IO Innovation Bites

There will be a new version of the Tech Xperience Week, which was conceived in 2018. This time with more candidates (not ten but twenty), a stricter selection and several ‘challenges’. The goal, however, remains the same: to grow ambassadors who tell the story of Brainport Eindhoven and Brabant in their own country. “So that their colleagues, family or friends have our region on their minds when they consider looking for work or setting up a start-up in high tech”, says Brabant Branding’s Sandy van den Hoogen. The set-up of the Tech Xperience is slightly different from the first edition. “This time we try to match interested candidates based on their profile as well as a possible fit with the companies they will be visiting so their background fits with what the companies are doing”, says Yvonne van Hest of Brainport Development. “That makes the visit more interesting for both the talent and the company. At the same time, we also want to appeal to people with more different backgrounds.” The campaign focuses on people from outside the Netherlands, but within Europe. Want to join a challenge? Visit innovationorigins.com for more info.

Physical therapy following, for example, hip surgery is fine. But what does a patient do when he is back home? Physical therapists and doctors can now follow that with the help of the app reha buddy. Reha Buddy is designed to facilitate the rehabilitation process. The app of this Viennese start-up registers movement data and can provide feedback on the course of physical therapy by means of special algorithms. By 2050, the number of people over the age of sixty will have doubled worldwide. This demographic change will also be reflected in an increase in the number of people in need of some form of physical rehabilitation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently 75 to 110 million people worldwide who suffer from joint arthrosis (wear and tear of cartilage). Consistently implemented physical therapy can significantly improve patients’ lives. However, only one in three manages to perform the prescribed exercises on a regular basis. More on innovationorigins.com

Studying together with a social robot can help children learn. Researchers at the University of Twente (UT) discovered that primary school children are better able to explain what they are studying if they do that together with a robot. This is stated in the study ‘Now we’re talking: learning by explaining your reasoning to a social robot‘ presented by UT. The study continues to build on the understanding that explaining out loud to yourself or to others what you are learning about leads to a better grasp of a subject. However in situations where someone is working on their own, it’s not such an obvious thing to do. A social robot can be of help. More on innovationorigins.com

German start-ups raised more money last year than ever before. This is a ray of hope following the realization that the German economy has seen the weakest growth in six years. The favourable news about the appeal of German start-ups to investors can be found in the start-up barometer published by Ernst & Young. These concern companies that are no older than ten years old. German start-up entrepreneurs were able to raise more capital in 2019 than ever before. This amounted to €6.2 billion in total. Which was an increase of more than a third (36%) compared to the previous year. Aside from that, the number of investment rounds increased by 13% to 704. Berlin profited the most from this sum. Start-ups in the capital were boosted by €3.7 billion, divided over 262 financing rounds. This represents an increase of 41% in comparison to 2018.

15% of all public transport buses in the Netherlands are now electric, e-bus builder Ebusco says. “The European Union has set stringent objectives for reducing CO2 emissions in the very near future. The Netherlands is the most progressive EU state in this regard. In 2016 the Dutch government signed an agreement with all public transport providers stipulating that no new diesel buses may be sold from 2025 and that from 2030 no diesel buses will be allowed to operate.” By the end of 2018, there were 360 electric buses in the Dutch public transport system, by the end of 2019 the number had already reached 770. This represents 15 per cent of the entire Dutch fleet (5,236 buses).

A human being needs eight hours of sleep. That this long-held statement doesn’t apply to everyone across the board has been known for quite some time. That’s because individual sleep needs vary from person to person. That’s also dependent on age. Children, in particular, need significantly more sleep as they are still growing and developing. Schoolchildren between the ages of 6 and 13 should sleep between nine and eleven hours. Adolescents up to the age of 17 – between eight and ten hours. Yet more and more children are suffering from a lack of sleep and sleep disorders. This not only leads to them being tired during the day and unable to perform well. In the long term, it can also lead to health problems such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and depression. Researchers at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in Avellino (Italy), have now developed a simple blood test that reveals whether a child is not getting enough sleep. This is evident from the concentration of certain molecules in the blood. These are linked to the amount of sleep children and adolescents get. The so-called microRNAs show whether the sleep behavior “corresponds to the standard recommendations,” Giuseppe Iacomino and his colleagues explain.

Without phosphorus, there would be no life as we know it. The mineral is present in our DNA and cell membranes and is an important building block for our bones and teeth. Besides calcium, phosphorus is the most common mineral in our body and it provides the cells with important energy. Scientists have long been trying to solve the mystery of how and where it came to Earth. A group of international astronomers has now used the new results of the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the ROSINA-InstrumeAstronont on board the Rosetta (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) to trace the origin of phosphorus from star-formation regions to comets. This revealed where phosphorous-containing molecules are formed, how they get into comets, and how a particular molecule may have played a crucial role at the beginning of life on our planet: phosphorous monoxide. “Life appeared on Earth about four billion years ago, but we still don’t know what processes produced it,” says Dr. Víctor Rivilla, a researcher at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory of INAF, Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics.

Germany is split on the subject of electromobility. On the one hand, “green scientists” are in a hurry to make the transition from combustion to electric motors. This is the only way to become CO2 neutral and the only way for the automotive industry to survive. On the other hand, there is the car lobby that puts on the brakes, supported by “grey scientists” who think the German energy transition is too expensive and nonsensical as long as the rest of the world doesn’t participate. Volker Quaschning, professor of sustainable energy systems at the University of Technology and Economics (HTW) in Berlin, is clearly in the first group.

Earthworms, polar bears, bees and buttercups. Which animals and plants are best equipped for climate change? Which species can adapt or migrate and which ones will simply disappear? This is a question that researchers at the Senckenberg und LOEWE-Zentrum für Translationale Biodiversitätsgenomik (Senckenberg and LOEWE Center for Translational biodiversity genomics) want to answer on the basis of genetic material. A study in the journal “Evolution Letters” shows this.

The Dutch water-recycling system for both households and businesses came out on top at the American Consumer and Electronics Show 2020 in Las Vegas. During the award ceremony on 9 January, Hydraloop founders Arthur Valkieser and Sabine Stuiver received the main prize, the BEST OF THE BEST award. The company also won in the categories Best Startup and Best Sustainability Tech. These came in addition to previous accolades won by the Dutch start up – the Best of Innovation award for the best product in the category Sustainability, Eco-Design & Smart Energy.