Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the companies of the Innovatiecluster Drachten association, I would like to welcome you (in the role of chairman) to a milestone for the Innovation Cluster, a festive moment!
In particular a word of welcome to the Province of Fryslân represented in the person of Sander de Rouwe (deputy EZ) and the Municipality of Smallingerland represented by Tjeerd van Bekkum (the mayor). We greatly appreciate their presence from the governments who are co-founding fathers of the Innovation Cluster. In this list I would like to mention three more names: Nieske Ketelaar (alderman of Smallingerland) now absent, but she has championed the cluster from the very beginning, and in the audience two supporters of the first hour Jan Hoeksema and Meine van Dam. Thank you for your confidence.
The interest in this event was great and even took us somewhat by surprise. However, this turnout and the qualitative occupancy in the hall also reflects that we as education, government and entrepreneurs have started to find each other better and better, ...... great!
This moment is an opportunity to share with you some thoughts on innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness. How companies, partly out of well-meaning self-interest, want to give impulses to innovative developments on a Northern scale, together with the knowledge institutions and a facilitating government.
I would like to briefly discuss with you: the history, the sharing of knowledge, the fascination and binding and what this collaboration has brought us so far.
History
Research, development and knowledge sharing, together with a vital manufacturing and service industry are the pillars of our economic position. This was true in the past but will be no different in the future. However, in other regions of the world, with an increasing focus on innovation and with an inexhaustible ambition to win, the right to prosperity is being enforced. We will therefore have to be even more distinctive than before in order to compete with the other regions of the world. Realizing this, we will have to cooperate much more intensively locally and regionally. With combined forces, we can compete more and better globally. This requires a different attitude and approach, in which we must step over our shadow.
This is why the Innovation Cluster was established in 2013, uniting high-tech companies with an HTSM profile. Companies that are all at the forefront of their market segment, operate internationally, are knowledge intensive and have their own R&D. The headquarters of these companies are often located elsewhere in the world so they are used to having to prove themselves extra. The cluster focuses on what the participating companies want to realize bottom-up and where they see the opportunities for new services or products. The cluster therefore has an above-average concentration of high-quality technological and knowledge-intensive activity, which people outside the region often do not realize. That the companies are at the forefront is evidenced by such recognitions as:
- the Erasmus Innovation Award 2015 from Resato,
- the Industrial Excellence Award 2015 for Philips Drachten,
- the Logistica Award 2015 from Neopost,
- VDH as the 2016 winner in the measurement and control industry and
- Ziuz as entrepreneur of the year.
With our (Northern) focus on content, we often remain unnecessarily and unintentionally modest and therefore less visible outside the region. Regional promotion, putting it on the map is therefore one of the challenges for the cluster.
Sharing Knowledge
Anyone who wants to be at the forefront of high-quality technology must realize that the days of independent innovation are far behind us. Whereas companies used to be able to shield their knowledge, nowadays the way to promising new technology is mainly through knowledge sharing. You can no longer do everything yourself. Accept that there is more know-how outside your company than inside. So actively seek out that know-how from others. Work together, create cross-fertilizations and thus increase the chance of chance. This requires a different attitude, a different way of thinking and organizing competitive knowledge development. Our method of collaboration has the added advantage that even smaller SMEs are able to work on major innovations. Individually, companies often have insufficient resources and clout to work on competitive knowledge development.
Facilitating open research collaboration, learning to collaborate in chains in confidence is a second challenge that the ICD facilitates.
Buoys and Binds
Unknown makes unloved. If the region is to rise to become a high-tech ‘hub,’ a high-tech center in the north, it is crucial to find the right people. To attract and retain top talent. The current cluster of fifteen companies already provides a breeding ground for this with great career opportunities. But in, say, five years, this high-tech breeding ground must be much larger. We strive for a cluster of some 25 knowledge-intensive companies in which professionals know how to find each other. A dynamic environment in which talents can switch freely between the companies. A career within the cluster therefore; a natural way to rotate knowledge in the personal interest and the interest of the region. To realize this, there are increasingly intensive contacts with education at the MBO, HBO and university levels. A growth process with now surprising forms of cooperation.
What will this collaboration yield?
