kempenhaeghe expertise center.

Such cooperation efforts are essential for the (inter)national enhancement of visibility and for combining knowledge with the aim of finding innovative solutions to social health issues.’

‘Students play a big role in this, for they are the future clever wits. That is why from Health we stimulate various student teams and competitions. This works both ways: you create a distinct profile for yourself as a university in the area of healthcare and at the same time you offer something that motivates students and kindles enthusiasm for health-related subjects.

A splendid opportunity to let students brainstorm and we have seen on several occasions that this can yield great results. Invest in the innovation of the future.’

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MIMICKING THE HEART IN THE LAB

We are in urgent need of people who connect technology and society, says prof. dr. Carlijn Bouten, Professor of Cell-Matrix interaction in Cardiovascular Regeneration. Being a scientist to the backbone, she is interested particularly in the why and how, but her group is also fully at work on the societal issue. Heart valves, blood vessels and cardiac tissue are grown in the lab, with the ultimate goal of regenerating the entire cardio vasculature.

‘S

cience is crucial for understanding how something works’, Carlijn Bouten explains with gusto.

‘How can we adjust a biomaterial so that inside the body it changes into endogenous tissue such as a heart valve, how can we tempt the body to regenerate itself? We can make very small tissues in the lab that mimic all kinds of body processes, mini-hearts for instance, and we learn a great deal from that. So we don’t only do it, we also want to understand it. And those so-called labs-on-chips in turn are very useful for the pharmaceutical industry. As an academic you sometimes find yourself in a dilemma. Ideally you would want to conduct fundamental research, but at the same time something that has social relevance should actually not be left unused. Fortunately there are plenty of initiatives nowadays, such as very recently the new institute RegMed XB, which are almost spoon-feeding us with this awareness.’

RegMed XB (REGenerative MEDicine crossing Borders) is a large national initiative that focuses on regenerative medicine - the healing of diseased or damaged tissues and organs.

Researchers, entrepreneurs, physicians and healthcare funds have joined forces so as to develop new treatments for patients.

At first instance, center stage has been reserved for renal diseases, diabetes type 1 and osteoarthritis, but there is consultation going on as well about research concerning the heart. Bouten: ‘TU/e too is involved in RegMed XB in various respects.

It is an excellent way to bring technology for all organ systems together and thus to bring about cross-fertilization. There are many other projects under way as well, involving the UMC Utrecht and the Hartstichting among others. Such forms of cooperation are what you need as an engineer when you wish to bring your research from the lab desk to the patient.’

Carlijn Bouten. Photo: Bart van Overbeeke

Join forces and make a fist ‘It is often a matter of visibility. Join forces and make a fist. This is done also within the Strategic Area Health. No interference with scientific profundity - do let researchers themselves take care of that. It is about connecting people, building bridges and showing: we are also working on human health. When you are visible, you are in the picture and you will generate attention.

Breast-friendly, radiation-free alternative for mammogram Researchers at TU/e are working on a ‘breast-friendly’ radiation-free method for detecting breast cancer.

The new technology, which is more accurate and yields 3D images, builds on the patient-friendly detection technique for prostate cancer that was developed at TU/e.

For as it is now, we are still often forgotten, technology is not associated immediately with health. When in a hospital everything pivots on innovative technology. As a group we are also involved in a high-tech manner, though with a ‘soft’ subject. High-tech biology, high-tech mechanics, high-tech materials, you can find all of that in our labs. Just look at those heart valves and mini-hearts. With such topics and greater visibility we attract new students and are active in a new field of research with huge societal relevance. And that is why we really need those ‘social engineers’ of the future so badly.’

TU/e spinoff Microsure nominated for National Icon 2016 Microsure, which is developing a micro­ surgery robot for recovery operations that are not or hardly possible with human hands, is one of the ten finalists for the title National Icon.

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CARDIAC PATIENTS PROFIT FROM SMART REGION

That TU/e and the hospitals are getting more involved with each other is borne out by the growing number of cooperative ventures. Several years ago we saw the start of IMPULS, an innovative approach intended to make more socially relevant research possible and at once to promote ties between the university, research institutes and the industry. Lukas Dekker, a cardiologist at Catharina Hospital, is working together with Philips and TU/e on the development of a special watch that can detect arrhythmia in time.

E

very week cardiologist Lukas Dekker cycles to either TU/e or to the High Tech Campus - ‘cooperative ventures are ideally located within cycling distance’. For several years now he has been involved in short-lasting projects within the triangle Catharina HospitalTU/e-Philips. In addition, at the Department of Electrical Engineering Dekker is actively involved in adding a clinical line of approach to future research. Getting more technological students into the clinic and more medical students into TU/e is one of the ambitions.

Building bridges is a necessity, he says: ‘Due to the fact that more people are getting older and the increase in the number of chronic diseases we really need new solutions. Catharina Hospital

is the biggest Cardiac Center of the Netherlands, so we are already doing lots of research there.

However, given the fact that our profession is a technical one, it is a benefit that people from TU/e and Philips can approach our problems from their specific angles and disciplines.’

‘A shift from treatment to prevention’

Thus, he has joined forces for the development of the EWatch, a smart watch that can be used for the early detection of arrhythmia.‘Prevention is one of the themes of the future. There is a shift going on from treatment to prevention. Take sudden cardiac death, for instance.

We want to know how that arises and who is at risk.

This region is the preeminent place to tackle such questions from different perspectives.

We have just started a project in which we take a very fundamental look at the relation between the mechanical load of the Cardiologist Lukas Dekker at Catharina Hospital. Photo: Catharina Hospital.

Real-time distance monitoring of pregnancy Thanks to a new form of pregnancy monitoring, teleCTG, it is no longer necessary for pregnant women to go exclusively to an outpatient clinic or to be admitted for checkups. By means of the equipment of TU/e spinoff NEMO Healthcare the unborn child can also be monitored at home or in the obstetrician’s surgery.

heart and the occurrence of arrhythmia. Then again, patient data can also be utilized cleverly to gain insight into who is at risk of developing certain disorders.’

