START! #9 | JANUARY 2016
YES!DELFT STUDENTS MAGAZINE
DEVELOPMENTS 09
3D PRINTING
INTERVIEW16
PELICAN HOUSE TOOLS 26 QUANTUM COMPUTING
Editorial Dear Reader, With delight we present to you our first edition of START! Magazine. At the beginning of October we started our year fresh and with great intentions as the new magazine committee. The first thing we want to do is point out the QR-code at the bottom of the page. By scanning this code you can have the magazine delivered at a place of your choice totally free of charge.
START-UP 3D Developments 10
Lingerie, Bridges and Jewelry
A Day in the Life of 16 Pelican House
Unipartners 23
Student consulting
Next we want to thank our predecessors for their great work on the previous three magazines. Progressing on their high quality editions, we managed to assemble magazine #9. The content of the magazine consists of an interesting and appealing set of articles. These articles vary from interviews to indepth pieces, all in the world of entrepreneurship and technology. We hope you will enjoy reading our magazine and hope to have excited you for the upcoming magazine! Kind regards on behalf of the magazine committee of 20152016, Marie Sam Rutten, Acquisition
Blulocks 30
Student Start-up
YES!DELFT YES!Delft students 8 UBI-global Index
Activities 18 Philips Innovation Award
YES!Delft students 24 Committees
Activities 28
Ideation Club
COLOPHON Team
Contributors
YES!Delft Students board Editor-in-Chief Ingemar Dierrickx Aoibhinn Reddington Thomas van de Wolfshaar Content Koen van Rooijen Merlijn Mascini Dennis Wiersma Content Kaz Vermeer Dasha Pasiy Boris van Hattum Karen Brooks Design Stina Thor Lorenzo Zuliani Emma Blunt Design Melissa Wooten Daniel Tran Marie Sam Rutten Nick Stafunski Irene Kingma
Acquisition
Dawn Tulling
Photos made by
QQ’er YES!Delft Students
Haalbeeld fotografie
KNOW HOW The START! is the informational magazine by YES!Delft Students
Tools 6
Crowdfunding
YES!Delft Students Molengraaffsingel 12-14 2629 JD Delft +31 (0)15 2784290 www.yesdelftstudents.nl Interested in advertising? magazine@yesdelft.nl
4.000 copies (Published trimesterly) Veenman+ BV. Rotterdam
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Tools 12
Quantum Computing
Lecture 20
Turning technology into busine
10 Tips for negotiation 26 Ingemar Dierickx
ess
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NEW STUDENT START-UPS E-TRAILER E-Trailer is a start-up, founded by Rick and Boy. E-Trailer delivers an electrically smartly powered trailer that solves the problem of insufficient towing power and limited range. This system has the ability to not only assist the car, but it also creates a more safe system as it is able to stabilize the natural swaying motion of the trailer.
MEDICAL BEACON Medical beacon has been founded by Matthijs and Joost after winning Ready to Startup with their Business Plan. In over 25% of all medical emergency situations there is insufficient information available about the patient. Medical Beacon has developed a unique solution that answers the needs of patients and ambulance personnel.
CLAIR Clair is founded by Martijn and Bram.The unique selling point of Clair is that they use residual heat to cool and even warm! So, when you have residual heat of 80 degrees Celsius and a cooling or warming demand between the 16-30 degrees Celsius, Clair is your partner in making the world more sustainable and reducing your energy bill!
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YES!DELFT STUDENTS
NEWS
UPCOMING EVENTS Next year we will have some very exciting events coming up to inspire you to become an entrepreneur and to show you what is happening in one of the best incubators in the world. TEDx Delft Award Do you like inspirational pitches and world changing ideas? Come to the TEDx Delft Award in February and listen to our six finalists who will compete for the TEDx Delft award, because talk is priceless! The winner of this award will get a wildcard for stage time at the TEDx Delft in April 2016. When: 11th of February Where:YES!Delft
YES!Week
E-Forum
The YES!Week in November was a great success! During the YES!Week we had a different event every day. Such as the Philips Innovation Award, the network day of the Ideation Club, the Do-It! Game, the information meeting for the city trip to Paris and the Incubator Tour.We would like to thank everyone for joining the events! It was a week full of inspirational events and lots of new ideas were created. Hopefully we will see you at the coming events!
The Entrepreneurship Forum is our largest event and always has the best, biggest and most inspiring speakers wanting to tell you their story about being an entrepreneur. It attracts a 1000 students every year as it is hosted in the auditorium of the TU Delft. This year the event will be extra special, since it is placed in the biggest startup event of Europe, the Startup-fest. We are collaborating with Startup Delta, known for Neelie Kroes, to make it even better and bigger for you.
YES!Delft with bio facilities
When: 25th of May Where: Auditorium of the TU Delft
The success of YES!Delft and the need for laboratory space for technical start-ups were reasons enough for the start of a new building. YES!Delft with bio facilities will have 2.000 m² office space and 900 m² laboratory space for rent, that will provide more room for even more start-ups. A place where innovation, technology, (industrial) biotechnology, knowledge sharing and collaboration come together. YES!Delft with bio facilities will be finished in the spring of 2016. Are you interested? Get more information at yesdelft.nl.
YES!Day For the first time ever we will organize a YES!Day. A day filled with speakers, workshops, start-ups and of course a lot of fun. It will give you more insight into all the aspects of becoming and being an entrepreneur at YES!Delft. When: 22th of March Where:YES!Delft
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How pocket change can make your project happen!
Crowdfunding by Merlijn Mascini
On a small island between NewYork and Jersey City stands a colossal statue, with an interesting history. It was collaborative project between France and the United States, with the former supplying the statue itself and the latter providing a site and pedestal for it. However, while the statue was being shipped to America, funding for the pedestal stalled, and the entire project seemed doomed.The saviour was a local newspaper which started a campaign, asking people to donate any small amount they could. Businessmen, children, students, seniors, rich and poor alike, contributed pocket change and together raised what amounts to roughly $2.5 million. The building of the pedestal resumed, and the Statue of Liberty stands proudly still.
This constitutes one of the first examples of crowdfunding, the internet buzzword of the past year, and rightly so. Offering creative minds the means to realize their idea, it has spawned some incredible projects.The largest campaign so far, a video game called Star Citizen, has surpassed its original goal of $500,000 to raise an impressive $94 million, and it’s still going strong. Other well-known crowdfunded success stories include Pebble, a smart watch, and Oculus Rift, market leader in virtual reality. Both have raised millions of dollars from millions of people, offering small perks and rewards for every donation. Crowdfunding, however, is not limited to massive projects like the abovementioned. Everything goes; new playgrounds in poor neighbourhoods have been built, life long dreamers have been able to open their own restaurant, a museum for Nikola Tesla has been commissioned, the original creator of one of the most-sampled drum loops ever has finally been awarded his due royalties. All funded by ordinary people.
