A robot not yet in every house – but we may be getting closer to the tipping point
We have not seen robots become commonplace household accessories, the way Bill Gates envisaged it six years ago in his acclaimed article “A robot in every…
PRISM - a big setback for innovation in Internet and digital business
Last week a former CIA contractor informed the world of a secret program called PRISM that enables US intelligence agencies to preform in-depth surveillance on information…
Taxing buildings and their labels just like cars
I work as an innovation consultant mainly for clients in two quite different sectors: energy efficient building construction & refurbishment and sustainable lightweight vehicles. They are…
Europe needs an agenda for Industrial Maintenance if it wants to regain growth
European political and business leaders look again at industry as a source of economic growth, resulting in the 2012 EU Industrial Policy Flagship Initiative. The initiative…
Rotterdam the Hague Emergency Airport, Aid and Trade on one spot
What if a location could be a safe haven for evacuation during national disasters, a knowledge center for international emergency management and a prime location for…
City managers enthusiastic about Urban Resilience Upgrading approach
Proposals for Urban Climate Adaptation too often are hugely expensive and disruptive. No wonder city councils are hesitant to invest. “We need a disaster once every…
Manufacturing is back in favour, Germany really never went out of style
I spend perhaps one third of my working time supporting 'classic' German companies in innovation. There were times when such clients like Volkswagen, BASF or Siemens…
Energy Efficiency investments still often do not make sense
For decades we’ve been exploring how to make large amounts of building owners invest into energy efficiency refurbishment of their existing buildings. In thousands of pilot…
Clusters como política de competividad, ya ha llegado la cuarta generación de clusters en Europa
La semana que viene el presidente de la Generalitat presentará el Cluster d’Automoció de Catalunya como piedra angular de una política de innovación para fomentar la…
‘SusLabs’ to develop user-centred sustainability innovations for the home
In the past years B&W has been actively pushing the idea of ‘living labs’ focused on sustainability in the home environment. These allow researchers to study…
Barcelona is recognized as Champion Resilient City by the United Nations thanks to its efforts to reduce the vulnerability of its infrastructure and public services
Five years after an electricity black out and a period of drought had exposed vulnerabilities of the city’s infrastructures and services, the Spanish city of Barcelona…
Collaborating to reduce vulnerability of Critical infrastructures. Building bridges between Europe and Asia by putting together experts of Water and Planning & Housing
Last March we were invited as MARE project coordinators to share our expertise in Flood Management with the National Housing Authority of Thailand. Sebastiaan van Herk,…
How can you make sustainably cultivated agro-products truly distinctive when sustainability by itself doesn´t sell?
Green products did not, do not and will not conquer the market place, simply because consumers are not willing to pay extra for a product being…
Strategic Open Innovation for Research Centres
Research centres in Europe are increasingly required to embed their R&D activities in application-oriented and market-oriented R&D strategies. This requirement is perhaps inspired by experiences of…
Inspired innovation
This week I participated in a great workshop facilitated and prepared by my colleagues Anneke Stolk and Menno van Rijn. the subject of the workshop was…
