Haartsen is inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, alongside the Wright brothers, Bell and Edison. His invention, connecting devices to each other and the internet at short distances, belongs in the list of major technological breakthroughs. On Wednesday 9 February, he told the members of Innovatiecluster Drachten the secrets that led to the birth of this new technique.
Born
One of the northern tech companies that Innovatiecluster Drachten has contact with is Plantronics, the global player in head-sets. The development department is in Emmen and was formerly part of Sweden's Ericsson. This is where bluetooth was born.
Open innovation
By now, the technology is already in 30 billion devices worldwide, and this number is growing daily. It is not only the technology itself that is a unique invention. His invention also caused the technology companies Ericsson, Toschiba, Intel, IBM and Apple to work together to set a standard. This collaboration has been called the epitome of smart, open innovation.