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Of course there has been a fair share of ludicrous actions too. A kickstarter campaign was set up to raise ten dollars so its creator could make some potato salad. He ended up receiving more than $55 000 and is now working on a potato salad cookbook. During the Greek crisis earlier this year, one brilliant mind decided to give it a shot and see if he could raise the 1.6 billion euros necessary to bail out Greece. Unsurprisingly, the goal wasn’t quite met, but the fact that he did pull in nearly 2 million euro’s provides a heartwarming reminder that if everyone contributes a little, a lot can be achieved.
How does crowdfunding work? There are three basic types of crowdfunding: donation, debt and equity. The first is the one we are probably most familiar with; it is the principle on which sites like kickstarter. com operates. People can donate any amount of money, small or large, to a project they believe in. Rewards are given in the form of small tokens of appreciation (a t-shirt, or an early access pass to the beta version, for example). This is the simplest and most accessible kind of crowdfunding campaign, relying on the inherent generosity of people who like your project. Debt crowdfunding, also called peer-to-peer lending, does exactly what its name implies; it allows people to lend money to the entrepreneur, generally for a lower interest rate than a bank normally would. Often, if the project is taking place in a very poor developing country, the funders will settle for no interest at all, considering the reward to be karma or the good feeling of having contributed to society. Any peer-to-peer lending project comes with a risk though; no matter how meticulously researched or vigorously protected by the crowdfunding platform, any project has the chance of failing completely, meaning you’ve lost your money. This holds true for the third type, equity crowdfunding, as well: in this case the funded money is seen as an investment into a share of the company.
Crowdfunding at Yes!Delft A successful crowdfunding campaign might make use of any combination or derivation of the abovementioned types. YES!Delft startup Pelican House recently employed a crowdfunding campaign to launch their product: they offer headphones at a cheap monthly price, with special benefits for people who enrolled early in the funding campaign. This way they managed to surpass their initial goal by an impressive 141%! It is important to realize that their crowdfunding campaign was only a small part of their total campaign: it is essential to have a strong basis if you want people to fund your project. Making a nice video and creating a kickstarter page is nowhere near enough to guarantee success: the Pelican House founders spent weeks contacting magazines, newspapers, online blogs and other media outlets. They also used social marketing to hype their product. The result was a fun campaign, with lots of contact with their customers, and the added joy of seeing the counter slowly go above and beyond their original goal. Another smart way to finetune your campaign is to find niche-specific crowdfunding sites. Pelican House made use of oneplanetcrowd.com, a website aimed specifically at sustainable projects. They also worked with Douw&Koren, a crowdfunding consultancy bureau. In the end, the entire process was educative and fun: although it was hard work, they found it enjoyable and can look back on a succesful campaign.
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If you have an incredible idea just waiting to be realized, don’t just sit around, act on it! Work out a detailed crowdfunding campaign and who knows where you’ll end up…
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Interested in Pelican House? Check out the ‘day in the life of’ on page 16!
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YES!DELFT
UBI-GLOBAL INDEX
by Marie Sam Ruten
The UBI-global index is the leader ranking of business incubators. They analyse more than 500 incubators in over 70 countries. At the end of October the regional UBI-global index was published, YES!Delft was already the fourth of Europe. A month later on the 27th of November they conquered the 9th place on the UBI-global index. This was an amazing result, but who are the other incubators who obtain a place in the UBI-global index?
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Setsquare, London United-Kingdom
CYUT Innovation incubator center, Taichung Taiwan
DMZ, Toronto Canada
1871, Chicago United States
Last year SetSquare was already the number two of the world. However, this year they managed to become not only the number one of Europe, but also the number one of the world. They overtook all other incubators, but what makes them so special? At first they are the result of collaboration between five research-intensive universities; Southampton, Surrey, Exeter, Bristol and Bath. In 2013 they had already incubated 1000 technology companies, divided over the five locations. With a 90% survival rate they are one of the most successful incubators of the world! SetSquare’s mission is: to help turn an innovative spark into a thriving, commercial business.
This incubator from Taiwan entered the UBI-global index for the first time this year, not without any success. They conquered the second place, but how? Chaoyang University of Technology has established the Innovation and Incubation Center in 1999. The main tasks of the Innovation and Incubation Center are to integrate academic research and human resource of the CYUT. Furthermore they train the industrial entrepreneurs in advanced management, innovation and renewal.
DMZ is the number three of the world and number one of North America. They came from a number 5 position, but now they finally reached the top three. With already 225 technology start-ups incubated you would think they existed a long time, but actually they opened just five years ago. Their base, the DMZ house, hosts about 90 start-ups. Although DMZ is based out of Ryerson University, it is not student-led. Besides, any company can apply that meet the following three criteria: an Innovative business idea, a “lean canvas” business model and a team that fits with the DMZ culture.
1871 is a new player in this index as well, but with already 325 earlystage and high-growth digital start-ups on their name they are nothing but new. 1871 is located in The Merchandise Mart, this facility is 75,000 square foot and is also the headquarters of the nationally recognized accelerators and half a dozen industry-specific incubators. These incubators operate in key areas, such as: real estate, education technology, food and financial technology. Furthermore there are several emerging vtech talent schools and the state’s leading technology law office. Because of this special location v 1871 provide a divers and useful network and environment.
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PoliHub Startup District & incubator, Milan Italy
Innovate Calgary, Calagry Canada
INiTS, Vienna Austria
ATP innvovations Sydney Australia
Polihub is one of the first Italian institutions to support the creation and growth of high-potential technological start-ups. Acceleratore d’Impresa del Politecnico di Milano provided a great base with strong experience for PoliHub. Neptuny, Fluidmesh Networks and Khamsa are just some examples of this kind of companies: created on the Italian market and grown and developed on an international level.
Innovate Calgary is the number six on this list, Innovate Calagry, seeks to work with a new approach to commercialization. This balanced approach recognizes that all stakeholders must have their needs with in order to achieve success. A new catering model, to the full technology community, was developed to facilitate connections among stakeholders, and offered a wide variety of programs and services. Their ambition is to help bridge the gap between discovery and innovation, by accelerating, facilitating and supporting innovation in the technology sector.
INiTS is a business incubator designed to improve the rate of startup success in Vienna by helping young entrepreneurs conceive, launch and grow the next great company. During an intensive incubation program, startups receive funding, consulting, training, contacts, community and workspace. The exchange of knowledge and experience within the startup community and the extensive INiTS network accelerates the implementation of business ideas. INiTS is committed to help startups succeed. They offer an extensive 18-month long incubation program to selected startups. To help them develop and bring their innovative ideas to the market.
ATP is one of Australia’s leading business incubators. To help their start-ups as much as possible, they work with researchers and entrepreneurs who help them to raise capital, build a team, secure government grants, create new products, grow revenue and ultimately exit the business profit. Since 2006 they worked with more than 80 businesses, and helped them raise over $121 million, file 250 patents and trademarks, sell products across the globe. For eight businesses, they even helped them to sell their company. ATP Innovations hosts Sydney’s largest community of entrepreneurs within the National Innovation Centre, where more than 60 companies employ over 350 staff. They strive to create a supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem where innovation can thrive.
