Our collaboration
Part of the smart
We believe in content and gladly share our knowledge. We do this by organising honours programmes and high-tech safaris for students, to give them a better insight into our business activities. We also host special career and development programmes for graduates and supervise high-tech start-ups.
Our companies jointly use a high-tech Shared Facility Centre with industrial 3D printers for metal and plastic, and cobots. This is where we host our workshops for R&D projects, and where our development and testing facilities for 3D printing and auditoriums for school and student programmes are located.
Our Big 5 of the high-tech
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Big 5
We work together on providing solutions for the future, by combining our 'Big 5' of high-tech: robotics, metal 3D printing, remote sensing and big data, visual intelligence and renewable propulsion. A few examples:
- A healthy living environment, through renewable energy and smart solutions for reducing fossil fuel in transport.
Remote sensing and big data; remotely connecting devices, instruments and machines to collect, transfer, store, analyse and act on data. - Healthy and safe food for everyone, by using sensors and big data to monitor and improve the quality of food and drinks. Visual intelligence; a unique combination of camera techniques, big data and neural networks.
- Better healthcare, helping doctors to recognize diseases faster and better by using smart software.
- A safer society, in which visual intelligence and big data help prevent child pornography and terrorist attacks.
- Healthy working conditions, by making work cleaner, safer and easier with 3D printing and robots.
Together we create more than 50 new products a year worldwide, which contribute to society in the areas of safety, simplifying the operation of complex systems, providing access to data that improve food quality, and tailoring them to individual consumer needs.
Knowledge sharing
The exchange of knowledge is the foundation of our collaboration. Through this knowledge sharing and cooperation, a unique high-tech ecosystem is emerging in the Northern Netherlands. Knowledge institutions are getting involved, including the University of Groningen, the University of Twente, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, and vocational colleges FIRDA and Drenthe College. Their involvement is not only for conducting research, but especially for providing internship and work experience opportunities in a high-quality technical environment. In addition, recently Technicnoord was recently launched with the support of ICD members. This institution offers a unique work-based (BBL) Mechatronics program. We also have programs in place for sharing facilities. And how about our special career and talent development programs for both vocational (MBO) and higher education (HBO/University) graduates? Plus, we run a dedicated program to support and guide high-tech start-ups!
'Part of the smart'
Being part of the ICD means contributing to solutions for the future. More than 3,500 motivated professionals are leveraging the power of the ICD to build their careers in the high-tech industry in the Northern Netherlands. Together, we take on the challenge of developing high-quality, unique products — and often producing them ourselves. Not by competing, but by sharing knowledge. Because together, we go further!
Knowledge exchange
Knowledge exchange is the basis of our collaboration. This also attracts the attention of schools. University of Groningen, University of Twente, the northern universities of applied sciences NHL/Stenden, Hanze University of Applied Sciences and ROC Friese Poort, Friesland College and Drenthe College have now joined in. Not only for their students to conduct research, but also to gain work experience through an internship in a high-quality technical environment. In addition, we run facility-sharing programmes, special career and talent development programmes for both secondary vocational education (MBO) and higher education (HBO/university) graduates, and we supervise high-tech start-ups.