STRP - ways to visualise biological data

STRP Biënnale, one of world's ten leading festivals on creative technology, incited the curiosity of 30 000 visitors over a period of 10 days this year. Both well recognised scientists and talented young makers present their work at this event. It offers the audience the chance to experiment various scientific themes and see the result immediately. I was part of the crew team this year.

Figure 1. Let's make sense of the future now

Man and machine are connected more and more by systems that translate the sensory information into digital command lines. The key to a successful connection between man and machine is the interaction method. Physics and engineering play an important role to design new and more efficient ways to translate for the machine what the body understands through biological pathways what the environment input states. The future of technology depends upon discovering new forms of interaction.

Video 1. STRP project documentation from Milan van Belle on Vimeo.

This subject is not easy for the audience to embrace. For this, a simple and very popular app (The Particle Party) was designed to track in real time, with dots, the movement of a person in front of a screen. The time allocated was short, and the trace is saved by the user as a photograph.

Figure 2. Celebrate our senses at the Particle Party

"We will keep adding new sensors and senses to the things we make. Of course, everything will get eyes (vision is almost free), and hearing, but one by one we can add superhuman senses such as GPS location sensing, heat detection, X-ray vision, diverse molecule sensitivity, or smell. These permit our creations to respond to us, to interact with us, and to adapt themselves to our uses. Interactivity, by definition, is two way, so this sensing elevates our interactions with technology."

( Kevin Kelly, 2016 )

Design your world

In October of each year, Dutch Design Week takes place in Eindhoven. The biggest design event in Northern Europe presents work and ideas of more than 2500 designers to more than 275 000 visitors from home and abroad. In more than a hundred locations across the city, Dutch Design Week organises and facilitates exhibitions, lectures, prize ceremonies, networking events, debates and festivities. Last year I was part of the organising crew for the event.

Figure 1. My participation at the training for the new crew members

An average family owns at least 200 000 objects, from a paper clip to a toaster. Rarely we ask ourselves where these items came from, how they are made, or how we can make them more suitable for our needs, or more presentable. This event organises a series of interviews and presentations from top designers and new talents in the field that answer some of these questions.

Video 1. Presentation of Martijn Paulen, director of Dutch Design Week

In the past, the designer created new products and then various marketing techniques were used to sell the product to the customer. This method doesn't work anymore. Nowadays the customer's needs are put in the center of attention of the designer from the beginning of the creative process.

Video 2. Presentation of Martijn Paulen, director of Dutch Design Week

As consumers, we are losing sight of the complex world behind the products and services that we use every day. One of the main organisers of this exhibition, designer Bas van Abel, researched the market of smartphones that we all possess nowadays. He asked himself what should be the balance between the financial and the other values when it comes to product development. He asked himself also which is the role of a designer: to simply design the final product without thinking of the costs for the materials and for the production process, or to consider all the aspects before applying for a patent. He chose to develop a sustainable telephone of his own, the Fairphone, that takes into account all aspects, from human, to material costs, and production pipeline.

Video 3. Presentation of Bas van Abel, ambassador for Dutch Design Week

Technology develops more and more nowadays, quicker as the time passes by, and the automatization process of everything around us increases in use each day. We rely more and more on technology for more and more of our daily tasks. With the use of improved technology, one may complete more daily tasks nowadays, and the things around us adapt better to our needs with the use of technology. Nevertheless, there is always a balance between the human factor and the use of technology, a balance that is harder and harder to keep in mind with the increase of speed in our lives.

Video 4. Presentation of Maarten Baas, ambassador for Dutch Design Week

Each one of us can make time to better understand the products and services that we use every day. Increased knowledge of these details makes us more capable to make responsible decisions in our lives. A responsible consumer, if not even a designer, can make this world a better place to live.

Smarter lifestyle with Philips

During The Dutch Technology Week in 2016 I attended a very interesting event about how technology improves the quality of life of the ageing population.

The demand for healthcare that provides high quality at affordable costs is continuously growing. People when they are getting older they want to be self-sufficient for as long as possible, without having to leave the security of their own homes.

These technological innovations represent the target of the Slimmer Leven 2020 cooperative, a partnership within the Southeast of Netherlands with Brainport Eindhoven region at its core. With a good cooperation between the members of the cooperative, significant breakthroughs were achieved in care, living and well-being with the use of eHealth applications.

Among the many partners in the cooperative, Philips gave a general presentation during The Dutch Technology Week. Philips supports the HealthSuite digital platform that represents the link between the healthcare providers and the patients. The data is collected with well-established security protocols and stored in a cloud-based platform. The data is collected from various devices and sources, stored on the platform, correlated and analysed by professionals and a diagnostic of the current health status of the patient is released. The patients may have an online appointment with the doctor, via a videophone, in the comfort of their home, to update the progress done and for future tasks to be achieved. The Personal Health File provides directly to the patient all the medical data, which gives the opportunity for the people to understand better the diagnostic received, and to better manage their health in the future. While living at home independently, one can be included in an online community with other people that have similar health problems, and receive support.