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YES!Delft, Delft Netherlands
Of course YES!Delft was present on this list! Last year YES!Delft was noticed as most promising, this year our very own incubator made it to the top 10.
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Upsalla innovation centre, Upsalle Sweden The main focus point of UIC are start-ups in the sector: life science, ICT and technology. Like YES!Delft, UIC don’t take ownership in the companies, but what is special about this incubator, that UIC offers no offices to the start-ups. They believe that companies need to settle were they doing their business best. They only offer the companies the UIC model, this model includes five business development programs, 70 carefully selected business coaches for the commercial sector and a network of about 20 specialists, industrialization coaches. Their goal is to help businesses achieve sustainable and viable growth.
developments
3d printing by Aoibhinn Reddington, Irene Kingma and Lorenzo Zuliani
3D printing techniques have been around for while now! Let’s look at the latest developments and applications of this game-changing technology.
Lidewij van Twillert & her 3D start-up Lidewij van Twillert is a 26 year old who combined creativity and passion to live an entrepreneurial life. For quite a few years she has been spinning disco & deephouse music as ‘Ellis Vay’ at student parties and festivals. In 2013, in collaboration with Fons van den Berg, she created her own clothing brand: Global MGC, which specializes in creating clothing using a variety of fabrics from all over the world. In June this year, after finishing her thesis “Creating a custom fit bra using 3D body scanning technologies”, she graduated from Delft University of Technology Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering . She continued this project with her own company: “Mesh Lingerie”.
The custom fit Parametric Bra Most women love shopping for new clothing. However, a lot of women try to avoid buying new bras because they just don’t fit properly. Knowing this frustration from her own experience and from other women, Lidewij started her own start-up this year: ‘Mesh lingerie’, which focusses on providing women with the perfect bra using a 3D-scanning script, written by Simon Luitse, to measure the exact form of the breasts. Considering multiple variables, the animated breasts are then lifted with the software, for perfect comfort. Later on, the data is transformed into a 3D-printed support to replace the old school underwire and is then implemented in the lingerie. In the near future Lidewij would love to have her own studio in Rotterdam to expand her business. Her ultimate dream is to be the first to develop a comfortable bra that is printed completely with 3D technology.
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REAL LIFE 3D-PRINTED BRIDGE MX3D is a company that specializes in developing innovative robotic 3D print technology. They engineer robots that can print in sustainable materials and devise software that controls the robots. To give themselves and their techniques the ultimate challenge, they decided to build the first fully functional 3D printed bridge in the world. This cutting edge technology will soon be employed in Amsterdam. The technique that their robots employ is similar to drawing, only they ‘draw’ steel structures in the air. This is also what makes it possible to produce objects with an unparalleled freedom of shapes. The multiple axis robotic 3D printing technique is economically effective and innovative, distinguishing MX3D’s technology. The bridge will be placed across the canal between the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in the red light district, connecting the ‘old’ appeal of Amsterdam with this futuristic technology. The project is a collaboration between MX3D,Autodesk, Heijmans, the Joris Laarman Lab, Acotech and many others.
INSTANT JEWELRY Have you always wanted to design your own jewelry? And I don’t mean the bracelets made of plastics beads you used to make when you were 8, but the kind of rings, bracelets and necklaces you would normally buy at a juweler. On Trove, an online platform, anyone can design and costumize jewelry however they want and have their own designs, 3D printed in materials ranging from sterling silver to 18K gold, delivered at home. If you don’t dare to let Trove print gold instantly, you can order a plastic try-on version. Subsequently, you can change, accept or share your design or choose to explore entirely different templates to costumize.
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AN INVESTIGATION INTO A PROMISING SCIENTIFIC FIELD, AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
QUANTUM COMPUTING by Merlijn Mascini
Long ago, man learned how to make and control fire. This paved the way to communities, cities, nations, and more scientific discoveries. Subsequently, man invented the wheel and the blade, started writing on paper, sharing thoughts, discovering. As our communities grew, so did our scientific discoveries. The past centuries have been a rollercoaster ride of innovation and technological breakthroughs. The biggest game-changer yet may be just around the corner, and it goes by the name “quantum computer.” What is quantum computing? To understand quantum computers, one must first understand classical computers. The basis for our computers is a complex circuit of transistors and capacitors. Data is stored in binary form as a series of 1’s and 0’s, known as bits. When the data runs through a logic gate, an operation is performed on it. Different types of gates may change a bit when different conditions are met, and in this way calculations can be performed. This is what happens in your pocket calculator, in your laptop, in your phone, in internet servers, in massive supercomputers. Although these supercomputers are very powerful, there are still certain classes of problems that are nearly impossible to solve. This is where the quantum computer comes into play.
Instead of utilizing classical bits, a quantum computer makes use of something called a qubit. A qubit, in contrast to a classical bit, is not simply a 1 or a 0: it can be both at the same time. This has to do with complex quantum mechanics. When looking at particles of the smallest scales, weird behaviour is observed. The particles may be in multiple places at once, may be in a superposition of multiple contradictory states, may even become entangled with another and remain entangled over long distances, sharing information instantaneously. All of these properties are essential to the functioning of a quantum computer.
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Bits and qubits
ALL WE KNOW FOR SURE IS THAT QUANTUM COMPUTERS ARE GOING TO LAUNCH SCIENCE INTO A COMPLETELY NEW AND UNPREDICTABLE ERA.
I n c l a s s i c a l computers, information is stored and processed in the form of classical bits, which must always be either 0 or 1. Calculations are performed on numbers in binary form. The qubit is based on quantum rules and can be 0 and 1 at the same time. This principle is called superposition.
Superposition When a particle, e.g. a photon, exists in multiple different states simultaneously. When the state of the particle is measured, it will collapse to a single state. Entanglement Entanglement can be used to transfer information. Entanglement occurs when a pair of particles (such as photons) share a superposition. The entangled particles behave as one, even when separated by a large distance. Quantum computer An array of qubits. Every added qubit exponentially increases the speed and usefullness of the quantum computer.
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Using a qubit may seem like a challenging affair; how can you calculate anything if your data is a 1 and a 0 at the same time? The beauty of it is that, although the qubits may be in simultaneous states at some point in time, eventually they will collapse to a single state. Let’s say we want to make a couple of simple calculations using only two bits. On a classical computer we would do these calculations in series; one after another. On a quantum computer, we would be able to compute both simultaneously, making use of the fact that each qubit can contain multiple values and thus perform multiple calculations at the same time. If we add more qubits to the circuit, the amount of calculations that can be performed at the same time and thus the speed at which the answer can be found increases exponentially.
