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The first time we visited BBC Monitoring was in August 1989. That broadcast is sitting in the Media Network Vintage Vault. During the previous lifetime of the programme (1980–2000), we worked closely with colleagues from World Broadcasting Information at BBC Monitoring. Search for contributions from Richard Measham and Chris Greenway in the vintage vault of around 450 half-hour programmes.

By way of a prequel to the new series, we asked John Fertaud, who has worked at BBC Monitoring in the past, to analyse and comment on a new UK government report about the future of the service. Here is his analysis.

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Open Source Stupidity… rarely, if ever, has a UK House of Commons Committee been so blunt in naming a report addressing Government policies. But this is the case on Tuesday December 12th 2016, as the HoC Defence Committee publishes its conclusions on “The Threat to the BBC Monitoring Service”. This report comes in the wake of a HoC Foreign Affairs Committee report highlighting similar concerns at the threats facing the service.

Open-source information gathering

BBC Monitoring (BBCM), a little-known division of the BBC, located in a historic mansion in Caversham Park, near Reading, Berkshire, is an open source information-gathering service created on the onset of World War II to listen to foreign broadcast and propaganda. It supplies context to BBC news items and supplies translations and analyses of foreign news sources (radio and TV broadcasts, print and online media, news agencies, etc.) and social media to a number of UK Government and US departments and to private customers on a commercial basis.

A remarkable record

The Defence Committee report highlights some of BBCM’s significant contributions to alerting to significant events and to flagging information key to the UK’s security situation, and to that of its allies. Some of the examples given were:

• “The critical role of communication between Presidents Khrushchev and Kennedy (…) helping avert the immediate danger of thermo-nuclear war” in the final week of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis
• Initial reports from various Soviet republics and Poland pointing to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the USSR
• Assessing local and regional situations where the UK plans to intervene at political or even military levels

BBCM provided real-time and unparalleled coverage for other important events, not mentioned in the report, such as:

• the introduction of martial law in Poland in December 1981 (at the time BBCM had a listening station in Berlin)
• the August 1991 coup attempt in the USSR

A written submission to the Committee by Dr Jonathan Eyal, Associate Director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies think tank (RUSI), points to some very important aspects of BBCM work:

• unrivalled ability to connect otherwise seemingly irrelevant information, and connecting various disciplines of security analysts
• being first provider of alerts about conspiracy theories, “which are not matters of wry amusement” but “can actually kill”
• providing context thus offering “a critical clue as to how to evaluate international developments”
• being one of the few global outlets to combine printed and electronic media information with social website interactions.

Funding arrangements

As part of the 2010 BBC licence fee agreement, funding of the BBC World Service (WS), from a grant-in-aid from the Foreign Office (FCO), and of BBC Monitoring, from mainly government sources (FCO, Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office) and the WS, was transferred to the BBC which had to start funding these from the licence fee (frozen at its 2010 level) as of 2013.

Addressing the funding issue facing Monitoring Lord Campbell told the Committee that he admitted the BBC “was given a very hard deal in 2010, with the licence fee settlement (…) [and] under pressure to reduce costs but (…) we are not talking about the quality of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ here; we are talking about the provision of information that, properly obtained and properly used, has an essential part to play in the security of the United Kingdom at a time when everyone accepts that the threat has changed but may be just as severe.”

Monitoring’s current total budget is around £20m-£25m, with an operating budget of some £13.2m, which it proposes to cut to £9.45m

“Inappropriate for the BBC”

The BBC under funding pressure is seeking ways to cut paying for certain services, and it is fair to say that many at BBC management level don’t appreciate the value of Monitoring, which contributes significantly to the uniqueness of the BBC’s international news coverage.

A convenient way to press the case for cutting funding for BBCM (and eventually bringing about its demise) was to equate its activities with those of a branch of the UK’s intelligence community, which would, however, be funded by the licence fee.

This was highlighted in a late June 2014 report on BBC Newsnight programme, which could arguably be seen as a hatchet job carried out by the BBC on one of its own services, and which the Defence Committee “considers to be as deeply hostile” and giving “substance to our suspicion that there is a culture of hostility within parts of the BBC to its involvement in open-source monitoring work to assist the government.”