‘Data Science is an important topic for us. Catharina Hospital has made a strategic choice for collecting patient data in a highly detailed manner and for organizing the computerization in such a way as to make the data available for research now. We are working on Medical Intelligence and Decision Support. How can data systems help us make better decisions? In that context you may think of support through patient profiles and having access to the latest guidelines. We have a wealth of information here, from which we learn a lot.

Yet it can be done in a smarter way, for which cooperation with hardcore technicians is indispensable.’

‘Heart failure is cause of death number one.

For us and eventually for the patient it is essential to link up with SA Health. Innovation is of the essence, which is the reason that our Board of Directors is very much in favor of such forms of cooperation. We are a promising region - especially with a company that has such clout as Philips - and we must benefit from that to the maximum.’

New technique for detecting esophageal cancer TU/e and Catharina Hospital have jointly successfully developed a technique to have a computer examine esophagus photos for signs or esophageal cancer. This method is said to miss fewer occurrences of treatable, early forms of esophageal cancer.

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BIODEGRADABLE HEART VALVE SETS THE BODY TO WORK It featured on the front newspaper pages several months ago. In a first clinical study artificial heart valves have successfully been implanted in young patients. These biodegradable heart valves resulted from research conducted at TU/e which was developed further in the spinoff Xeltis. Although there is still a long way to go, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Martijn Cox is enthusiastic about the first milestone.

A

white tube of soft, malleable material with a tripartite valve inside. The heart valve concerned features prominently on the desk of Martijn Cox, co-founder of biotech company Xeltis. Today’s heart valves are made of animal material and cause a permanent inflammatory reaction. For children with congenital valvular diseases this implies repeated replacement of the implant valve because it often only lasts a few years. The Xeltis valve, made of biodegradable polymers, has been given such a structure that endogenous cells adhere to it and form new tissue. In due course the implant dissolves and the body itself has made a new heart valve. ‘We use the body like a factory’ Cox explains.

Cox, who began his career at TU/e with the study Biomedical Engineering, obtained a PhD in the Soft Tissue Biomechanics & Engineering group with research into heart valve tissue engineering. ‘Fantastic research it was, but I realized that unless a next step was made, that is where it would end also. Together with my colleague Mirjam Rubbens I set up the company QTIS/e in the last year of my doctorate phase. Our goal was to translate the academic heart valve research into a product that could be marketed. In the first stage we let cells develop into a heart valve outside the body,

in a bioreactor. Now that process takes place inside the body itself. Just in terms of regulations, this comes with a great benefit, as an endogenous heart valve is regarded as a medical device and as a result much more is possible, and faster too.’

‘We use the body as a factory’

‘In order to get subsidies, cooperation between the university and the business community is required. Thanks to the Strategic Area Health we manage to find each other even better and there is scope for new initiatives. For us that is of great importance as well. For while the first studies are promising, this does not mean that there will be a new heart valve available for every patient tomorrow.’

‘It was a jump at the deep end, starting a company of our own. In the beginning I was researcher, secretary and postman all bundled into one. By following courses, with assistance from the Innovation Lab, by mustering tenacity and a merger with a Swiss company we are now a group of some forty employees. We still have close ties with TU/e, mainly with the Soft Tissue Biomechanics & Engineering research group and the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems. We are largely complementary.

When a TU/e researcher has developed an experimental novelty, we can provide standardization. On our part, we can provide a series of heart valves or blood vessels, for example, which they can use for testing new things.’

Martijn Cox. Photo: Ton van de Meulenhof

MedApp ensures the timely ingestion of medicines TU/e spinoff PharmIT is successful with MedApp, a smart alarm intended to counteract overtime ingestion of medicines, improper combinations or incorrect ingestion.

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Student teams are a crucible of scientific research and education, where innovation and out-of-the-box thinking are central items. In various competitions there are TU/e teams that compete (inter)nationally with other university teams. At present there are four student teams active within the Strategic Area Health. iGEM team TU Eindhoven The iGEM competition (International Genetically Engineered Machine) is an annual international student contest in synthetic biology, which is held in Boston. The assignment set for the teams is to modify cells so as to solve social problems.

This year the Eindhoven team won a gold medal and three nominations for their ‘emergency brake’ for genetically modified human killer cells, which are used in immunotherapy to fight cancer cells.

This emergency brake prevents the modified cells from attacking other endogenous cells.

BlueJay Student team BlueJay is working on the world’s first ‘home drone’.

Last spring people visiting the TU/e Dream&Dare Festival could order drinks to be delivered by drones in the drone café.

The new team hopes to present a new drone early next year, which will take them closer to their final goal: a help drone that can function in the home situation.

The world’s first eye surgery by means of a robot Last summer British physicians conducted the first retinal surgery by means of the robot developed by TU/e spinoff Preceyes and thereby restored the patient’s vision.

Tech United The multidisciplinary Tech United team is working on the development of robotics and also has a team that focuses specifically on autonomous healthcare robots. Among other competitions they are competing in the @Home League of RoboCup, an annual world championship for robots.

TU/e SensUs Team By organizing an international student contest SensUs aims to foster the development of the technology of molecular health sensors. Last year the team focused on a sensor for renal functioning, while the heart will occupy center stage in the coming year.

Royal attention for Hugsy and Bambi-Belt projects During the DDW exhibition Mind the Step Queen Máxima visited the projects Hugsy - a multifunctional swaddling blanket for neonates - and Bambi-Belt - a flexible band for wireless monitoring of pre-term babies that is about to be tested in eight Dutch hospitals.

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WITH A DROP OF BLOOD AND A SMARTPHONE YOU CAN CHECK YOUR RENAL FUNCTION

The use of biosensors - a device for quickly measuring certain molecules in body fluids - is seeing a steep increase in healthcare. Think of pregnancy tests or glucose sensors for diabetic patients.

To promote the technologic innovation of biosensors, TU/e Professor of molecular biosensors Menno Prins together with students from the Honors Academy started a new student competition: SensUs. Last September the Eindhoven SensUs-team T.E.S.T. scored high with its biosensor which can simply monitor the renal function. Next year the heart will be the key element.

O

ne year ago with a research paper as the basis the TU/e SensUs Team T.E.S.T. started working on the development of a totally new biosensor, says team member and BMT student Kimberly Westheim. ‘As we were entirely new as a student team, we did not automatically get any funding from the university, such as the Automotive Teams get, for instance.