If a quantum computer is built, it would also completely undermine most modern cryptography. Current cryptographic methods rely on the fact that it is pretty much impossible to factorize large integers if they are the product of a few large prime numbers. However, a quantum computer algorithm known as Shor’s algorithm shows that this ‘impossible’ task is very feasible for a quantum computer, thereby rendering our current computer security obsolete. It is no surprise that Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense and security company, is actively involved in quantum computer research; should quantum computers become a fact, information encryption will have to be developed accordingly. Eventually this may lead to a new network, “Quantum Internet”, which would be characterised by intrinsically secure communication.
THE QUANTUM RESEARCH IN DELFT IS WORLD CLASS AND ACCESSIBLE TO PHYSICISTS, COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS.
The potential of quantum computers isn’t just limited to the abovementioned cases. Scientists have already predicted a lot of possible uses, but the general consensus is that we really don’t know exactly what we can achieve once it has been built. All we know for sure is that it would launch science into a completely new and unpredictable era.
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Future Technology
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If a working quantum computer is built, certain types of calculations that take forever on a classical computer could be done in seconds. This is a game-changer. Take, for example, the folding of a protein. To understand how certain enzymes work, biologists have been trying to figure out how enzymes fold in upon themselves in space. It is generally agreed that they will fold in such a way as to minimize the total energy, and we know how to calculate the total energy. But to discover what this optimal folding pattern is, millions of simulations need to be performed, each with slightly tweaked parameters, until finally the optimal state is found. This is an almost impossible task for even our fastest supercomputers. With a quantum computer of a decent size, it is expected that the calculations could be performed simultaneously, exponentially improving the speed of the whole process.
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THE PARTICLES MAY BE IN MULTIPLE PLACES AT ONCE, MAY BE IN A SUPERPOSITION OF MULTIPLE CONTRADICTORY STATES, MAY EVEN BECOME ENTANGLED WITH ANOTHER AND REMAIN ENTANGLED OVER LONG DISTANCES, SHARING INFORMATION INSTANTANEOUSLY.
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QuTech Now obviously the explanation of quantum computers given above comes nowhere close to explaining how they truly work. You can not expect to learn quantum theory in five minutes; however, contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to devote your entire life to it. The Quantum Research in Delft is world classand accessible to physicists, computer scientists and electrical engineers. The central hub is a research institute established right here in Delft called QuTech.
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THERE ARE MANY POSSIBILITIES FOR INTERESTED ENTREPRENEURS TO GET INVOLVED; IT’S A FAST GROWING MARKET AND THIS IS THE PLACE TO GET IN ON IT
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Established by TU Delft and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO, the focus at QuTech currently covers nearly all facets of quantum computing, including theoretical physics, new materials, quantum coding, and the actual development of (components of ) a quantum computer. To do this they have partnered with ICT giants Microsoft and recently Intel. These big partners bring good chances in the race for the first quantum computer, but the other jockeys ride equally impressive horses: Google, IBM and Lockheed Martin are all intent on developing a working prototype. QuTech, however, operates in an open innovation environment. They simply wish to gain as much knowledge as possible.
Even with all this research going on, the completion of a working and scalable quantum computer is still a while away. Leo Kouwenhoven, scientific director at QuTech, remains hopeful that it will be possible in approximately ten to fifteen years. That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of market opportunities now. Recently, a tech start-up called Single Quantum has emerged from the TU Delft Quantum research. Single Quantum produces market-leading photon detectors, which are used by top universities world-wide. QuTech Programme Director Anouschka Versleijen says there are many more possibilities for interested entrepreneurs to get involved; it’s a fast growing market and this is the place to get in on it.
That mentality is paying off; the observant reader will have already seen the name QuTech mentioned in many news articles recently. Large exposure was given to what is known as a “Loop-hole free Bell test”. This is partly due to the fact that they have disproved one of the godfathers of physics, Albert Einstein, who firmly believed that a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement between distant particles is impossible. The experiment relies on entangled electron spins in two diamond crystals at ultra-low temperatures. Through laser light and glassfibers under the TU Delft Mekelweg they are quantummechanically linked to each other. Measuring elusive photons is difficult to achieve reliably. An impressive feat, and one that multiple international research projects were simultaneously trying to perform – QuTech was the first.
As part of their effort to get students involved in the research, QuTech has their own ‘Academy’ of sorts. There are online courses, master’s courses, student projects and more. And it’s not just for physics students; anybody working with electronic engineering, materials engineering, computer science or mathematics is more than welcome. Interested bachelor and master students can apply for research projects to get some hands-on work done in the field. And who knows, the discoveries they make might just lead to another successful start-up! More information www. qutech.nl
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A day in the life of... by Irene Kingma
PELICAN HOUSE Welcome in a day in the life of Tom Leenders, co-founder of Pelican House together with Dorus Galama. In this recurring feature we take a look at the inner workings of a start-up. This time we chose to explore the brains behind the one headphone you cannot buy. Pelican House’s drive to develop circular consumer electronics and their passion for music led to a business model in which you can subscribe yourself to the use of a headphone. For €6 a month, you’ve earned yourself the right to use a headphone Tom and Dorus developed, worth €250, and to receive substitute parts once one is broken. They started one year ago and are now a well running start-up. I was wondering what their day looks like and how they have experienced starting a company.
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With us, every day is different!” Tom tells me. “We don’t even have a fixed meeting point. We spend most time in Rotterdam, Utrecht or Delft, choosing day by day what is most convenient. We are very flexible.
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He is proud of their successful crowdfunding campaign. With almost 400 subscribers already seen as a milestone, the number keeps on growing. “A large group of our customers are people that didn’t even own a headphone before, but have always had the desire to have one. A lot of companies thought their concept was too risky, because most business models are based on people buying new things once something is broken. Therefore they decided to try on their own, with success. If they have a great idea again, Tom says, they would get on with it themselves from the beginning.
An average day would be Tom checking his e-mail around half past 8 and then getting into the car to, for instance,YES! Delft by 9, to avoid traffic jams. He also likes to travel by train in the morning, so he can keep their social media up to date on the way. Furthermore, coffee seems to be an important addition to their days. Working late is not exceptional for Tom. He tells me that for instance tonight, he has a dinner with the investors of Pelican House.
I hear him laughing at the other side while one of their interns whispers something in his ear. The atmosphere is good. The team right now is just Tom, Dorus and their two interns. He lets me know that they’re looking for a third intern, as the amount of opportunities is rising. “Dorus and I used to do everything together but especially with a third intern on the way, we need to plan more effectively and divide tasks a little more clearly.We should focus on working in a more structured way and improve the communication within Pelican House.” Will they stick with this headphone? “Probably not,” Tom says, “we are planning to diversify, but it’s only the two of us so it takes time. We focused on the over-ear headphone to launch the concept, because we believe those have the best quality. Now it seems to be a success we will deliberate with our customers about our other plans, perhaps on-ear models or different colors. We will first need to research the costumers’ needs and demands”.
