Walk-in buffet lunch to celebrate the opening of the 2024 Japan Brabant Innovation Days

We were honored to welcome a record-breaking audience of over 180 participants, including CEOs and representatives from both Dutch and Japanese research organizations, universities, high-tech companies, and innovative startups.

Opening remarks from the Vice-Governor, Province of Noord Brabant

Opening remarks from the Vice-Governor, Province of Noord Brabant. He heads the delegation of companies and research organisations visiting Japan. 

"Japan has always been a key innovation partner. We share the same values and ambitions. We are committed to quality, long-term thinking, and the belief that technology should serve society. This was symbolised this morning with the signing of an agreement between Yamagata University and TNO Holst Centre."

Daan de Cloe - Brabant Development Agency

After the opening presentation video we heard from Daan de Cloe of the Brabant Development Agency for his keynote presentation. 

Brabant has world class technology and, despite its size, has big ambitions. Daan provides insights into how open innovation is flourishing in this part of the Netherlands. He focuses on the 17 UN development goals. Food production is under pressure. We are facing an older population which puts demand on healthcare. Energy demand is also critical. He addresses three types of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Solutions will come from increasingly complex machines, designed and manufactured in Brabant. The BOM facilitates the growing need for knowledge exchange amongst trusted partners in the region. From all the patents filed by Dutch companies, 54 % are filed by companies in Brabant. We respect each companies IP. The BOM can help provide easier access to high level stakeholders of potential partners, customers, and suppliers.

Sustainable Electronics Breakthrough from TNO Holst Centre

Ton begins by introducing TNO, the Netherlands largest R&D organisation with a turnover of 700 million Euro and 4500 employees. The Holst Centre was started to work on the open innovation campus. TNO worked with imec to create the Holst Centre. They are also proud of several spinoffs. Their core competence today is in thin-film electronics and hybrid printed electronics. The main part of the presentation focuses on sustainable electronics. This means using a plastic foil, making a major impact on Co2 emissions. 

So as not to compromise on performance, Holst is working on laser transfer technologies and impulse that can outperform traditional PCB’s. He also explains development on microled displays. Laser die transfer is the solution. The speed is 100 million dies an hour.

Aikon Health - TNO Spinout

Developments in Printing of Flexible Electronics

Ashok Sridhar has been a regular participant in Brabant Innovation Days while working for TNO Holst Centre. Now he heads a brand new electronics manufacturing facilty in Eindhoven that is set to revolutionise flexible electronics by scaling up great ideas from the lab. TracXon Tech is addressing the escalating issue of e-waste from obsolete electronic and photonic devices. Just 12% of e-waste is recycled and most printed circuit boards are not printed but etched. But TracXon is now scaling production of printed flexible electronics, enabling easier recovery of valuable materials at the end of product life. Japan has been a trailblazer in establishing an electronic waste recycling programme, it still confronts substantial hurdles, with only 24-30% of total e-waste being recycled. At the same time, the remainder ends up in landfills. 

Onera Health - Transforming sleep medicine

Onera Health is a leading MedTech & DeepTech company headquartered in Eindhoven (Netherlands) on a mission to make sleep diagnostics and monitoring available to all. Their end-to-end solutions are enabled by innovations in semiconductors, printed electronics, machine learning algorithms, and cloud technology, and are poised to help millions of people struggling with sleep disorders, ultimately improving the health and quality of life of patients worldwide.

Panel: Insights on Open Innovation

Panellists: Daan de Cloe, BOM

Ton van Mol, Holst Centre

Ashok Sridhar, TracXon,

Thiru Kanagasabapathi, Aikon Health

The panel discuss the different levels of open innovation. Much money was wasted in the past because a particular innovation no longer fits the company strategy. Instead, leverage the knowledge of others to benefit your own company. This requires unique approaches to organise and share risk. The startups explain how they license the IP from TNO and generate new ones. They discuss how Japan contributes knowledge of materials by working with Dutch companies on sustainable electronics.

About the moderator: Helen Kardan began her career at Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. in Japan and developed her career across the US, Europe and Asia. Today, Kardan brings value to TNO with her growth strategy and value chain management expertise in high-tech domains such as semiconductor, medtech and automotive.

Coffee Break

Time to network and follow up with all speakers and preview some of the startup demos

Part 2: Integrated Photonics

Welcome back to the second half of Brabant Innovation Days 2024. Amazing things happen when disruptive startups tap into the wisdom of larger enterprises. And Money flows to where it is treated well.”

The PhotonDelta Ecosystem. Why it is important in the age of AI.