Nonetheless we had the idea that we could build a very innovative biosensor within a year and started our hard work as an extracurricular

venture. Creativity can get you very far indeed.

By taking part in things like the innovation contest TU/e Contest and the BrainsAward 2016 and by winning several prizes, we still managed to amass a very nice start-up capital.’

The team designed a user-friendly biosensor, which can be attached to a mobile phone.

A drop of blood and a smartphone app is said to enable patients to monitor their renal function that way. Westheim: ‘Our biosensor prototype turns out to work so well that the group led by Professor Maarten Merkx, with which we cooperate, has applied for a patent.

It is so great to make technology applicable and to show a wide public why engineers matter. We also showed businesses in the region that we are able to work together with them, which has resulted in a first sponsor. Next year a new team will start its work on a biosensor for heart failure, which may possibly be partly based on our design. We look back on the first edition with great

18 Million euros for research into regenerative medicine As of 2017 healthcare funds, scientists, entrepreneurs and physicians are going to work together in the new institute RegMed XB (REGenerative MEDicine crossing Borders). RegMed XB is intended to become a globally prominent innovation institute which accelerates the growth of a new industrial cluster, brings solutions for patients and makes a contribution to affordable healthcare.

satisfaction. Within just one year we have learned and achieved so much. We have created a platform that the following teams can take further and have gained a fantastic experience ourselves.’

Diabetes game competing for The Best Diabetes Idea SugarVita, an interactive diabetes game for patients with Diabetes Mellitus type 2, which TU/e co-developed, will this autumn compete for The Best Diabetes Idea, a public award of the Diabetes Fund.

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BACKGROUND/

TU/e tapping fourth flow of funds through private fundraising

‘Just a

sob story

does not have any effect’

The huge donations that have been secured for decades by large Anglosaxon universities such as Harvard, Oxford and MIT are beyond the reach of TU/e. Yet after several attempts in the past the university is now seriously taking action for private fundraising. That fourth flow of funds should make TU/e less dependent on the three other flows, as hardly any growth can be expected from those in the coming years.

This means that the Eindhoven university is entering a rather new arena, so it has put together a team which will focus fully on this so-called philanthropic funding.

TEXT HAN KONINGS AND TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE ILLUSTRATION FLORIS PRINS

S

hortly after having taken up office in April 2014, President of the Executive Board Jan Mengelers had a meeting with his three fellow Presidents of the EuroTech Universities. His Swiss colleague Patrick Aebischer from EPFL asked him with sincere interest: ‘Well, Jan, how many millions are you good for?’ Smiling, Mengelers admits that he assumed that Aebischer was inquiring into the total TU/e budget, but that was not the case. ‘He wanted to know what amount we managed to secure in Eindhoven in terms of philanthropic funding. I had to confess that that amount was probably zero. He told me that his university had succeeded in raising some one hundred million euros and that fifteen years ago, when that track had begun, he had also been dismissed as a fantasizer.

Those niggardly Swiss surely would not pay up any money.

It appears that things have turned out quite differently.’

For Mengelers it was the first time that he was encouraged in this respect to give some serious thought to this matter. ‘We must acknowledge that our first flow of funds, the amount we receive directly from the Ministry, will definitely not increase in the future”, says Mengelers. “That is bad news at a time when our student numbers are rising and we nourish many ambitions. And I don’t expect a strong growth in the coming years either for the second and third flows of funds, with which we collect some one hundred million every year now. So we need to tap a

fourth flow of funds, in order to make us less dependent on fluctuations and uncertainties within those three other flows of funds.’

The university as a ‘charity’ Moreover, universities from Anglosaxon countries in particular have shown for many decades how successful fundraising can be. Mengelers: ‘Here at TU/e we have not seized that opportunity in all those years. In my opinion there are two reasons for this.

Donating money to your former university is not really engrained in the Dutch DNA and taxwise the

FundraisingDevelopment@tue.nl

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Reactions from alumni Slash gauged feelings among several TU/e alumni: what do they think of the university’s plan to generate money from donations?

Eric van Schagen, alumnus of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences (1980), CEO Simac Techniek NV, member of the Alumni Society and chairman of Eindhoven University Fund.

‘I think the fundraising initiative for TU/e is a great one and embrace it whole-heartedly, both personally and in my role as chairman of the university fund. As an alumnus I have already indicated that I wish to make a structural donation of €5,000 per year, also to set a good example.

Along with my company Simac I have for many years supported the university fund and various activities.

To achieve success, a long-term vision is essential, building up relations with businesses and alumni, continuing the emphasis on the importance of the university and gradually generate the awareness that science is making a tremendous, sustainable contribution to prosperity, well-being and the combating of poverty and disease. It is beautiful to be able to

contribute to that and it is actually a dire necessity if we want to create a counterforce to the feeling of many people that the situation between countries and in the world at large are totally out of balance. The old adage ‘noblesse oblige’ is applicable now and in the future to the rich and wellto-do people worldwide. Otherwise we will keep facing the current unrest of politics and of social relationships.’

Paul Enders, alumnus of Operations Management (2004), chairman of Alumni Associaton Alumnia, Senior Manager Supplier Quality & Logistics at ASML. ‘I strongly applaud this initiative. TU/e focuses at first instance on wealthy individuals and companies (philanthropy). Yet there is a lot to be gained also from alumni - it stengthens the ties between TU/e and its alumni and provides financial support to TU/e. In the Netherlands it is not customary, though, to give your university money. I did a PhD at the American Carnegie Mellon university. There they have been very successful in rolling out this model by targeting the entire alumni population - with different levels of intensity. Alumni in the Netherlands still need to get used to the idea of donating money to their Alma Mater, which is crucial.

34 35

BACKGROUND/

The first €5,000 have been received The first gift which Team Fundraising Development could receive comes from University Professor Maarten Steinbuch. In mid-November he donated a portion of the proceeds of his Smart Tear-off Calendar to TU/e.

The amount – €5,000 – has been earmarked for the student teams at the university. ‘I so enjoy the student teams we have here, that is where the power of innovation arises. Hence my contribution to these teams. It is up TU/e to decide on the distribution of this money’, says Steinbuch.

