To the delight of alderman Erik van Schelven of Westerveld municipality. ,,ASTRON belongs to the top 3 in the world in radio astronomy and is Dwingeloo's best kept secret. Therefore it is wonderful that ASTRON is now part of this great northern Dutch collaboration of high-tech companies.’’
ASTRON combines high-end scientific research with in-house development and production of non-existent high-tech machines, supercomputers and components. Jackson calls her company an ‘innovation powerhouse’. ,,We are a signpost in the world and working on highly ambitious projects, both in technical and scientific fields. We work together with partners from all over the world and I hope we will contribute to the knowledge and expertise of the high tech companies in Northern Netherlands to meet our ambitions.’’
Vital manufacturing industry
Alderman Roel Haverkort (Municipality of Smallingerland), one of the founding fathers of the business cluster, used this opportunity to emphasize the importance of putting the region on the map as an innovative technological and knowledge-intensive region. ,,Encouraging Northern cooperation between companies and knowledge institutions in the field of High Tech Systems & Materials is a spearhead for Innovatiecluster Drachten. In this way our companies try to keep the manufacturing industry vital and thus remain interesting for young talent. This is essential for the economic development of our region. Therefore, we want to strengthen regional cooperation and connect companies that have a speed of action and exchange knowledge back and forth.’’
Smart people
,,Creating an attractive climate where it is a pleasure to work, live and study is more important than before for the Northern Netherlands,’’ Kor Visscher, chairman of Innovatiecluster Drachten, complements the alderman. ’’Attracting highly skilled personnel to the region and exchanging knowledge and experiences are our concrete goals in this regard. This must be done with more urgency than a few years ago because there is an increasing common problem with the recruitment of future top technical talent. After all, there are more smart people outside our companies than in them. I therefore expect it to become increasingly difficult to get talent, of all levels, to the companies, especially also in competition with other technical regions.''
make it yourself
The tour reveals how unique ASTRON is and why it is a logical partner for Innovatiecluster Drachten. ,,We sometimes ask industry for parts or products that they cannot yet supply themselves. Then the only option is to make them ourselves. We just can't do that without cooperation,’’ says Gert Kruithof, head of the Research & Development department. ,,We cannot Lofar or SK build without cooperation with industry. Our stuff that is in swamps or deserts and used in space has to last 50 years. We don't have that knowledge and so cooperation with others is necessary.’’
space weather forecast
ASTRON certainly does not intend to just ’fetch. Kruithof: ,,The universe is so fascinating, that every day we see things we have never seen before. What is noise to us can be data to others. With our technology we can, for example, calibrate satellites to make GPS signals even more accurate for agriculture, for example. And with Lofar we can see right through all the interference. So we can see solar activity, say space weather. We are now so far advanced that we can issue a so-called space weather report. That's important when you know that radio communications and power grids can break down during intense solar activity. If you know when the radiation damages your network, then you can take this into account.’’