Introducing the report, Newsnight presenter Laura Kuenssberg inferred that the licence fee was used to fund a service “that does work for the government’s intelligence services, including providing information that most BBC journalists cannot see. Last year the government stopped paying for it, leaving you [i.e. the licence fee payer] to pick up the bill.”

To underline the “shadowy” side of the service’s activities the Newsnight video report mentioned extensively close links between BBCM and its partner since 1946, the US government-funded Open Source Enterprise, which has staff and office space in Caversham. Video showed satellite dishes (necessary to receive TV and radio broadcasts, news feeds everywhere), CCTV cameras, found in streets and shopping centres, blacked-out emails, etc. were used to focus on always [un]popular “spook” activities, wrongly attributed to BBCM.

Kuenssberg’s assertion that “most BBC journalists cannot see” BBCM material was dismissed in the Newsnight report by BBC journalist Owen Bennett-Jones who said that “the vast majority of all this material is available to all BBC journalists. I used it myself for many years.”

However, what was revealing about the BBC’s intentions regarding BBCM was the following information given by Bennett-Jones in his report:

“Now, Newsnight has learned that at the highest levels of the BBC there is concern about whether some of the work being done at Caversham is unsuitable for a public broadcaster. I understand that as part of the [BBC] Charter renewal process the Corporation is seeking to hand over responsibility for the parts of Monitoring that are what one source describes as ‘inappropriate’ for the BBC.”

In view of scandals that have tainted the BBC’s reputation in recent years, one could reasonably ask whether BBC management’s and BBC News’ “pathetic failure” (in the words of BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman) to pursue their internal investigation into widely known cases of sexual abuse on the part of some most prominent BBC staff could not also be described as “inappropriate for the BBC…”

The US connection

One of the arguments used by the BBC to justify cuts at BBCM is its links with US open-source intelligence (OSINT) gathering operations that date back to WWII.

The partnership was made official in an agreement signed shortly after WWII between the BBC and what was then the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which later became part of the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology.

The agreement provided for a cooperative media coverage and sharing arrangement between the two organisations.

Following successive cuts at BBCM relationship, OSE now provides some 75% of the content and BBCM the rest. The respective shares were much more balanced before, but OSE had to take the slack in covering many regions / outlets after BBCM cut off many parts of its services. It is arguable whether the US defence community might be willing to share its output in the future with a partner that risks becoming irrelevant. As Committee Chair Dr Julian Lewis stressed, the relationship between Monitoring and OSE “is parallel to the relationship we have with them [US partners] in the exchange of secret intelligence.” This point was also addressed by witnesses giving evidence to the Committee, in particular by former Chiefs of Defence Intelligence (CDIs).

Strong support for continuing BBC Monitoring’s activities

The Committee received written and oral evidence from security and intelligence experts that highlighted the importance attached to Monitoring’s activities by the intelligence community and the risks posed by further cuts.

In his intervention Keir Giles, an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme at the RIIA (Chatham House) think tank, who worked for BBCM from 1992 to 2006, drew attention to the past experience of suppressing services: “Caversham has an unfortunate track record of deleting coverage of specific regions at exactly the wrong time: the coverage of Afghanistan was deleted in 2000 and the coverage of Georgia was deleted in 2007, right before what was happening in those countries suddenly became very interesting. At that time, it was possible to reconstitute rapidly, because the individuals concerned had not actually left the building, but that is no longer to be the case under the current plans,” Giles said.

Lord West, a former Director of Naval Intelligence and later CDI said that BBCM “had a pool of real expertise and were able to pluck real gems out of the ether — literally out of the ether — which they could put together and, in a sense, start the analysis off.”

Another former DCI, Air Marshal Nickols, added that “BBC Monitoring was absolutely key to indicators and warnings, as we would call it in intelligence terms, because by its very nature it is probably covering areas that you don’t really have many analysts looking at in any detail.”

Experts and Committee members expressed concern at the mooted closure of the specialist Video Unit, which primarily serves the MoD (which it provides with videos of hostilities, weapons, military and strategic infrastructure).