Pelican House’s Priority: Believing in their vision and communicating that with the rest of the world. They think very differently than many current companies: “you should be able to pay for the use of a product, not the possession.”
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D R A W A N O I T A V O N N S I E I T I V I S P ACT I L I H P R A SEMIN ie Sam
r by Ma
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Rutten
DON’T BE AFRAID, DARE TO INNOVATE !
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On November the 17th the Philips innovation award seminar was given in YES!Delft. The seminar was a preview of the real PHIA in March and gave you the opportunity to discover what PHIA actually is. Despite the terrible weather, you couldn’t walk a meter without drowning, there was a big attendance that day.
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But what is the Philips Innovation Award? The Philips Innovation Award, in short PHIA, is the biggest award for entrepreneurial students. Throughout the contest, PHIA provides a platform that helps you transform your idea into a start-up. If your idea is truly outstanding and you succeed to set up a great start-up, you can win €50.000! You will always benefit from participating, If only it was for the feedback you receive in the process.
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THE PHILIPS INNOVATION AWARD OF THIS YEAR WILL BECOME EVEN MORE AMBITIOUS. IT WILL PROVIDE THE PLATFORM, THE COACHING NETWORK, THE START-UP CAPITAL AND THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR. - FRANS VAN HOUTEN (CEO PHILIPS) -
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The Seminar
Participating in the PHIA
As mentioned earlier, all kinds of students showed up. After the introduction of PHIA and YES!Delft, it became clear that we had the opportunity to pitch an idea. As a reward you could win a Philips Wake up light. A great reward for only a one-minute speech, so as you can imagine there were a lot of students who took this chance. In the break there wasn’t any nice chit-chat but diligent writing and people who were talking to themselves, practicing their pitch. Back in the lecture hall the atmosphere was quite tense, everybody waiting for their turn.
To begin with, they had very good news. This year PHIA expanded the semi-finals to 30 participants, so more people will get the opportunity to make it to the investors market and win the €50.000. Therefore, more people will get the opportunity to develop their business plan and go to a Coaching Day. Also, they get an invite to the Investors Market, where you will get in touch with real Venture Capitalists and have the opportunity to get funding for your idea. Unfortunately, you might have missed the first deadline on the 8th of December. But don’t be sad. This first deadline wasn’t mandatory, so you have a new chance to hand in your idea but this time more like a Business Plan. This deadline is set the first of February. So, now there is still a chance for you, let’s talk about all the questions you might have. To participate in the contest, you don’t need to have your idea all worked-out into a Business Plan. You can choose your own format, the handbook they provide on their website will help you along the way and include the judging criteria! There is no need for a prototype, at this stage it’s all about working out your idea. Of course convincing the jury is easier if you’re able To visualize your idea. However, the prototype of the winners last year didn’t even function at the moment they won. All you need is passion, time and a superior idea.
Once it started, the ideas kept coming, some even crazier than others. Yet the ideas were all creative as a result of great thinking. A few examples that really stood out were: the moveable beds for physical handicapped children, an uvlamp to check the hygiene of your hands and an idea to make airports more efficient. Today, the last one won the competition. The seminar was a nice introduction of the Philips Innovation award and gave a very good image of the upcoming competition. But what if you want to participate? We asked the board of PHIA themself!
DON’T BE AFRAID, DARE TO INNOVATE!
Turning Technology into Business
PATENTS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP by Aoibhinn Reddington
At this very moment, there are thousands of scientists performing research at universities worldwide. This research results in many discoveries that are occasionally patented by the universities in order to protect their intellectual property (IP) rights. After our earlier purely factual articles about IP rights, we decided to investigate a certain use of patents in practice. So what is the next step for these patents? Often, the patent stays property of the university, remaining unused. This waste of valuable new technologies can largely be attributed to the difficulty of successfully and lucratively bringing a patent to the market. It is this exact issue that motivated Dr Dap Hartmann to create a new Master’s level course that helps the course participants to understand how to turn technology into business.
About Turning Technology into Business
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Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.
The course that we are talking about is obviously Turning Technology into Business (TTiB). TTiB has been taught at Delft University of Technology since 2003 and aims to teach its participants how to estimate an existing patent’s marketable value. The patented technologies that are used are property of Delft University of Technology, giving the students the opportunity to collaborate with the original researchers. The course participants learn to investigate how one could successfully commercialize the patent’s technology, or come to the conclusion that there is no place in today’s market for it yet. They go about this by answering a series of questions:
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Wat can the new technology do? What problem does this solve? What is the target market for this solution? How much will these people spend on it? Is the new technology really new? What are other existing solutions to the problem in question? The course includes a large amount of interactive student involvement, as Dap Hartmann is convinced that individual attention is an integral part of learning the skills of entrepreneurship. His teaching method goes by the following Chinese proverb: “Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”
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Who can participate in TTiB? The course is available for Master’s-Level students and PhD students from Delft University of Techology, and occasionally staff members of TU Delft may also enrol. Turning Technology into Business strives for diversity in participants, because most patents involve interdisciplinary technology. This requires the teams to have knowledge of numerous fields. Even though the teams are primarily formed based on interest for the patents, they must consist of participants from different faculties and different personal backgrounds. Because of the diversity in participants, the team members can complete each other’s missing knowledge. This helps bring the whole team and its productivity to a higher level. At the end of the course the participants will have become more multidisciplinary.
How are the patents selected for TTiB? An important part of TTiB is challenging the participants to think of creative applications for their patent. Therefore, the selected patents must be versatile in their usefulness. Technologies that can only be applied in one specific way might be great patents to start a business with, but they do not offer enough creative challenge for TTiB. During the first few weeks of TTiB the particpants are encouraged to collaborate with the original researchers of their assigned patent. Mostly, the researchers have knowledge of important aspects of the technology that are not mentioned in patent documents. Furthermore, they will have already researched who would be interested in the patented technology, what other technologies with the same applications as the patent exist, and why they initially started developing the technology. So secondly, the patents are only selected if the original researchers are available. However, it is important that the researchers are involved in the first few weeks only, as they could prevent the students from thinking of innovative applications for the technology by stearing them in the direction they originally intended for the technology. Many students put a lot of effort into the course and it would be a shame if it turned out that the patent they had been working on was not available for commercialization. So thirdly, the selected patents must be availbale for licensing.
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What successful businesses have come out of the course? A lot of the teams finish the course with a strong business case, some even with possible backers and investors.This gives them a strong starting-point to build a business for real. Here are some examples of businesses that started out with TTiB.
Holland Container Innovations Holland Container Innovations has developed a foldable shipping container in an attempt to increase cost- and fuel efficieny in empty container transport. While folded, their 40ft High Cube container called 4FOLD occupies 25% of the volume of standard containers. This reduces operational costs and port congestion. Holland Container Innovations’ 4FOLD is the only ISO certified 40ft High Cube container in the world that is foldable.
