Keynote speakers

Brainport Eindhoven is one of the most innovative regions in the world. With more than 3.300 patents filed each year, the high-tech sector in Brainport Eindhoven is leading the development of technologies and solutions for a sustainable future. However, significant growth of the local high-tech sector is necessary in order to meet the Paris climate goals, ensure economic stability and welfare, and develop a sustainable independent position in global value chains. This creates enormous opportunities for the Brainport Eindhoven region. Nevertheless, (huge) barriers need to be overcome to achieve this. In the coming 10 years, the workforce needs to grow with 70.000 skilled people, around 100.000 additional housing must be built, and our mobility infrastructure should be improved. Not only do we need to create the additional supply of people and talent, moreover we need to assure that the people’s competences meet the industry’s needs in changing environments. A huge step given the big transitions ahead of us. Cooperation between industry, government and education becomes increasingly important to enable this.

Brainport Development, the economic development agency of the region, is founded on this triple-helix basis and sees new ways to meet this changing demand. The organization is responsible for setting up triple-helix collaborations to facilitate sustainable growth of the region and is initiating different kinds of interventions in the human capital domain, through which it believes that it can overcome the challenges ahead. Rutger van Poppel, program manager at Brainport Development, will introduce you to the Brainport Eindhoven region, its key strengths and how triple-helix cooperation might be the solution to sustainable growth of our workforce.

Hi, my name is Appel and I am a business developer at RIFT. In this talk, I'd like to tell you the story of Iron Fuel Technology, showcasing the implementation of the Quintuple Helix Model (QHM) in the Brainport Region. It illustrates that the integration of education with government and industry can foster innovation that positively impacts many areas of society. From fundamental research to the quality of education, the economy and our environment.

RIFT is a start-up in Eindhoven founded in 2020 by former TU/e students, as a spin-off of student team Solid. We are developing Iron Fuel Technology to decarbonize energy-intensive industries. Today we have already successfully proven our technology in an industrial environment, raised € 11 million in investments and built a team of 35 passionate people. As of 2025, this technology will be operational, with an expected annual carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 1Gigatonnes from 2050 onwards.

This rapid development and fast growth are made possible by the supportive dynamic of the ecosystem we are in. An example of the QHM, as it consists of: Tu/e, EIRES, SOLID, Brainport Development, Provincie Noord-Brabant, RVO, Metalot and RIFT. The recipe for our success is simple: every stakeholder in this ecosystem goes the extra mile to enable change. For this to xxx everyone has to participate. This approach creates a culture of ownership and rewards people's inherent drive to learn. To me, it is a great strength of the educational institutions in this region. It is what inspired me to be part of it. And it is why we are now world leaders in Iron Fuel Technology.

I am responsible for university relations at ASML. We have 91 universities around the globe in our ecosystem, classified in tier 1, 2 and 3. I have seen what does and does not work in successful collaboration between industry and universities.

I have seen universities struggle with their interactions with industry and vice versa. The world of technology changes so fast, both within universities and industry; how do they both keep up with the state of the art? Universities need to constantly develop their teachers and at the same time find a way to transfer newly developed knowledge to industry. This means that most universities understand that being closely connected to industry is important, but how to make this happen? Where to start? Should they give industry a role in education? Good teaching is an expertise, how to make sure you maintain quality education for your students when inviting outsiders in your classroom? And what about these so called 21st century skills? Is it the responsibility of the university to teach students to collaborate, to present, to teach problem solving techniques? Will this not eat away time for the much-needed theoretical foundation?

Some universities have fully embraced the concept of challenge-based learning. What better way to tap directly into industry reality and foster collaborations with industry? At the same time, we see students rebel against this type of education and demand “decent education”. I think it is important to have real life cases in education, AND, have robust foundational education to make sure all graduates have a good level of understanding of the domain on which they can build their case studies.

I will address above questions in this lecture and give some best practices on what a fruitful collaboration can look like. Also, I will share some critical success factors for collaborations and discuss the benefits of the multi-dimensional approach. Finally, I will give some tips on how to organize for successful collaboration.

I believe that both universities and industry need to take on a stronger role and responsibility when it comes to educating our future workforce. Both partners need to be more demanding to the other on what it is they need to be more successful. Only by being demanding partners, we can build successful partnerships.