Further cuts and reliance on overseas units could adversely impact coverage

BBC Monitoring management looks at another round of cuts that would very seriously damage its capabilities. As Lord West told the Committee “it is death by a thousand cuts”. UK teams to be disbanded would include the Video Unit; the Monitoring Research Unit, (which collates information for country and individual profiles); the Source Management Team (which identifies media sources and their affiliations);

To cut costs, Monitoring envisages also to increase the size of its overseas units and cut staffing in Caversham. It proposes, for instance, to reduce the size of its Caversham-based Russian speakers to just 9 down from 15, which is already totally inadequate.

BBCM maintains a unit in Moscow, which will not suffer job losses, but as Giles noted, “they of course operate with the indulgence of the Russian state authorities, which can be withdrawn at any time. That leaves coverage of Russia hostage to good relations with Russia, which are not looking promising at the moment.”

This assumption was supported by the Committee chair, who remarked that “the recent withdrawal of [RBS] banking support from Russia Today — Russia’s propaganda-oriented channel — presumably means that there is always the prospect of retaliation against any BBC employees based in Russia.”

Relying more on Monitoring overseas offices that “tend to be in countries that are not necessarily friendly to the UK or, indeed, to journalism, whether that is open source collection or the apparently innocent operations of the BBC (…) is inviting risk,” said Giles.

The report stresses that the BBC has made its Monitoring service vulnerable by over-relying on its overseas staff, leading to hyper-sensitivity by its management to public reference to its work.

In the late 1990s an attempt by BBC Monitoring management to disband its Caversham-based Arabic team and relocate its Arabic-language monitoring operations to a Maghreb country, against strong opposition from BBCM staff at the time, floundered at a cost to the UK tax payer of over £200,000.

Debunking BBC managers’ arguments

It must be said both oral submissions as well as evidence provided to the Committee by BBC WS Director Fran Unsworth and BBCM Director Sara Beck were at best unconvincing. Neither could confirm who owned Caversham Park, and the well-worn argument that Monitoring “would be more efficient and do more with less”, was given short shrift.

The Committee report said that it was “particularly unimpressed by the inability of the BBC to give any detail on its proposals to house BBC Monitoring in New Broadcasting House, which suggests that the planned changes are ill thought-through and designed in accordance with a predetermined agenda.”

Asked by the Committee chair what he thought of the BBC’s argument for making these changes was that “in part they want to monitor more with a smaller budget and fewer people,” Lord West dismissed the argument outright.

“They are not actually monitoring more, are they?” he said, “When you look at what they are proposing, it is not going to end up with more monitoring. Indeed, they are cutting bits out. I just find it inconceivable that a 30% cut can make the organisation do more. It means that it must have been pretty bloody incompetent before, mustn’t it?”

Possible solutions in sight?

Both the HoC Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees agree on the fact that ending Government funding for the Monitoring Service was a mistake, and stress the importance of the service for the country’s security and foreign policies.

The Defence Committee states unequivocally that “If the recommendations contained in this Report are disregarded by the Government and the BBC, we shall not hesitate to call back Ministers and senior officials of the BBC, at regular intervals, and hold them directly to account.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee says that “the Government should reverse the changes made in 2013 and should restore Government funding for open source monitoring of media sources overseas.” It leaves open the option of setting up a government agency to do this. However, it must be said that the costs involved would much likely be higher, a great deal of expertise would be lost, there would be disruption before the new service starts operating effectively and issues such as the vetting of staff would need addressing.

BBC is above criticism, as usual

As usual when confronted with an unfavourable evaluation of its activities the BBC rejects any criticism, as it does in its response to the HoC Foreign Affairs Committee Report, in which it states: “it [the BBC] believes that the plans, designed to respond to technological change and transform the way Monitoring works, will improve the service for Government and other customers. There will be a focus on quality and digital working which will increase the volume of video and multi-media content — this will be of particular benefit to Government users.”

However, this claim of giving assurances that cuts will result in better services is contradicted with the assessment made by BBCM staff when they discuss in private the current situation at the service after recent rounds of cuts.

It is not shared either by BBCM customers, as Keir Giles made clear to the HoC Defence Committee: “my colleagues in Chatham House and, I hear, in Government Departments as well, are feeling the deterioration in the service as a result” [of the shift in coverage priorities].