We believe that we create vitality in the manufacturing industry, the region and thus continuity in employment. It is a classic case of “one plus one is three.” We share our findings based on mutual trust. By exchanging knowledge and experiences, we take each other to a higher level. It saves money and it boosts the region, and it helps us attract and retain technical talent. We work on solutions to the challenges of the future, for example in the areas of information exchange, alternative energy and healthy aging. We do this “on the edge of technology.” In other words, we are entering virgin territory. This requires a lot of knowledge and money. Take the topic we are dwelling on today; 3D metal printing. Individually we do not have sufficient resources and clout to develop this kind of technology, but together we are pushing the boundaries.
Some concrete examples (too many to mention actually).
Collaborate with knowledge institutions at MBO, HBO and University level:
- The ICD does a lot to introduce young people to the companies and to promote technology and technical training. That pays off; for example, clearly more MBO students are opting for technology and they return to the ICD companies through, for example, internships.
- ICD participates in ‘Engineer for the Classroom’: thirty engineers are ready to give lessons in schools or tours and have peer supervision among themselves.
- The companies participate in trade, company and job fairs together. For example, they can be found at the Business Days of the universities in Twente, Eindhoven and Delft.
- ICD organizes inventor competitions for HBO students from, among others, NHL Leeuwarden, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, Windesheim (Zwolle) and Saxion (Enschede).
- The cluster participates in the national Dutch Technology Week and has set up the High Tech Discovery Route in and around Drachten. The last edition had 5,500 visitors.
- ‘Girlsday,’ where companies offer hundreds of girls a program to learn about engineering.
- The Technet Skelterrace in which pre-vocational secondary education students work together with technicians from ICD companies to improve and pimp their go-kart and race with it.
- The cluster supports students who built a solar boat in the Dutch Solar Challenge this year.
- Almost all companies have (increasing numbers of) interns and want to move towards a total of 175 internships per year (at the start of ICD it was 65). ICD also organizes the Student Carousel’: exchange days, so trainees see even more companies from the inside.
- ICD also has six active knowledge circles that exchange knowledge thematically through workshops, lectures and training.
- HTSM Master's Honors Program at universities.
- ‘MBO talent program,’ where talented students work in teams at ICD companies doing projects.
- For employees of ICD companies, Neopost Technologies, together with the Hanzehogeschool, has developed a one-year Mechatronics course at college level. MBO students who have an electrical background and would like to take a step up can now take this course.
- CIV Healty Aging collaboration with the ROC,s
- Working together on Pre-competitive knowledge development.
- You will be able to physically view what we are doing here today because we will soon be opening the Field Lab, the ICD Shared Facility Center. There you will see the 3D metal printer working, programming 3D products and making strength calculations with powders.
- There is also a robotics programming setup for the “factory of the future” research. The fun part is that employees from the ICD companies are working there with students doing focused research with the programming setups.
In the meantime, there is collaboration in 3D metal printing with the University of Groningen, which has purchased a sister of this printer; agreements have been made with a group of companies that may be installing a production machine at Resato in Assen. And hot off the press is that we have a collaboration agreement with the ROC de Friese Poort about 3D printing. This ROC is also investing and will use the same development and programming software for the training of students and teachers. The detailed learning assignments are then printed on the ICD machine. In short, a chain has been created that runs from fundamental university research up to and including ROC craftsmanship level. You will understand that this makes me very excited!
After the official part of our program, we will go together to our field lab to see it all. Back in this room you can learn about the operator app developed within the big data project, Resato's virtual reality approach around their waterjet cutting machines, ZiuZ's IRIS medicine scanning machine (a chain collaboration with Varias), microsoft's Hololens from YP-Your Partner, the Meccanoid robots we use at the schools and the Spider robots from the NHL. Each examples of where we share and collaborate collectively, borderless and groundbreaking knowledge.
Dear attendees, I come to a conclusion of my story in which I have indicated the importance of the vitality of this region. That is why I am calling on companies, schools and governments (also outside the HTSM sector, but especially in a broad social sense) to work together. Cooperation that makes the Northern Netherlands not only an attractive region to live and recreate in, but also an economically strong vital region.
I wish you a lot of fun this afternoon!
Kor Visscher,
President Association Innovatiecluster Drachten