A day ‘into the field’ to experience in practice how technology and ethics come together. That's what 120 students and employees of the Faculty of Science & Engineering of the University of Groningen Wednesday, March 20, during one of five high-tech safari routes. Looking for some of the 19 ‘hidden high-tech diamonds’ of Innovatiecluster Drachten. After last year's success, this thematic tour of high-tech companies is a permanent part of the Technology and Ethics course.
In a full room with host Philips in Drachten, Joost Krebbekx, program manager of Innovatiecluster Drachten (ICD), leads the students along the development of the manufacturing industry in the region to the unique collaboration of 19 high-tech companies in the northern Netherlands. He explains that most of the headquarters of the ICD companies are abroad or at least outside the region. ’’They determine our survival and thus whether our work is retained for the region.’’ Therefore, the companies have to prove themselves every day. ,,By demonstrating the added value of our mutual cooperation,’’ Krebbekx explains. ,,With knowledge sharing we develop innovative products and services and are attractive to technical talents. This is how we keep work and knowledge in our region.''
diamonds
If companies add something to each other, share common facilities and are willing to share their own diamonds, then innovation is successful. Remco Poelarends, system designer, keeps track of that FMI in Drachten and responsible for innovation, ahead of the students. In a shielded part of production hall, he shows that FMI is a specialist in making precision parts smaller than 1 micron. ’’Mainly for use in medical applications, but also in production and process automation in the smart industry.’’ Examples of customers include ASML, Philips, Volkswagen, DAF and Thalens. By working very closely with customers, they are able to introduce new products and improve production processes, according to Poelarends. ,,We help, for example, with the personification of products or a shorter time between product development and sales. This allows our customers to continuously innovate and adapt products to changing market demand.’' After knowledge sharing, does a customer never walk away with a good idea? Poelarends finds the balance between what you share and what you keep to yourself interesting and sometimes exciting. ''Sharing knowledge is necessary to achieve innovation, but if you give everything away, you have no work left. The trend is more open innovation in the preliminary stage, where there is no mutual competition. Afterwards, each party can use the knowledge gained for their own products or processes. That way you innovate together, without stealing each other's' diamonds.
Science
At high-tech partner ASTRON at Dwingeloo, the balance between sharing knowledge and keeping it to yourself is different. ’’There isn't,’’ says Ramon Navarro, head of the optical infrared instruments department. ’’We don't shield intellectual property, as long as the knowledge and technology are used and astronomers benefit from it. What we do is science and has nothing to do with economics.’’ For some students, this is an eye opener. Others find it logical that you share knowledge to advance in research and so know more about the universe and perhaps our origins. A small disappointment is felt by some astronomy students when Navarro announces he will not talk about dark matter, cosmic storms, radiation and nebulae. ''I will, however, tell you all about the instruments we are developing, which allow scientists to investigate these phenomena.'' Optics, mechanics, thermal engineering, software and electronics come together in this. For insiders: Navarro shows examples of instruments used in Sron, Alma, ESO, the James Webb Space Telescope, the William Herschel Telescope, the radio telescopes in Westerbork and Dwingeloo, SKA, LOFAR and JIVE. Instruments conceived or optimized by ASTRON staff. Some instruments, according to Navarro, require not only cleverness in technology, but also in design. ''The precision of the measurements demands the utmost from the design, which must also take into account the limited space in the rocket used to launch the telescope.''
Sun or enemy
Colleague and software engineer Adriaan Renting uses observations from the Dwingeloo radio telescope to illustrate what innovation means for research. ’’The bigger your telescope, the more detail you receive and the further away you can listen.’’ Enthusiastically, he explains how scientists are making new discoveries with LOFAR, the world's largest radio telescope whose data are collected in Groningen. But before valuable information can be extracted from all that data, the captured signals must be made usable. ,,For example, by removing all interference from cell phones, radio and television and all kinds of cosmic radiation and mechanical interference. And once you have done that, you have to calibrate, because a large image is not made, but a small piece each time. We calculate what a part of the image should look like, add everything together and then get a usable whole.’’ This requires enormous computing power and storage capacity of computers. ’’These kinds of computers are not for sale, which is why we make them ourselves.'' Renting explains that defense has extraordinary interest in all the data we call interference, because are the captured signals from the sun or is it the enemy? He reassures the students, ''We treat sharing this kind of knowledge and information very cautiously.''.