Giles later added the following details: “Some of the most important sources on Russian defence and security topics — such as the main news agency, which covers it, and the Ministry of Defence television station and so on — are no longer being watched. Instead of having the general brief of keeping an eye out for this kind of thing, staff at Caversham are, for example, tasked to report globally on reactions to Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize.”

It is surprising also to see that future funding of the BBC Monitoring service was not provided for in the Government’s November 2015 announcement of £289m in extra financial support for the expansion of the BBC World Service (of which BBC Monitoring is a part). This extra funding was earmarked as part of the Government’s National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review.

John comments:

Car-licking moose and flying squirrels may point to the future

From personal experience, up to the mid 1990s past BBC Monitoring Directors had a very comprehensive and sound experience of news and its connection with open-source information (or intelligence, as it is often described these days). As a writer once said: “Intelligence Needs the Media, the Media Needs Intelligence”.

This close connection was gradually lost with appointments of BBC executives seeking a stepping stone to more senior BBC positions, of external executives without a clue about news, or others who left after a few months to take other positions at the BBC or elsewhere.

Recent news items posted on Monitoring’s BBCM News From Elsewhere blog may point to a different future for the 76-year-old service.

They include (October-December 2016) priceless gems, such as: “Denmark develops ‘super grass’ to cut cow burp emissions; social network for Russian pets; Flying squirrel numbers soar in Helsinki; Kyrgyz concerns about donkey exports to China; Canadians warned about car-licking moose; Giant lobster bought by Canadian vegan is set free; or Japan’s elderly drivers swap licences for noodle discount.”

Let’s hope that these do not point to the future news priorities set out by BBC Monitoring management.

John Fertaud worked over 10 years as language monitor, news editor in BBCM regional news desks, as well as an editor in the BBCM’s Video Unit and a media analyst in its Foreign Media Unit.

Portrait of an Active Scaleup changing the world of real estate investments

Teun van den Dries is CEO and co-founder of Geophy (short for geophysics; i.e. understanding the world). When we first spoke in late June 2015, his company were finalists amongst 1600 startups in an international startup festival. But Geophy was already proving to be very much more than a simple “big data mapping company” started by a team of students from Delft University.

They have uncovered a very important niche to become the “Bloomberg for real estate”. We returned in March 2016 to find out from Teun how all this big data is unearthing amazing scenarios. Investments in Florida? Views on a Brexit?

Now read on…..

Making it so much easier to analyse Real Estate

“For a country, perhaps the most valuable commodity they have is their land” explains Teun. “Knowing who owns what is important. It’s a foundation on which wealth is built. All the countries that established such a registry in previous centuries are the ones we regard as “developed” today.”

As this article goes online, an avalanche of stories is emerging from the Panama Papers investigation. It proves Teun’s statement perfectly.

“Land registry is essentially an exchange of information about title deeds. They map a country using some sort of annotation system to describe plots and the structures built on top of those plots including details about ownership. That whole process was initially done by human surveyors who made a paper document and which someone signed to establish its authenticity. These documents needs to be accurately scanned and converted into digital maps and databases. In general, these registries are not easily accessible. These legacy documents are accurate, but they are only a record of the moment in the past when they were made — not necessarily an accurate representation of what is there today. “

“For instance, if you want to know the title deed for any building in the Netherlands, you need to know the exact address. There is no interactive map that allows you to browse a particular area, and then call up the details of a building you might be interested in. There is no easy way of interfacing with the data. It’s complicated by the fact that registries in different countries have different interfaces. We digitized the data and make sure you can access it through a map with a unified interface.”

Global Approach Essential

“Geophy is already active in 50 countries. There are around 30 countries with some kind of land registry, of which 15 are digitized. The other 15 are still paper based. In some we’re establishing scanning methods to do this. For the remaining 20 countries, the national land registry is not going to be a source of data for us. We’re going to have to build our own system.

So we’re going to start by mapping all the world’s buildings. And then map the plots of land around it, because those boundaries are more difficult to define. It starts with building address lists and we’re using over a dozen different methods in parallel to do this comprehensively.

We have started trialing in 5–6 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that don’t yet have a land registry.”

Building a company to make sense of it all

“It turns out making sense of this huge amount data is really difficult to do. In fact, when we started out three years ago, many industry specialists told us it was impossible.”