Video 1 . One of the presentations of Philips about smarter living during The Dutch Technology Week 2016

Philips celebrated 125 years of innovation up to 15 May 2016. Philips doesn't innovate just for the sake of it, but it provides personalised technological solutions. I enjoyed watching, at the Philips Museum in Eindhoven, a small video that presents in a compact way so many years of technological design in medical imaging.

Video 2 . Philips has come a long way in developing new technology in healthcare during time, as the Philips Museum in Eindhoven nicely depicts in a short historic video

In the next ten years the demand for healthcare that provides a good trade-off between quality and affordability is rising, while the number of people working in healthcare is likely to be reduced. Making use of reliable technological innovations becomes a necessity for self-empowerment at an older age.

May the new year bring more published papers

Merry Christmas everyone!

Innovation - from ideas to reality

During The Dutch Technology Week I attended a very interesting event. Innovation in technology, in 100 years, doubled the lifespan, tripled the income, reduced the food cost by 13 times, reduced the energy cost by 20 times, reduced the transportantion cost by 100 times, and reduced the communication cost by 1000 times. All these were possible when knowing how to get the maximum outcome from a technical innovation.

The first presentation talks about the industrial evolution. Ray Kurzweil's graph, "the most important graph in all the technology business", or even better said "the most important graph ever graphed" is on one of the slides. In 1965 the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, observed that the number of transistors doubles every two years in the integrated circuits. Nowadays the components get cheaper, computers transform and get smaller, and Moore's law is still valid.

From the year 1784 we passed through four industrial revolutions, with an increased technical complexity with time. Nowadays machines do amazing things. An interesting statement presented was that there is a 93.5% chance that the job for accountants and auditors may be done in full automatic mode by a machine in the future.

Video 1 . The importance of innovation

The second presentation outlines the updates from 19 May 2016 for the taxation of the Dutch innovation box. The profit for the innovation box is taxed at an incredibly reduced rate of 5%, in comparison to the rate of 25% for the normal Dutch corporate income. The new innovation box proposal states that all the intangible assets developed after 30 June continue to benefit from the current regulations until 1 July 2021. The presentation discusses about the criteria for access to the innovation box, methods to determine the profit, methods to continue the development of intangible assets (the innovation), and administrative details.

Video 2 . The innovation box

The third presentation continues the discussion for the research and development tax credit scheme with details from the WBSO manual for the year 2016. It helps the entrepreneurs to continue the development of their technical innovation with low or lower costs, in order to remain competitive in the field.

Video 3 . Make the best use of innovation grants

The event had a fourth presentation, about technology and smart mobility. Unfortunately my telephone ran out of battery, and it is anyway outside the range of my research interests.

The event had two breaks when the entrepreneurs that attended the event could have had professional advice from the speakers regarding specific details for their own business. The atmosphere was relaxed and with a good exchange of information.

The fascinating world of innovation

One of the most important annual events in Eindhoven, The Dutch Technology Week, filled the area Strijp-S with people in May. The second event that I attended was [Night] <of> <the> nerds. It was organised by Future Bites. More than 55 different activities were prepared for anyone between 14 and 19 years old. Young people match their subject of passion and interest with the presentations prepared. The emphasis raised at this event is on the impact of enthusiasm and creativity over technology. The activities were organised in 5 sections: <challenge>, <clinics/workshops>, <tech talks>, <professions with a future> and <experiences>.

I kept reading about the awesome RoboCup competition but I didn't have the chance to see one of the teams with my own eyes until this event. It is a mid size league competition of autonomous football playing robots. I had the pleasure to see the Falcon robot football team and I enjoyed watching the game.

Video 1 . Robots playing football

An inspiring Tech Talk from Ineke Scheffers caught my attention. She outlined in Dutch most of her achievements that are described in further detail on her page. Girl power in coding can produce great results. I am not sure about the statement that women are better coders, but I know that women can be good coders. I think that one is either good or not good at the job done. If that one finishes the task at the deadline then the work is a success. I am a woman scientist who needs coding from time to time in order to complete the work needed. I liked listening to her presentation.

Video 2 . The presentation for the women coders

A challenging activity was the one about 3D printing. As most of the young people participating at the event may not have extended knowledge for creating the 3D structures of their dreams using CAD software, another software was presented step by step at the event.

Video 3 . The overall presentation for the elements of the event

It is very difficult to summarise the experience had at the event. Up to date technology was presented in a fun way. Although there were so many stands in such a small place the feeling was not that it might be crowded. Each activity presented challenged the mind to innovate. If one was interested in a particular subject then one can find out every single detail about it at this event. One can find out the science behind the technology, and also how "future proof" are the career opportunities in that direction. I wish I had more time to spend at this event.