Actiflow Actiflow is an aerodynamics consulting company that offers consultation on any type of aerodynamics-related problem, from the car industry to cooling systems. Actiflow does not restrict themselves to one specific part of a client’s trajectory. Instead they offer their clients a vast amount of services, from problem analysis to even product design. Primarily, they use computer simulations to advise clients how to improve their product, system or building. Projects that they have worked on include a bottom plate for Ferrari and a wind tunnel for Audi.
Ampelmann Operations References
Ampelmann Operations strive to create technology so that offshore workers can safely cross from ships to offshore constructions, even during extreme weather conditions. As their logo states, they want offshore access to be “as easy as crossing the street”. To achieve this they developed platforms that can compensate for wave movement using hydraulic cylinders. This provides workers with a safe route from a ship to a drilling platform for example. The Ampelmann platform is just as safe as helicopter transport, but without the increased costs and time inefficiency.
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February 25th 2015, Joreen Merks, Making Technology Your Business, Delta TU Delft Verslag TU Delft Valorisation Centre, ‘Turning Technology into Business’ (TTiB) het valoriseren of commercialiseren van een technologie, TU Delft TechnoSprong update December 2014, Dap Hartmann,Turning Technology into Business Using University Patents, Technology Innovation Management Review January 4th 2012, Actiflow vindt zichzelf opnieuw uit, Sprout www.actiflow.nl Philips Innovation Award portfolio, Holland Container Innovations Ampelmann – the Compan, Redwave Professionals and Energy Personnel Photos: LinkedIn Actiflow B.V. Ampelmann.nl
STUDENT CONSULTING
UniPartners Delft Putting academic excellence to work UniPartners Delft is a national non-profit academic consultancy firm, aimed at creating opportunities for bright students by putting their minds to work in a challenging environment. Since 1996, UniPartners Delft has been governed by master’s students from Delft University of Technology, who have been devoting their time and effort in bridging the gap between TU Delft’s master’s students and businesses across the country. The UniPartners formula has earned its stripes, as projects and relations with multinationals, like Google, PostNL and Rabobank, and the Dutch SME sector prove. UniPartners gives companies an opportunity to hire top-level students on a project basis, while offering students the most challenging day jobs around. Everybody wins. Are you an entrepreneur? UniPartners brings bright master’s students to your doorstep, helping you to tackle the challenges your business faces. Let us take you through our process. To UniPartners Delft offers students relevant working experience in their start, you will have a good cup of coffee industry of choice.Whether you would like to focus on marketing strategies, together. By such an introductory meeting, customer engagement, or rather a more technical challenge, UniPartners UniPartners can get to know you and your offers projects that fit your bill. UniPartners can help you set foot into business. After pinpointing potential challenges, the ‘real world’, where the possibilities are endless, and the freedom together you will draft a project proposal with clear may be overwhelming. Of course you will be coached by one of our upfront pricing, so that you both know what you are experienced project managers, making sure you will not get lost getting into. After some iterations, you will have a wellin this new world. Sounds interesting? Make sure to register at specified project plan. Of course, the process of drafting www.unipartners.nl/inschrijven in order to stay up-to-date a project proposal and adapting it to your wishes is free about new projects. This way, you can immediately apply of charge and does not involve any obligations. By involving when an interesting position opens up. Everyone in you, their customer, into the initial phase of drafting the project, their master’s, or final year of their bachelor’s studies, they make sure the project meets all of your expectations. Finally can apply for UniPartners’ projects. Projects range they will find the perfect student for the job, taking your wishes into from single-day excursions to several months consideration and performing all recruitment and selection for you. full-time employment opportunities. And of Clear as a whistle. they would love to have that cup of coffee with you. course, you will be paid for the work you do.
For entrepreneurs
For students
Any remaining questions? Please feel free to contact us. www.unipartners.nl www.facebook.com/unipartners.delft.1 T +31 (0)15 7009723 Email: delft@unipartners.nl Telephone: 015 - 7009723 Address: Mijnbouwstraat 120 – 2628RX Delft
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YESDELFT! STUDENTS
YES!DELFT COMMITTEES by Boris van Hattum and editorial
YES!DELFT Students consists of many different committees who together organise the multiple events YES!Delft Students is known for. This magazine will introduce four of these ambitious committees. They´ll tell you all about their whereabouts and planned activities. These are the committees that will help the average students become successful entrepreneurs.
“WHERE STUDENTS BECOME ENTREPRENEURS“ Inspirational Lectures
E-Forum
Are you interested in the experiences of top-entrepreneurs? In the evening of Tuesday the 16th of February 2016, the first Inspirational Lecture of the year will be held. Recent innovations regarding sustainable re-use will be shared with you! In addition to that, the first YES!Delft Students lecture will be a special one, namely a SPARK! Lecture.
The 25th of May 2016 is the day. The day the auditorium will be filled with hundreds of excited students who are attending the Entrepreneurship Forum. There will be inspiring speakers telling stories the students can identify with or look up to. There will be companies of all kinds that represent themselves on the symposium; the students will get enthusiastic about entrepreneurship, something they might have never thought of before as their potential career. They will be inspired and motivated to learn more about it. But there will also be music and some drinks; anything to make the conversation with the student and the speaker they just listened to, or the company they find interesting, as easy and casual as possible. The event will be fun, but also a great opportunity for the students to add some contacts to their network.
The YES!Delft Students lectures give you the opportunity to become inspired about entrepreneurship, and make you think about realizing your very own startup! After the lectures you can share your thoughts and ideas with the speakers and fellow students while enjoying a beer. This evening will take place at the Flora Theatre on the Verwersdijk 1, Delft. Every student is welcome and the admission is free. You can sign up through aanmelder.nl/ InspirationalLectures. Hopefully, we will see you the 16th of February!
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You can be one of those attending students. Be part of it! Keep your eyes open, more information will follow.
TEDx Delft Award- Magazine
1-2-STARTUP June 2016
Do you have an idea worth spreading?
Are you passionate to start your own company, but still looking for the key to success? Look no further!
There are a lot of students walking around with inspiring ideas but with no platform to share their ideas. A few years ago, YES!Delft Students and TEDx Delft decided to join forces to accommodate these students. This was the inception of the “TEDx Delft Award”. The TEDx Delft Award is a competition for students that want to share their inspiring ideas. Students will get professional coaching and guidance on the subject of public speaking. You will truly learn everything about giving the perfect TEDx talk. The best students will get a chance to present their idea at our “Award Day”. This is an event that’s being held on February 11th 2016. During this day, students will present their idea in front of their family, friends, a jury panel and an audience of around 150 people. The winner of the TEDx Delft Award gets a wildcard to present their idea at the official TEDx Delft in April 2016. So come and hear these inspiring talks at our event on February 11th. Get inspired, share ideas, network and enjoy a drink or two!