‘Of course, this amount is just a pin-prick, for before long it has to be about the millions which the university can rake in via the fourth flow of funds. I believe in this. And even this small contribution helps to make people aware of the possibilities be it whether you want to make a gift or leave a specific legacy.

All gifts are PBO-worthy (public benefit organization), and hence tax deductible. And this money is used to educate young people, for our future. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.’

Maarten Steinbuch presents the gift to Team Fundraising Development director Karen Ali.

However, in my opinion habituation/breeding begins with young alumni and small amounts. There are very few people indeed who wake up one day and think ‘Ah, that €100,000 under my pillow, why not donate it to TU/e!’. It helps if you have first given €10, €100, et cetera.’

Jan Oosterveld, alumnus of Mechanical Engineering (1969), Professor at IESE business school Barcelona, member of the Alumni Society and supervisory director at various companies.

‘It is high time the university should set up fundraising activities. You need to dedicate a proper team to this that begins by setting clear targets.

You cannot say ‘just give us some momey, and I’ll see what we’re going to use it for’. First you need to determine plans and ambitions. What do you want to achieve and what is required for that?

In addition, it is important that the various bodies within TU/e should join forces to attain this goal: the alumni office, the University Fund and the Fundraising team. Don’t start approaching possible donors via different channels.

The proper setup of fundraising involves a tremendous effort and also requires creativity. The role of the President of the university is of the

possibilities for making gifts are not truly attractive here either.’

Mengelers does not intend at once to create a profile for his university as a charity. “We have to try by means of specific projects to establish relations with all kinds of groups. Not only with the business community, but also with individuals and social institutions. With those we need to build up a kind of partnering, within which we jointly wish to realize a pre-formulated dream. We do so from a technical perspective, while the donating partner is involved because he wants to be significant for mankind.

The crux will be in the establishment and the maintenance of those connections. Just going on tour with a sob story and immediately shoving a collection box under

essence here; he should lead the troups. It can be done, mind you, for other Dutch universities have proved that it is feasible.

The subject should be supported universitywide. Thus, professors can present lectures to alumni and potential donors to strengthen the ties - and maintain them.

Asking alumni for gifts is another valid source of income. In Barcelona graduates pay their university an amount every year - I myself pay €250 per year. TU/e used to do this as well; when you graduated, the Eindhoven hogeschool fund would urge you to make a small donation every year.

That has fallen into disuse, it should be acted on again.’

Jessie Bekkers-van Rooij, alumna of Architecture, Building and Planning (2002), director-manager of Woonstichting SSW. ‘This is a really good initiative; I believe in the connection between the business community and the university. For this purpose there are golden opportunities in the Brainport region. Commercial parties can also benefit considerably from cooperation with the university; science can make such valuable contributions to business practices. It is important to have believers who can win others over, who are really able to convey

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

people’s noses does not have any effect.”

Will TU/e be doing business with any generous donor? Mengelers: ‘I wish that temptation was already visible in the form of a long queue of donors each with a wad of money in their pockets. Of course, we are not taking that route, for we would make ourselves a kind of gobstopper, which everybody can lick for a bit so it continuously changes color. We shall first have to decide for ourselves which specific dreams we think we can make come true, and on that basis we must then find potential partners in that venture and approach those. The result will definitely not be: he who pays the piper calls the tune.’

According to Mengelers it is essential for now that the university

should set to work seriously on establishing a sound relation with its almost 40,000 alumni, of which some 30,000 are in the data file.

‘We certainly are not going to bombard recent graduates with blank checks. Building up relations takes time, but in the end we do hope that it will lead to more.

An alumnus may also be precisely the person who opens a door for us to a charitable institution, or to an individual who is prepared to donate.’

Mengelers. ‘Whilst the first two years will be devoted mainly to friendraising, our ambitions certainly extend beyond that.

At this moment we are slowly nurturing the relation with our alumni, for example by inviting them to engrave their names into

President of the Executive Board Jan Mengelers.

Tax benefits for generous donors To foster charity, generous donors to charities recognized by the Tax and Customs Administration (such as universities) enjoy various tax benefits. Structural gifts in particular are advantageous: if you lay down by notarial deed that you will give a certain amount for at least five consecutive years, that amount is fully tax-deductible.

More information about tax benefits for gifts: bit.ly/1i0o5jm

the message convincingly. The connections for this should be established at an administrative level.

Bibiane van den Bosch, alumna of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences (2008), International Key Account Manager Philip.

Amassing the requisite financial resources is the chief condition for making TU/e researchers excel. It is fine if these funds should be supplied by businesses, but you do need to be able to underpin why you intend to carry out certain research projects. There must be added value.

‘I can imagine that it is becoming more and more difficult to find money and that the university intends to tap other sources. There is a special connection between the university and alumni - make them feel that they matter. Donations from this target group are low hanging fruit.

I’m proud of having studied at ‘my’ university and would consider making a gift if I am informed properly about the goal it is used for.

When I went to university, everybody could afford a university education - thanks to student grants and loans. Nowadays that is no longer a matter of course. The government is reducing the resources allocated to education and research, which I don’t consider to be a wise policy. The Netherlands is a country of conceptual design and innovation, and you need to invest in that.

I wouldn’t mind making a donation to my university myself. Abroad this is done in abundance. Maybe it’s easy for me to talk because I’m a manager and earn a reasonably decent salary, but I find it quite normal to do something in return.’

More money will enable the university to invest in improving education so as to give the next generation an even better basis in society. Now that I am a mother myself, I find that even more important than I used to.’

I’m familiar with the concept of donations from the hockey world. There it is a long-standing habit for individuals - usually former members - to make donations. The trend is declining there. In recent years the committee of my hockey club has occasionally asked all the members to make a voluntary donation - on top of the membership fee. Five to ten percent of the members respond to that. I have also donated, but I insisted on being told what the money was used for. Apart from money, you can also contribute as a volunteer, of course. Which is another thing the university might consider.’

36

BACKGROUND/

our Alumni Avenue. Almost all alumni have good memories of their days here, of their university friends and their groups, but once they leave, we hardly devote any attention to them anymore.

That is something we shall address with great efforts, for even with just an annual donation this is a very important group for us.’