PhotonDelta is one of Europe’s leading Photonics Ecosystems, focussing efforts in the Netherlands on Brabant and Twente, home to the strongest clusters in integrated photonics. Eelko Brinkhoff, the new CEO at PhotonDelta, updated us on a wide range of new photonics applications impacting people’s lives. Photondelta has invested  in 10 companies so far this year. Currently 800 people are working within the ecosystem and he expects this to grow to 5000 employees by 2030.

Eelko also discusses how emerging photonics companies are financed in the Netherlands.  PhotonDelta has secured € 1,1 billion to run numerous R&D programmes. They also lead international roadmapping activities and invest in pioneering startups that apply PIC technology. A new EU pilot line in integrated photonics was recently granted by the EU commission. This will mean over € 130 million of new investments in pilot lines in photonic chips in Eindhoven and Enschede. Over the last five years, the Dutch photonic chip industry has raised over €500 million for companies such as SMART Photonics, EFFECT Photonics, PHIX Photonics Assembly, Astrapé Networks, MantiSpectra,  Delta Life Science, Scantinel Photonics, Amazec, and many more.

Collaborate with the PITC

Integrated photonics holds significant promise for addressing societal challenges, such as energy-efficient optical and wireless communication networks, advanced health monitoring, AI loaded data-center infrastructure by integrating light technology with traditional electronics. However, its widespread adoption is hindered by lengthy product development cycles and limited production throughput. To tackle these issues, especially in an age of rapid AI development,  the Photonic Integration Technology Center (PITC) has launched four technology program lines to accelerate scale-up and industrial adoption of photonics. The PITC Metrology program focuses on developing next-generation test and measurement technologies.  By increasing the accuracy, speed, and scalability of testing processes in both chip design and manufacture, the Metrology program seeks to increase testing throughput by a factor of ten, thereby enabling faster and more reliable production of photonic chips in high-volume manufacturing (HVM), at desired yields.

Sylwester highlighted the need for talent development, working with educational institutions to train engineers in photonics. This Netherlands-based initiative continues to invite international participation, aiming to establish a neutral platform for developing photonic technologies that will have a lasting impact on the industry and society. PITC has enjoyed collaborations with Japanese companies and institutions since 2016.

Next generation PIC research at TU Eindhoven

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) pioneers next-generation photonic integrated circuits (PICs), focusing on 3D integration of Indium Phosphide on Silicon. Yuqing will present TU Eindhoven's vision for the future scaling of the PIC technology, especially in speed, energy efficiency and integration density. Yuqing will showcase how TU Eindhoven's next-gen PIC technology can empower AI and quantum applications, as well as enable a convergence of photonics and electronics.

SMART Photonics Advances

SMART Photonics recently received the ISO 9001 certification, marking a very important milestone in their journey to become the leading Tier 1 foundry in integrated photonics. Thomas will explain their approach as a pure-play foundry, and how companies interact with them.

Testimonial - Working in the Dutch ecosystem

Dexerials is a Japanese high-tech company specialized in materials and components for electronics and photonics. Its group company, Dexerials Europe B.V., has one of its bases in Hoofddorp, a city near Amsterdam, and a satellite office on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven (HTC). The purpose of the HTC office is to participate in technological development, establish cooperation and alliances with high tech companies and develop our activities in new markets.

Panel discussion 2 - Attracting Talent

Helen Kardan from TNO hosted a second panel discussing the challenges of finding and encouraging new talent to high tech. The success of hackathons backed by the National Growth Fund was discussed (Kyoto University/Tu/e), PhotonDelta has launched PhotonJobs. We heard how Tu/e is training new international talent. They talk to companies to understand the talent need. This led to a redesign the bachelor programme to include photonics and optics. Onera Health is now 77 people, using internships from the University. They look to larger companies to find senior roles. We heard about the government's role in stimulating diversity and supporting services for internationals. A lot more vocational talent is needed too.

Closing remarks

The World Expo opens its doors at Osaka World Expo 2025 on 13th April 2025. The six-month event expects to welcome over 28 million business and private visitors.. Eric outlines the extensive plans for 4 Dutch delegations to visit Osaka from May 18- 28 2025.   Eric van Kooij is the counsellor for Innovation at the Netherlands Embassy in Tokyo.

Networking Drinks & Demos

The day concluded with networking drinks and the chance to speak with colleagues from the Brabant Development Agency, as well as all of today's keynote speakers. The advantage of the BID event is that everyone sticks around, so it is easier to follow up and discuss one-on-one. 

We also arranged for private meetings between Dutch knowledge institutions and Japanese companies.

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