This year the fourth edition of the 1∙2∙Startup weekend will be held. This weekend will be a great opportunity to meet like-minded people and get acquainted with YES!Delft and the startups in the incubator. During the weekend a group of fifty enthusiastic students will create a team and design their own business plan, while entrepreneurs, coaches and investors provide guidance and assess the results. These intense 72 hours provide you with the opportunity to test your entrepreneurial skills in an extremely handson environment. The teams consist of advanced bachelor and master students and PhD’s from various backgrounds including computer science, business, engineering and design. The participants share one passion: entrepreneurship! All of this will take place in the building of our very own YES!Delft incubator, where you will work, eat, sleep and obviously have a lot of fun with the whole group. The 1∙2∙Startup 2016 event will take place in the weekend of 3-5 June by YES!Delft Students. A pre-event is held on May 20th. If you are entrepreneurially minded, have a great idea and/or have a great skillset, then you should definitely be there! Applications close on the 29th of April.
INGEMAR DIERICKX
Ten tips for negotiation by Aoibhinn Reddington
PROFILE
All entrepreneurs are exceedingly familiar with negotiations. The business world without negotiation is unthinkable. Unmistakably, it is also an Journal, important skill for startups. Our magazine had a chance to meet with accomplished expert of negotiation Ingemar Dierickx. He tipped us on the ten most important things to know about negotiation when starting a business.
Education: Law degree Harvard Law School and Rijksuniversiteit Gent, PhD Business Economics Harvard University Research: published in Business European Economic Review a.o Bussines: Three decades of experience in negotiation tactics and analysis. Foundingpartner of D&AC-Negotiation Advisors.
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STRENGTHEN YOUR BATNA BATNA is an acronym for Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement. One specific problem you will often encounter during negotiation is the doubt whether you should take the deal or wait for a better one to come along. If the first proposal presented seems good enough this could signal that you should adjust your criteria. An effective search policy is the following. Set a fixed end point at which you will definitely stop looking for better deals. After about one third of this ‘search window’, pick your best alternative up to that point and set this as the benchmark that you’ll try to beat.
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EXTRACT AND PROTECT INFORMATION
During a negotiation you should deliberately keep a low profile. Let your counterpart do most of the talking. While your counterpart may appear to ‘control’ the negotiation, in the end they will have gained little information – and given away a lot. The final deal can be seen as a snapshot of the balance of information. Don’t give away information, as it, too, can be traded! Before closing a deal, verify that you have a detailed picture of your counterpart. There is a simple test: If you can’t write your opponent’s ‘victory speech’, then you are very likely missing information and should not take the deal.
DEMONSTRATE QUIET CONFIDENCE A common mistake made in negotiation is talking too much. Negotiators who talk too much not only give way information, they also convey insecurity. Implement the ‘Half Second Rule’: Pause for at least half a second before answering and you will seem assured. Then you can observe who feels insecure, as they will rush to fill the vacuum. Also keep your silence after presenting your offer. The worst thing you could do is overselling it, signaling desperation. Behavior, such as lack of silence, is a big tell in the game of negotiation. If you can sniff that your opponent will yield, apply pressure, but do not insist for more than what they are expected to accept.
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UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THEIR VIEW OF THER WORLD
In negotiation it often occurs that your information does not match the information obtained by your opponent. In such cases, negotiators tend to think: “they are mistaken, I will convince them that I am right”; alternatively, they may believe the other side is lying. Such reactions set the stage for an argumentative negotiation process – which is counterproductive. Instead, try to accept their view of the world and work with them to make a proposal that meets their perceived interests. Instead of focusing on your own perceptions, concentrate on the other side during conversation. Interest in other people is an important quality of a negotiator.
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DEFINE PRIORITIES measure benefits and costs in terms of money
Effective negotiators are pragmatic and constructive: they always try to accommodate their counterpart’s requests while figuring out what it takes to do so profitably. They evaluate proposals not on the basis of abstract principles such as ‘fairness’, but on their costs and benefits, measured in terms of money. When their counterparts make steep demands, they make a proposal for a package deal, which accommodates those requests and spells out what they need in return. What if their counterpart doesn’t like that proposal? They make another proposal.
GIVE AND TAKE “IF” There are two words you should always avoid during negotiation: ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. These phrases allow you to get pinned down on an agenda point. If you switch answers you will seem untrustworthy and you will lose bargaining leverage. Instead, coin your own ‘if’ phrases that bring across the ‘if’ silently and signal both hope and resistance. After all, the essence of negotiation is: ‘if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.
DON’T ARGUE Argument must be strictly avoided during negotiation. Don’t try to convince others of your opinions. Instead, try to only do the three following things: Ask questions, make proposals, and tell stories.
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EXPAND THE ‘KEYBOARD’
When a pianist plays his piano he uses all of his keys to make beautiful music. Now think of a pianist only using one key. How could he even play? A negotiator also needs many ‘keys’ to play on. When there is only one item on the agenda, such as price, the negotiation process becomes argumentative. Expanding the agenda creates opportunities for parties to identify tradeoffs that are mutually beneficial. Then you can show off more of your capabilities as a negotiator.
HILDE’S PRINCIPLE
OFFER CHOICE TO REDUCE RESISTANCE Dierickx’s wife Hilde noticed that children resist when forced to do something, when they would have gladly done it if only they could have chosen to. This phenomenon is not limited to children. As you restrict your offerings to your counterpart, you increase your opposition’s resistance. Smart negotiators understand that there are many ways to skin a cat, and therefore should be able to develop a variety of proposals.
BE A FLY ON THE WALL
Perhaps the single most important quality of effective negotiators is that they are astute process observers. The difficulty is doing this while your mind is operating in an analytical mode, processing cost and benefits of proposals. An easy solution: don’t negotiate solo. As in old-fashioned western movies, bring along someone to ‘watch your back’!
NEGOTIATION IS A GAME OF WITS AND TO BE A SMART PLAYER YOU HAVE TO PARTICIPATE
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YES!DELFT STUDENTS ACTIVITIES
THE IDEATION CLUB by Dawn Tulling
The ideation club is a new initiative by YES!Delft Students and Rabobank Zuid-Holland Midden. It is a concept to stimulate entrepreneurship among students and to help large companies be innovative. We try to connect innovative, entrepreneurial-minded students with large companies that have a hard time with innovation. We believe that some of the best and most successful start-ups are the ones that clearly identify opportunities and work on solutions for those particular opportunities. Identifying these opportunities however is not that easy, sometimes even harder than finding the solution. Large companies identify these opportunities within their specific branch, but often lack the capability to effectively address them. This is where you can make the difference! The Idea Within the Ideation Club, you will get the chance to use all your brainpower and creativity to solve “challenges�. But not just any challenge, we collect relevant, complex and challenging issues of existing companies. As you can imagine, these complex and challenging issues call for not just any student. We need students who are up for the challenge. We need entrepreneurial students!