‘Why should it be impossible for an ASML building to be erected here some time?’

In the United States the donation of resources for erecting a building is a favorite method for alumni or businesses to leave a permanent

mark on a campus. Does Mengelers regard that as an option for TU/e?

‘I am not excluding anything. Take Munich University of Technololgy - there BMW provided ten million euros to the building for Advanced Study and their auditorium was rebaptised AUDI-torium, and the EPFL has the Rolex Learning Center.

Why should it be impossible for an ASML building to be erected here some time?’

Where does TU/e wish to be in five years’ time in terms of fundraising? Mengelers: ‘In Wageningen they once clamoured: ‘We want to secure €100m within ten years.

That was toned down to €15m, which they managed to realize eventually within three to five years. Let that be our aim as well.

It will be my successor who will reap the first fruits of this, though.’

The university flows of funds The incomes of the Dutch universities are traditionally divided into three flows of funds. The primary flow of funds is understood to be the contribution from the government, a so-called lumpsum from which universities pay the salaries of employees and the costs for the infrastructure.

The secondary flow consists of research funding from NWO and the KNAW (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), for which researchers and institutions have to compete with their colleagues in the Netherlands.

Comparable funding from the European Union and the Ministry of Economic Affairs comes under the tertiary flow, just like contract research and contributions from collection box funds (such as the heart foundation or KWF cancer fund). This flow can naturally be regarded as a form of ‘philanthropic funding’, a way of financing which, because of its different nature, should perhaps be called the fourth flow.

Kees Mouwen, alumnus of Applied Physics (1966), emeritus professor of Strategic Management, member of the Alumni Society and vicePresident of the Executive Board of Tilburg University.

Loek Overes, alumnus of Architecture, Building and Planning (2013), member of the Advisory Council for alumni policy, Adviser Client/Contractor at Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management.

‘I find it exceptionally enterprising of TU/e to start this, although I do have some reservations. We often see references to successful experiences with fundraising in Anglo-Saxon countries, but in that context it is often forgotten that such universities are financed with private funds. In the Netherlands universities are paid from public funds. I can imagine that citizens wonder why they should also make gifts to universities. That people in Anglo-Saxon countries are willing to loosen their purse-strings out of love for their Alma Mater, is an attitude which is not self-evident here.

Many Dutch universities have tried this before, often with disappointing results.

‘I expect that universities will increasingly have to find the means to stock their own budgets. Aiming for businesses, foundations and alumni for donations is an option then. I would focus in particular on companies - which may or may not be regional, to add to the number of opportunities and I would use the alumni as a link. I think that the chance of success is greatest if you come up with specific questions: not a general contribution to the university, but a contribution to a new building or the procurement of research resources. Make it tangible!

For many alumni it will not be too difficult to play a role as go-between.

Whether alumni make a contribution themselves will depend on their personal situation. I can easily imagine that young alumni who have to pay back a student loan want to take care of that first.

It has to begin on a small scale, and the university should be pleased with any amount coming in and, especially, should not give in too soon. The idea must be given time to land and grow. At the same time you must be realistic enough not to think of this as the solution to the funding of the university.’

I personally think that there are far more opportunities in entering into strategic alliances with major players from business and industry, even more so than is already being done. Find partners that have a close fit with priority areas of your education and research. Try via strategic alliances to build up things together and thus generate capacity for education and research. In the end that will yield more than developing policies for receiving cash within a few years.’

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38 39

THE SPARK/

TEXT JOEP HUISKAMP PHOTOS BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Teasing

VORTICES for

SCIENCE

g.j.f.v.heijst@tue.nl

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

GertJan van Heijst (62) has been inspired for many years already by the fascinating phenomenon of vortices. Those vortices or eddies, as they are called, are to do with rotating flows, on a large or a small scale. In a reactor vessel, but also in the oceans or in the atmosphere.

Vortices which often display amazing behavior and affect the transport of biological material, sand or heat. Every year the Professor of Turbulence and Vortex Dynamics recharges his scientific battery for several weeks in Cambridge, where he has also developed a passion for British church music.

40 41

THE SPARK/

y father worked as a technician for BPM, the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij. My interest in technology derives from him. As a boy I used to build radios by means of the Philips EE box.

It was only later that I really got to be fascinated with physics and mathematics. At the secondary modern school (HBS) I also found languages interesting. Language as a system, differences in dialects, relationships in languages; I like to read about that. I’ve always felt an attraction to music as well. At secondary school I even considered going to the academy of music. Now I am a church organ-player in my leisure time and I accompany choirs.

I love Bach’s music with its mathematical structures, but I also enjoy the music for organ composed by Mendelssohn and Max Reger.

From ultracentrifuge to ocean In 1971 I went to study in Twente. In those days UT had a general first year, but when I was taught fluid dynamics by Professor Van Wijngaarden I knew what direction I was going to take. As a mechanical engineer I ended up in the more mathematical field and obtained my PhD in Twente on the subject of rotating flows, a subject supplied by the UCN in Almelo, where they were involved with ultracentrifuge development.

The idea was on the bottom of a fast-revolving cylinder to apply a so-called topography, a kind of rib that influences the flow and thus leads to a better separation of gases. This proved to be a highly interesting academic subject and I was enthralled by geophysical fluid dynamics. After all, what happened by placing those obstacles inside a tank was quite similar to phenomena occurring on the ocean floor. There you see rotating bodies of water flow across mountain ridges. Those dynamic forces you can describe in the same way, on the basis of classic comparisons and supplemented by the so-called Coriolis force, which is to do with the rotation of the earth.

We are forgetting this for the sake of conve-

Measuring vortices in the lab. nience, but in fact we ourselves are also rotating along with the earth at breakneck speed, even though we are sitting at a table here.

After my doctoral research I ended up in Cambridge. A ZWO stipend (Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research) allowed me to work on rotating flows for a year. That was fantastic. The entire foundation of fluid dynamics lies in Newton’s classic principles of mechanics and on my bike I would often ride past Trinity College, where he once carried out his experiments.

Every year I am still a guest in Cambridge for several weeks to work on articles and other things. I am housed in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, with the faculty where Stephen Hawking is a professor as well. In Cambridge they can select according to excellence and their education is quite individual, almost one-on-one: every afternoon in that department you will find fifty to eighty students in pairs with a tutor seated at small tables in the big refectory, where they go through the subject matter together.

