The Dutch Design Week is a phenomenon. Last year the event drew 80,000 national and international visitors. And this year at least an equivalent number is expected.
They, in turn, can expect quite a lot: approximately 280 events in 60 locations. And because this year’s theme, ‘Design & Technology’ fits us so well, High Tech Campus Eindhoven has decided to participate in the 2009 DDW, which will take place from 17 to 25 October. Four activities will be organised on the Campus (from 19 to 23 October). Read all about Camping, the Playground, the Tour and the Photographs below.
Everyone is most welcome. For more information, check the website.

Programme

1) A unique look behind the high-tech scenes
2) Kids allowed
3) Boffins; creativity and innovation in action
4) Experimental creative event

Download the HTC Dutch Design Week flyer

1 | Design & Technology Tour | A unique look
behind the high-tech scenes

The majority of people see products only in their fully finished state. You go to the shop and buy a coffee machine, a pair of binoculars or a chair. But products have often come a long way before they reach the shop. Electronic equipment has a particularly long ‘time to market’. Work it out for yourself: idea, development (or refinement) of technology, building a prototype, testing, market research, functional product design, styling, testing again, setting up the production line, producing, testing again, introduction strategy, distribution, sales.

During the DDW, High Tech Campus Eindhoven will give you an insight into this preproduction process, with the focus on design and technology. During the Design & Technology Tour from 19 to 23 October you can take a look behind the scenes of several companies on the Campus. Some will give presentations in the Conference Center on The Strip, others will welcome you on location. This is a unique opportunity to take a look ‘behind the scenes’ at a variety of R&D organisations. Below is a list of the participating companies and a short description of their presentations.

At the Conference Center

On site at the companies

2 | High-Tech Playground | Kids allowed

Children, too, will be more than welcome at High Tech Campus Eindhoven during DDW. We will set up a High-Tech Playground especially for young innovators. They can participate in a Scrap Robot Workshop under expert guidance. Here they will be working with old electronic materials. Armed with a glue gun the children will attack old circuit boards, cables, memory modules and processors to build their very own – tough, funny or sweet – robot. And of course they can take their self-produced WALL-E home. This workshop will be organised and supported by Continium, known for its work at the Discovery Centre in Kerkrade. It is also possible to stamp balloons at Shapeways or experience the new mobile phone software at NXP Software.

3 | Photo exhibition | Boffins, creativity and innovation in action

Under the title of ‘Boffins, Creativity and Innovation in action’ the Stichting Internationale Culturele Activiteiten (SICA) [International Cultural Activities Association] is organising a special photo exhibition. Photographer Maarten van Haaff was invited to photograph five topics directly related to the European Year: entrepreneurship, cultural education, creative industry, digitisation of heritage and innovative organisations. This resulted in a series of 25 http://www.site-mail.nl/clients/high_tech_campus_eindhoven/2009_07/en_intern/images in each of which Van Haaff looked for the relation the topic had with the Netherlands. The series includes http://www.site-mail.nl/clients/high_tech_campus_eindhoven/2009_07/en_intern/images of High Tech Campus Eindhoven, the Design Academy Eindhoven, the STRP Festival and John Körmeling’s studio.
Van Haaff shows that the Netherlands has not only been involved with these topics for a long time, but that it can even be called a forerunner. The photos shown at the exhibition can also be admired on the website of the European Year (Europees Jaar).

Maarten van Haaff graduated with distinction from St. Joost Academy in Breda, the Netherlands, and continued his studies at the Royal Academy in The Hague. Maarten van Haaff’s work has been published in many publications including NRC Handelsblad, De Volkskrant, De Groene Amsterdammer, Algemeen Dagblad, Revu and Trouw.

4 | High Tech Camping | experimental creative event

High Tech Camping promises to be a special event. First of all, it will cover one day and one night. The set-up of this event is loosely based on the BarCamp format, an event that has only participants, no audience. Everybody contributes – by means of a presentation, in a discussion or in some creative way. There is no hard and fast programme; apart from a few lectures and workshops, the event primarily offers space to exchange passions, knowledge and experiences in small groups based on the Design & Technology theme. Nobody knows yet what it will all lead to, but one thing is certain: this event has the potential to result in unexpected connections between people, disciplines and design & technology.

The atmosphere will be informal and open. The event is intended for artists, designers, engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs working on and near the Campus. Participation is free and everybody is welcome, but registration is advisable. We are inviting everybody to contribute, either as part of the organisation or by means of a performance or a short presentation that ties in with the Design & Technology theme.
The Campus has free WiFi. You can register here.

High Tech Campus Eindhoven is organising High Tech Camping in collaboration with the FreeFormFab Association and MAD Emergent Art Center. The event will be on Friday 23 October 2009 in and around the Strip. If participants want to, they may stay the night in Mongolian Yurts - round tents normally used by Steppe Nomads.

High Tech Camping Programme

Friday 23 October

Keynotes

The keynote speeches will take half an hour, and they will be followed by discussions of no more than 15 minutes. The speakers are:

1. Anne Nigten (Waag Society)

2. Rob van Kranenburg: The Internet of Things
Rob van Kranenburg will present his view on the future. He will talk about his first introduction to what is known as location-based internet technology - a technology that will soon be widely accepted - and about its use to us as consumers. He will also show that, in the ‘internet of things’, a lot of personal information is out there on the digital streets. This is a process that we do not simply have to accept, Kranenburg claims; it is better to work together and build reliable ways of deploying technology in order to strengthen our position in the current era of ‘mass surveillance’ and ‘ambient technologies’. Rob has published his study ‘The Internet of Things’ here.

