UTDSIDSINewsDIH-HERO Brokerage event on 30-31.10.19

DIH-HERO Brokerage event on 30-31.10.19

DIH-HERO, the Digital Innovation Hub Healthcare Robotics is an open network, funded by the European Commission, has opened its doors for the first brokerage event on October 30 and 31. The purpose of this first DIH-HERO get-together was to increase cross-national collaboration, to accelerate innovation of robotics in healthcare. Building a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hub Network, DIH-HERO offers several opportunities for the players in the European healthcare market such as different services or the engagement in the DIH-HERO €100k Technology Demonstrator and €200k Technology Transfer Experiment calls. (see www.dih-hero.eu/calls for more information, the TD call is open until 31 Dec 2019! )

Bringing innovations to the market

Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), friends and networking partners met at the University Twente (NL) to discuss the opportunities of bringing innovations to the market within the healthcare domains and potential partnerships for the open and upcoming calls. The programme of these two days was diverse and of high quality focusing on up-to-date topics in healthcare robotics. Presentations by the operational project coordinator Dr. Françoise Siepel and project manager Maren Bödding informed about the project and the open calls that are dedicated to support SMEs and slightly larger companies in developing innovative technologies for the market. Keynotes of Dennis McWilliams of Santé Ventures, Cyrill von Tiesenhausen of KUKA and Amir Szold of Hernia Solutions were as entertaining as informative and presented risks and needs of realizing a vision and inventing new products. With presentations about the 5 domains in healthcare robotics the great variety of healthcare was pointed out.

Partners of the network and companies took the opportunity to present themselves in pitches and announced possibilities to cooperate. In speed dates, possible common interests and networking opportunities were considered. Lab tours at the Technical Medical Centre guided by Remke Burie and Prof. Stefano Stramigioli were of great interest and gave a comprehensive insight in research methods. Furthermore 16 Innovation Hubs and their partners introduced themselves in an exhibition where in personal dialogues individual questions were discussed.

TechMed Innovation Hub

One of these hubs was the TechMed Innovation Hub, represented by Esther Rodijk from the University of Twente, Dorine Pluimers from HealthValley and Willem Endhoven from Holland Robotics. The TechMed Innovation Hub serves as an access point to the regional ecosystem of MedTech stakeholders in the Eastern part of The Netherlands. This coordinated group of organizations with complementary expertise and a not-for-profit objective, offer a set of services to companies – especially Small and Medium Enterprises (incl. Start-ups) and mid-caps as well as to public sector organizations – to support their digital transformation.  At the Brokerage Event, they presented the services and facilitates offered in The Netherlands in the field of Robotics in Healthcare. These services include, but are not limited to, innovation brokerage, shared research projects, facility sharing, knowledge transfer challenges and funding programs. For more information, visit the website.