Given the large numbers of students that we have in the Netherlands, such an intensive instructional model where quality determines everything is not possible. Besides, lecturers must comply with the agreements which the Departmental Board makes with the

Executive Board about the performance.

If we were to present today’s students with the examinations from 1990, the number of students passing would not be so high.

Students are still as clever as they were then, they have only been given other baggage along and lack analytical skills. Volatility has increased enormously: so we must teach them that looking up things fast sometimes implies a pitfall. There are certain things you only understand when you probe something profoundly, after which you will not forget them anymore for as long as you live.

‘Volatility has increased enormously’ As a university we derive our reason for being from training young people who, once equipped with a diploma, need to find their own way in society. And if you have succeeded in conveying enthusiasm for your profession, you have managed to kindle the spark, then you’ve done a good job. What I find worrying is the paperwork surrounding education.

Everything seems to have been made watertight. Of course, financing troubles are an issue, but there is also a slumbering need to keep tabs on just about everything. Nowadays there is a lot of ‘congealed distrust’ in society.

When I came here in 1990, lecturers were free to organize their lectures according to

NR.16 NR.1 DECEMBER NOVEMBER 2016 2011 / MAGAZINE OF THE

their own ideas. Nowadays an entire framework filled with educational objectives is expected from you. You won’t hear me say that everything was better in the old days, but not every change means progress.

Pancake-like Meddies A couple of years ago I came to the Auditorium after Christmas and I was flabbergasted to see that the big chalk boards had rigorously been sawn away with angle grinders, without anyone bothering to inform the lecturers.

In our profession we need to construct formulas bit by bit, and you need such a big board to do so. Within a matter of days I had mobilized colleagues. Now there are big boards hanging there again and we can fill square meters with our calculations once

more. That is definitely appreciated by the students as well.

After Cambridge I was appointed in Utrecht as Assistant Professor at the institute for Meteorology and Oceanography. I went to do research on the dynamics of large-scale, rotating bodies of water. The flow of huge bodies of water from the Mediterranean Sea via the Straits of Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean causes vast eddies which we call Meddies. In the Atlantic Ocean those Meddies are influenced by the earth’s rotation and move towards the Bahamas in the form of pancake-like vortices which sometimes have a diameter of fifty kilometers. It takes them a year to get there. That is fascinating, and not only interesting from a biological and chemical point of view. Such a body of water also has a great impact on the transport of heat, which in turn affects the climate.

You don’t see large-scale vortices only in the ocean, but also in low-pressure systems in the atmosphere. There the move proceeds much faster. We conduct experiments here in our lab to measure the stability of those eddies. We can annoy them a bit, make them crash into each other, see when they fall apart.

Describing, explaining and predicting, that’s what we are interested in. We once made the front page of Nature, with research into a couple of colliding dipoles in two eddies.

Looking at reality from a different perspective While our work has a theoretical basis, we also look at what can be done with our knowledge and experience. How, for example, do you efficiently mix two substances in a big vessel so as to bring about an optimal chemical reaction? Together with a colleague we are now working on a model of a sea harbor or an estuary where tidal movements occur.

Depending on the position and the shape of the opening in such a harbor, it is possible to predict where sand will be carried along and deposited. Dredging harbors is costing billions worldwide. We make numerical, mathematical models on the basis of measuring data of others that we can also mimic in our lab. In this way we attempt to optimize the design of harbors. So our insights help other parties to do useful things, but we are on the scientific side of the valorization chain.

In research you often find the most beautiful things through serendipity. It is important always to keep your eyes open. When an experiment does not produce the result you expected, you need to reflect carefully upon what was going on. When the article about the dipoles appeared in Nature, I received reactions from all over the world, from physicians, psychologists and even philosophers. In those clashes and interactions they saw things that I had never heard of.

Looking at reality from a different perspective yields a great many interesting insights.’

42 43

PLANNER/VENTURER

TEXT YONGWEI VAN BUSSEL PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Both completed their studies at TU/e. The planner chose the path most in line with his education. While the venturer went outside the boundaries of his.

PLANNER ROB SMITS Age 56 Jobs • Architect/owner 3d0d bureau for architecture • Researcher into Light Mass Space Time, research on an architectural basis Study • 1980-1988 Architecture, Building and Planning TU/e

Research into space, light, mass and time ‘I used to like drawing landscapes and spatial scenes. In order to connect some social relevance with this creativity, I decided to study architecture. Even during my study I built two houses.

After my graduation I conducted a lot of research into architectural principles, especially into space, light, mass and time. For this research I was granted several subsidies by the ‘Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts and Architecture’. These ideas have been applied in the building ‘Magazijn van de Ruimte’ where I live and work at present. The building is ‘RAW, Spacious and Clear’ and in spite of the loft-like basic approach the rooms radiate warmth and security as a result of the incidence of light and good proportions. An important starting point for my architecture is the concept of Raw Architectural Value (RAW). In this concept the carcase determines the quality of the architecture. Details in the structural work remain visible in the building and it is possible to work and live in an energy-neutral manner. RAW has a costsaving effect. A lot of space is created at low cost and it fits in with ecological and sustainable building.’

Directing architects ‘I have made a conscious choice to start my own 3d0d bureau for architecture. Moreover, I find it fascinating to be involved in the whole building process. In my opinion, architects should take the initiative even in the preliminary stage, before a property

developer enters the picture. Architects should show ideas with vision about the built environment, for that is their profession.

When they are the first party to come up with good ideas for sites in the city, they can thus convince the other parties. Another route to a good building may be found via an inspiring client who stimulates me to put on my thinking cap. The interaction taking place in the design process makes it possible for something genuinely new to be created.’

Energy-efficient house ‘A recent project is the new headquarters for Quooker, the manufacturer of the boiling-water tap. A compact and strong building that boasts very unusual spaces thanks to its special shape.

A research project that I’m still working on is the E+ house, an energy-efficient house. The house is in the shape of a bent triangle, a highly energy-efficient shape. The south side of the house has a conservatory that always captures sunlight and functions like a heat-and-cold buffer for the spaces located behind it. A variant on this is the house standing on one pillar, so that it can be ‘jacked up’ when water levels are rising.