Time Line In an intensive four-week programme, you will be introduced to the challenge, form a team and work together with this team to find a solution to your challenge. Besides that you will participate in workshops to develop your entrepreneurial skills. The pilot version existed of the following three events. Kick off During the kick off the students had the opportunity to meet with the entrepreneur that provided the challenge from Surroundfield. The challenge was to work with the technique of their patent about sound location manipulation and to create a product around it. During this day the students had a very successful brainstorm session, which already generated loads of ideas.
Mid event During the Mid Event the student got to develop their pitching skills with help from the Pitchqueen. She helped them to tell their ideas in such a way that everyone was convinced of their effectiveness. They could immediately use their gained skills during the Sparring Dinner. During this wine and dine with YES!Delft entrepreneurs they were given a lot of feedback on their plans. Final day During the Final Day we heard the amazing final ideas of the groups. The judges decided on the winner of the first round of the ideation club. They received a membership on Swapfiets, which is a start-up run by students from Delft. We ended the programme with festive drinks at YES!Delft where everyone interested got to learn more about the ideation club.
Future YES!Delft Students sees great potential in the ideation club. There are several big companies that are very interested in providing new and exciting challenges and who want to meet all of the entrepreneurial minded students that we have in Delft. So make sure you stay tuned and find out what great challenges we will have for you to work on!
Rabobank Rabobank Zuid-Holland Midden has experienced during the first pilot challenge of the Ideation Club that students have great and refreshing ideas and can help the entrepreneur to think outside of the box. With that, the goal to help entrepreneurs be innovative has been reached and we help students get more experienced with entrepreneurship. For the new challenges in 2016 we ask students and entrepreneurs to participate. This is the change to work together on innovations and continuity. Students can turn their creativity into new and innovative products and use that to develop a new concept or start-up. The next round will start in April for another four weeks. Make sure to keep updated through our site or the YES!Delft Students Facebook so you’ll be the first to register for the new and exiting challenges. If you register for the Ideation Club, you will be personally updated if we have any news about the new challenges or the new and improved programme.
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LET´S EXPLORE CREATIVITY
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STUDENT START-UP
BLULOCKS
Interview by Boris van Hattum text by Marie Sam Rutten
About a year ago Maurits and Ludo, the inventors of BluLocks, were wondering why there wasn’t an “unstealable” bike customized for the Netherlands. The concept of the excisting “unstealable” bike was nice, you could only steal the bike by cutting through the frame, rendering the bike useless. However, it was not possible to lock the bike at lots of locations, like train stations. After many concepts they came to their final idea: a lock that blocks the pedals by locking the crank axle from within the frame and they even added a chain that can be plugged into the locking module in the frame. This way the bike can always be secured to external objects besides it being locked internally. They began with the design process, hours of brainstorming, talking and sketching. Quite fast they also had the business end of the idea visualised and registered a VOF to their names at Chambers of Commerce. With the help of YES!Delft Student Startup Programme they formed a solid business strategy. Professors at the TU Delft helped them to come to their final concept. The only problem was turning this concept into a high end product or at least a couple decent prototypes. Their first prototype costed over 15 broken saw blades and its final version included duck-tape. After a short time they found a design agency called CEAD in Rotterdam who were willing to help them. Of course they also needed some financial resources, which came mainly from friends and family. In the whole process there were a few problems they encountered. Besides their high optimism and some naivety, getting enough publicity was a big struggle. To get some they started a crowdfunding campaign, in which they would sell a bike with the lock integrated into its frame. It was more work then they had expected and they had to prepare two months fulltime to launch the campaign on Indiegogo. Even after that they only raised half of their goal, they did get mentioned in numerous media sources. After that they ran into some technical problems concerning the lock itself. There weren’t enough financial resources to get help from CEAD for these problems; so they tackled them without any help.
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At the moment they are trying to get some small fundings and access to a workshop and tools from the TU Delft. They have also planned meetings with potentially interested bicycle manufacturers to see what the options are. In the future they hope to get a partnership with either a lock company or a bicycle manufacturer and get their idea patented. One day the name “BluLocks” will be infamous around bicycle thieves.
ABOUT US Dear reader, Thank you for reading our very first edition of START! Magazine. We are very proud present it to you, and we are delighted that we will publish two more magazines this academic year especially for you. Even though the new academic year is already halfway over, the New Year has just started. Like all new beginnings there will be some changes. To warm you up for the upcoming magazines we will give you a little taste of our vision and plans towards START! Magazine. We are really enthusiastic to tell you more about the magazine, ourself and our vision regarding the magazine’s future affairs. First of all, the main goal of the START! Magazine is, without a doubt, to inspire and educate every student with a heart for entrepreneurship. But it’s not just about reaching this group. It is also very important to motivate and stimulate the students who still have to grow some interest. That’s why we are also focussing on some lighter content this year, besides the academic heavy articles. Not only the content will be tackled, also the layout will be slightly changed. Our predecessors did an amazing job and we are thrilled to hold on to the high expectations they raised with the previous magazines. We tried and will keep trying to make the content of the magazines dynamic, diverse, inspiring and educational, by means of publishing various types of articles. For example, from a look inside the life of a successful entrepreneur or one who just started, to an in-depth article about technological developments. Furthermore, updates about events, contests and news from YES!Delft, YES!Delft Students and other important entrepreneurial organisations will appear in our magazine. More exciting news! The next magazine, published in spring, will be the 10th START! Magazine. Of course, this is a very special number and that asks for a special edition. We don’t want to give away too much information, so find out for yourself. The magazine will be spread out around several faculties, companies, libraries and student residences. Besides, it is possible to subscribe for the magazine and receive the magazine at a location of your choice. Subscribing is totally free of charge and is easily done with the QR code on the first page. This magazine is made for you and it would be foolish if we wouldn’t give you the chance to get involved. So, if you have a great idea about an article, anything, from an event to a start-up, don’t hesitate to contact us. Once again, thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing from you! YES!Delft magazine committee 2015-2016
Editor-in-chief, Irene Kingma Content, Aoibhinn Reddington Content, Merlijn Mascini Design, Lorenzo Zuliani Design, Boris van Hattum Acquisition, Marie Sam Rutten QQ, Dawn Tulling
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MAAK DEEL UIT VAN HET VOLGENDE YES!DELFT STUDENTS BESTUUR Bestuur Interesseborrel Datum: 29 Februari Tijd: 17:00 Locatie: YES!Delft YES!Delft Students is op zoek naar nieuwe fulltime bestuursleden! Verbreed je kennis en zet je eerste stap in de ondernemerswereld. Maak deel uit van de meest innovatieve, professionele en uitdagende studenten organisatie in Delft! Dit is jouw kans om grootse evenementen te organiseren, ondernemers te ontmoeten en een netwerk op te bouwen. Ben jij klaar voor deze uitdaging? Dan zien we je op de Interesseborrel in februari!
WHERE STUDENTS BECOME ENTREPRENEURS