Sharing
Sharing is basically a series of time slots to be used by participants for presentations, workshops, stories and teasers, or just to show something. The time slots are 15 minutes each. High Tech Camping participants can reserve a time slot by registering at http://hightechcamping.ning.com. Sharing will take place in a parallel setting in three of the Conference Center rooms on The Strip.

Win fantastic prizes with your business idea!
We challenge you to win 100 euro by coming up with bright new business ideas and write them down in 100 words during the Amsterdam Antwerp Challenge Ideation Event on Friday October 23rd from 21:00 till 22:00. The Amsterdam Antwerp Challenge is a local business plan competition for local entrepreneurial talent and invites you to participate in it’s the first round by submitting your business idea in 100 words. Please visit www.aachallenge.nl for more information, or ask your question via info@aachallenge.nl.

During the Ideation Event we will elaborate on the characteristics of this unique business plan competition and support you in creating and developing a bright new business idea in one of the four thematic streams: Clean Tech & Energy, Consumer Lifestyle, Healthcare and Media & Communication.

You will be given the opportunity to pitch your idea to your peers and directly submit your idea in the competition. Nice prizes can be won for the best ideas and pitches.
The event will take place during the High Tech Camping from 21:00 till 22:00 on Friday October 23rd.

Cuddly robot PROBO comforts sick children

Over the past few months Campus resident Maxon Motors has been putting the finishing touches to a very special product, a cuddly robot called PROBO. This robot – operated by 20 small electrical motors in its head – can, for instance, display human expressions. PROBO can move its eyes, ears and trunk independently and thus ‘show emotions’. PROBO also has been fitted with a screen in its belly to allow the user to play games, and it has touch-sensitive sensors. It likes being stroked; it doesn’t like its trunk pinched. Due to the latest technologies, the green cuddly robot is not only able to show emotions, it can also observe and react to its surroundings. PROBO has been developed by scientists of the VUB for future use in hospitals to cheer up the lives of children who are hospitalised for longer periods of time.

RedesignMe introduces private co-creation portals

RedesignMe, the company that gets consumers to design and further develop products via the Internet commissioned by customers such as Pickwick and Mora, is introducing a new service: the private co-creation portal. Companies can use these portals to set up their own online communities that include staff members, customers and suppliers. The internal virtual environment enables participants to exchange innovative ideas quickly and easily. “People on the shop floor of many companies are often full of ideas about how to improve products or services. Quite often their ideas are lost in bureaucratic or logistic processes. Everyone is involved in innovation, but quite regularly people are afraid to go public with their ideas the moment they come up with them. Offering these tools for internal use makes it very easy to come out into the open,” says Maxim Schram, CEO of RedesignMe.

‘Brands have to be built’

‘We create the difference by making business from ideas’. This is the slogan that industrial design agency VanBerlo uses to present itself to the outside world. It is a claim that the 25-year-old agency is allowed to make, in view of its gigantic track record of successful products. We talked to Ad van Berlo, founder of VanBerlo and chairman of the 2009 Dutch Design Week, about the way design and technology affect each other. “It is all about creating a difference, about making the product distinctive.”

Ad van Berlo: “Every company knows that the product-push era is a thing of the past, although not all engineering businesses in this region reflect this yet. Nowadays the focus is on the user, the consumer. Only in fully fledged niche markets is innovation built on purely technical innovations. In the rest of the markets it is much more about what the consumer thinks of the product, and how he uses and experiences it. Technical products have become so complex and their development and production requires knowledge from so many technical disciplines, that a single company can no longer do this on its own. So companies bring specialists from all sorts of subsectors together to create innovative technologies collectively. This is the very core of why open innovation is necessary. If you do this right, you have the advantage nowadays of creating a product for the global market. We are no longer restricted to local customers: the Internet has given us global potential.

“What can we as designers add to that? Innovation emerges when the two worlds of ‘technology’ and ‘the user’ come together – and this is where design can make a substantial contribution. In the old days, the designer was called in during the final stages. Now we support businesses during every stage of the product development process, scenario/ strategy/ concept. We look at feasibility, materials, costs, functionality, usability, safety, brand awareness, software and hardware. I see VanBerlo as a team of generalists. We learn a lot from the various branches in which our clients operate and we are able to apply these insights to new assignments. We take a pro-active approach at all stages and, looking at things from the user’s perspective, add creativity at every stage. This allows us to speed up innovation.

“But one should not stop there. You may have your product ready, but you still have to conquer the market. Here, too, design is a bridge. Basically, your product must stand out, be recognised, exude quality, be distinctive among its competitors, and be perceived as something that adds value... In essence, brands have to be built. We are able to rely to some extent on our know-how and experience. We try to unearth the customer’s “design DNA” in workshops and chart the course for the design strategy and the visual branding. One of our regular staff is a full-time trend watcher who gathers insights from around the world on users, their cultures, environments and preferences. Co-creation is not new to us: we have been doing it for 25 years. What you do see, however, is that it is much easier nowadays to extract information from users via blogs, forums, and platforms. There is so much to be learned from them.

“As the chairman of the Dutch Design Week I therefore consider it an excellent opportunity to learn from each other and to achieve closer connections between companies and designers. In view of this particular aspect, I am very happy that High Tech Campus Eindhoven is participating.”