I’m dreaming of building a functionless building, which is always open and which everybody can enter and exit freely. An architectural space as an addition to nature. I look upon that as a ‘spatial sculpture’ that you can get into.’

TEXT JUDITH VAN GAAL PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

Abroad ‘I decided on the nautical college because I really wanted to go abroad, but I found out that in practice you actually get to see very little of the countries themselves. Then I wanted to turn to ICT, which was hot at that moment and future-oriented.

Programing was not really my thing, so I concentrated on industrial engineering on the interface with ICT. Subsequently I was an ICT manager and coach for many years and I still occasionally do interim jobs.’

Boudewijn Büch ‘I collected everything about Büch and found his travel programs fantastic. I had also discovered certain things about him. For instance, he often said that the story he narrated in ‘De kleine blonde dood’ had really happened, but that proved to be entirely false. A publisher tried to contact me when he heard that and asked me to write a biography on Büch. I have published

several books about him and was a guest in all sorts of talk shows . Now I’m not associated with it anymore, which is fine with me. That is not favorable for market reasons, but I did dethrone my hero, after all.’

Jump at the deep end ‘After having been an ICT manager for many years, I wanted change: travel, tell stories, especially non-fiction. I thought ‘filming, how hard can it be?’. Well, it turned out to be quite hard. At first I did not even know how to turn on the camera.

It eventually took me seven years to master that craft. It was a jump at the deep end and in fact I have only resurfaced again now.’

DocFeed ‘I’m proud of having created my own job and festival with DOCfeed (Documentary Festival Eindhoven, ed.). The focus of the documentaries is on music, human interest and culture.

I have gathered a crew of fifty around me, volunteers all of them.

I want to make documentaries, but I also want them to be watched by many people. Otherwise it is a waste of the subsidy. I’m not only in it for the creative aspect, but I’m also concerned about the sale of the product. That’s where my management background kicks in. The only drawback is the uncertainty about income. Having an office job gave me certainty, when at present I sometimes wonder ‘How can I fill up my tank this week’? Still, there are so incredibly many things I learn from it personally! Over the past few years I have spent time with Henk Schiffmacher, sailed to the North Pole with Henk de Velde and made a film with Theo Maassen. Those experiences are priceless. Now I think every day that I’m making the world a bit nicer and more attractive.’

From February 17 thru 19, 2017, the fourth edition of DOCfeed will take place.

VENTURER FRANS MOUWS Age 46 Jobs • Director DOCfeed • Director Mouws Management & Coaching • Author of five books including a biography and bibliography on Boudewijn Büch Studies • 1993 - 1997: Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, TU/e • 1986 - 1993: Higher Nautical College AOT

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45

GETTING STARTED/

In ‘Getting Started’ TU/e starters talk about their own enterprises.

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TEXT BRIGIT SPAN PHOTO HANS KRUDDE

How long have you been active with Picoo

?

‘Actually ever since the design case I did for the User System Interaction program of the Stan Ackermans Institute. Then we came up with the concept for an interactive outdoor game to enable children to exercise more. Later that led to my PhD project at Industrial Design. Picoo is made up of controllers - which are called Picootjes - that vibrate and emit light and with which children can play old-fashioned outdoor games in a contemporary outfit. Via an RFID-tag or - at a later stage - via an app, games are ‘uploaded’, such as Triltikkertje (vibrate-tag), Mollenmania (mole mania), Hot Potato, Invade the Castle and Camelot. I am now designing a new game: Kaleidoscope, a color-change game for young children, with endless possibilities.’

PICOO Iris Soute Age 40

Job Co-owner of Picoo, interactive outdoor games

What

happened after your PhD

?

Where

are you now with Picoo

?

What

have you learned

?

‘I was appointed as a postdoc at ID, but kept thinking of the game. I didn’t want it to be relegated to a drawer somewhere. During the many tests I carried out with it involving children, I was often asked: ‘when can I buy it?’. There just had to be more I could do with it. At long last, after many peregrinations, setbacks and disappoint­ ments, though always with my enthusiasm and belief in the idea, this resulted in a company of my own: Picoo. Meanwhile I don’t work at TU/e anymore, but I have a part-time job as a lecturer of ICT & Media Design at Fontys Hogescholen.

Apart from that, together with my business partner Daniel Tetteroo - whom I got to know at Industrial Design - I am now continuing my work on Picoo. It’s something you just can’t do on your own; you really need a sparring partner.’

‘Two years ago we presented Picoo at the Dutch Design Week, which gave a positive impetus. And in October of this year we were proclaimed Sport Innovator of 2016.

The prize that came with it of €30,000 we used among other things to lay down the intellectual property.

It gave our company a tremendous boost. All of a sudden people were phoning and mailing us instead of the other way round. Now we are moving towards the industrialization phase. We have a renewed design, so now we need to find an investor who will enable us to have a first batch produced. This will require some €300,000 to €400,000. We have spent a lot of time on building up our network and potential customers. Interest has been shown by schools, out-of-school care, Center Parcs, outdoor games accommodations, organizers of children’s parties et cetera.’

‘How much time have you got? It is one big learning process. You can’t do something like that by yourself, so find help. The biggest learning point for me may well have been to follow the proper advice. There are so many people giving recommendations; select what your gut feeling says is good. Sometimes you need to be self-willed if you want to make the dream you believe in come true.’

Studies • Master Mechanical Engineering • PDEng User System Interaction • Obtained a PhD at Industrial Design

www.picoo.nl

46

FOOD FOR THOUGHT/

‘The only difference between expats and economic migrants is the country of origin’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Automatic recognition System for surveying of Traffic Signs and Road Markings from Street-level Panoramic Images’ by Ivo Creusen.

‘After English the most important foreign language to be learned is a programing language’.

‘Stupidity is not a lack of intelligence, but the refusal to use it’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Atomic Layer Deposition of Metal Oxide Thin Films for Si Heterojunction Solar Cells’

by Bart Macco.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Fusion Energy Burning Questions’ by Merlijn Jakobs.

‘Nobody gets angry about leaving work a few minutes later, but having a similar delay in traffic tends to drive people crazy’.

‘You trust a system less when you know more about it’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Automatic recognition System for surveying of Traffic Signs and Road Markings from Street-level Panoramic Images’ by Lykele-Bauke Hazelhoff.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Design and Formal Analysis of Real-Time Memory Controllers’ by Yonghui Li.

‘Understanding how information is stored in the memory poses one of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘From shape to function: Growth and physical regulation of dendritic spines’ by Rémy Kusters.

‘An idea is formed instantly, but formally validating it may take a life time’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Design and Formal Analysis of Real-Time Memory Controllers’ by Yonghui Li.

‘Although scientists are constantly trying to discover new laws, in practical applications empirical rules often work best’.

‘Whilst measurable quantities may be very useful, we should not forget that the most important things are immeasurable’.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Creeping Sparks: a study on surface discharge development’ by Anna Chvyreva.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Physiology-based treatment in stable angina and acute myocardial infarction’ by Lokien van Nuenen.

Thesis with the dissertation ‘Nanowire Photonics for Photovoltaics’ by Dick van Dam.

‘Writing is like paving roads, lying on your knees and creeping backwards. Only when you stand up do you see the result’.

47

Jos Smeets (1952), Associate Professor of Real Estate Management, member of the Supervisory Board of Futuris Zorg & Werk. Said goodbye in October 2016.

j.j.a.m.smeets@tue.nl

TEXT HAN KONINGS PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

Neo-Marxist

‘In the 1970s I studied Social Geography at the University of Amsterdam and was involved in the neo-Marxist magazine ZONE. That may have been one of the reasons for Helga Fassbinder, Professor of Urban Renewal, to invite me. It was my only interview ever and I kept working at TU/e for over 37 years. In the area of urban renewal I cooperated in various great research projects, both national and international ones.’

Real Estate Management Precariat ‘When neoliberalism gained the upper hand in the 1980s, that also became noticeable within the Department of Architecture, Building and Planning. Within the context of an allocation of duties operation the Urban Renewal group was done away with and within the Realization and Management group I began to concentrate on maintenance and management of real estate, particularly the management of houses by corporations. It is a pity that a few scandals, like the one involving the Maserati man, impair the reputation of this branch. We really had to conquer our place within the Department, because management is positioned at the very end of the building chain.’

Tertiary flow of funds

‘At the beginning of my career it was a pure necessity to secure tertiary-flow projects. It did not take me long to see that it was not easy to maintain a small family on a part-time appointment. We have always been very successful in securing those projects and via a foundation I made sure that I could always pay my researchers from this flow as well. The Real Estate Management specialization prospered. In the Netherlands there was a sharp decline in new building and in 2009 we had our top year with 170 Master’s students.

There was a market demand for our graduates.’

Coproduction

‘I look back on my days at TU/e with great satisfaction.

I regarded students as stakeholders and definitely not as consumers. Lecturers and students are jointly responsible for the quality of education.

It is a co-production. I’m proud of the position that TU/e now holds in terms of education and research and occasionally compare it to good wine. They say good wine needs no bush, but I think we should actually show that bush more often.’

On page 2 forward/ with Jan van Hest

‘I’ve always been interested in people on the fringes of society. For them, affordable housing and access to the labor market are crucial.

If we don’t take serious action, the social divide is going to lead to ever more problems.

A special term has been coined for them already: the precariat. Those are the people whose voices are not being heard, with low incomes and precious little social security. In the Netherlands 15% of the population belongs to the precariat. The election of Trump for president of the USA is an exponent of this.’

Futuris

‘I’m a member of the Supervisory Board of Futuris Zorg & Werk. For people who are at risk of dropping out of society we try to come up with solutions to provide them with housing and work.

For instance, we are working on housing and work projects for autistic youngsters, of whom there is a relatively large proportion in the Brainport region. A new target group for us is asylum seekers who have been granted residency status.’

48

ORIGIN/

3D printing

NR.16 DECEMBER 2016 / MAGAZINE OF THE

TEXT TOM JELTES PHOTO BART VAN OVERBEEKE

By 3D printing we mean the computer-controlled layer-by-layer construction of a three-dimensional object. Inspired by 19th-century technologies like photo sculpture and the manufacture of topographic relief maps, this technology is born in the 1980s. In recent years 3D printing has also boomed at and around TU/e.

2017 The first 3D-printed house from the concrete printer of TU/e must be erected in Eindhoven. Such is the agreement between the university and the municipality. The components will be printed on the campus and will subsequently be transported to the building location.

1981 The Japanese Hideo Kodama is the first person to describe a working prototype of a 3D printer. He uses a photopolymer: a transparent liquid that hardens on the spots that are exposed to ultraviolet light.

1989 The American Scott Crump patents fused deposition modeling, the technology that is the one still applied most in 3D printers for home use. In this process the molten material to be printed is extruded and applied layer by layer by a moving nozzle, after which it hardens.

1992 The company DTM, a spin-off of the University of Texas, makes the first 3D printer on the basis of selective laser sintering - a technology that works with a photosensitive powder instead of a liquid.

1986 The American Charles ‘Chuck’ Hull founds 3D Systems Inc., the first company to produce 3D printers on the basis of stereolithography, the technique that was already used by Kodama, but to which Hull gives its name. In addition, Hull conceives of the file format that is still being used: STL, in which the information for the 3D model is laid down.

2016 TU/e and TNO are jointly starting a knowledge center in the area of 3D printing and other forms of ‘additive manufacturing’. In this context a new group will be set up: Systems Mechatronics for Advanced Manufacturing.

2015 The TU/e Department of Architecture, Building and Planning is putting a large-scale concrete printer into use (see photo). This printer makes it possible to print objects up to 11 meters long, 5 meters wide and 4 meters high. The printer is capable of making details the size of a pea; moreover, it can print ‘along’ other materials than concrete, like fibers or sensors.

1999 3D-printed medical implants are on the rise.

Thus, scientists from the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine are growing human cells on a 3D-printed model of a bladder, and subsequently implant the tissue so generated in patients.

2015 On Budget Day, Minister of Education Jet Bussemaker is wearing a creation designed by TU/e doctoral candidates on the basis of a 3D body scan.

The matching shoes were printed by means of a 3D printer.