“Now, I love a challenge like that. Especially because, as an architect, I saw a way we could do it. “

“So, at the Technical University in Delft, we formed a great team of brilliant engineers, economists and IT business visionaries to crack the problem. It took us a year of thinking, building, testing, and rebuilding. And my job was validating our hunches with highly critical, real-world customers. But our hunches paid off big time.

“Banks, governments, and businesses all need to report extensively on the commercial assets they own and loan against” continues Teun. “There’s huge pressure from all kinds of authorities on being transparent these days. And big fines, in the tens of millions, if you’re not.”

“Yet, in practice, people rarely know what their own building is worth; let alone every commercial building in the country”. Geophy is a new and still unique service which creates that overview, verifying the source, allowing its users to assess risk and underlying value. You end up with a sort of due diligence report presented in a visual form that’s easy to understand.”

But hasn’t Google already done this with services like Streetview?

“Streetview is only available in parts of the developed world. There is no Google Streetview in China. In fact, there is very little Google Streetview in India. Various organizations have satellite imagery, of course, but those pictures need to be processed before they become useful data. Geophy is looking at ways in which they could use aerial photography to generate building definitions which they can subsequently tag. Since they’re interested in the data, not the imagery that makes it so much easier in discussions around privacy.”

Last time we spoke you were tracking 55 million buildings What’s the figure now?

“In March 2016 that’s just over 100 million. We know the address, which defines the geolocation, function, the size, year of construction, energy labels or certificates, energy use in some cases, tenancy, value, rent levels, technical specs, and all the peripheral data like how close is the nearest public transport stop and other demographics of the area.”

“The main clients for this maps were originally banks. But, over the last 8 months, pension funds have overtaken them in our client base. That’s because they are the largest owners of real estate in the world. The combined property portfolio of the two largest Dutch pension funds is approaching €70 billion. They want to know which buildings they have indirectly invested in. They don’t own buildings themselves but buy equity in a fund that does. But we have the level of data they need to answer questions like: how could our investments be affected by changes in the world.”

US State of Florida will sink within two decades

We’re actively tracking the effects of climate change. Real estate owners want to understand the risk of certain areas in the world and how it will affect their portfolios in the mid- and long-term. For example, one of the regions in the world we’re tracking closely is the US State of Florida.

With the difference between land and sea-level often being around 50 centimetres, we think the most of that state will be gone within 20 years. The whole region is slowly sinking under water and there is little that can be done to reverse it. We’ve built a data model that shows the flooding risk for almost every location in Florida. The real-estate there represents billions of dollars. And that value could very well drop to zero. Timing that exit for existing investors is going to be extremely important. And there are other parts of the US that have not made major investments in building preventative flood defences, despite recent storms.

In that respect, even though in the Netherlands we’re doing this interview in a building 2.5 metres below sea level, the chances of major flooding are once in 100,000 years. That’s because of the lessons learned in the 1953 floods and the major investments made since then in both sea and river defences. In New York City. for instance, they decided that once in every 20 years was sufficient.

The Netherlands government recently gave advice to the UK. What’s the situation like there?

“80% of the value of the real estate in the UK is located the London metropolitan area. By that, I mean the institutional markets which these funds invest in. The Thames barrier is already out of date and needs a major upgrade. So the risks of flooding in the Thames Estuary is something that we’re watching closely, but it looks like there is both money and a willingness to do something. The real challenges for the UK are up North, but these are not areas where local councils have enough money to change things.”

What if Britain votes in June to exit the EU?

We did a study for the Telegraph newspaper in February in which we estimated that up to 200,000 workers could leave London if the UK exits the European Union. If the UK severs ties with Europe, up to 1.6m sq metres of commercial property would come back onto the rental market — and could mean price corrections of more than 35% in some areas of the City of London.

Most American banks are in London because it is a stepping stone to the European continent. If the UK does a Brexit, most of the banks will need a location in Frankfurt. Which is why the recent announcement of the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse merger is so interesting.

From a tenant perspective, about 30% of the companies that currently rent office space in London will need to move in some form to build a presence in other countries. A 30% vacancy rate would have a major impact on property prices in the British capital. If Brexit does happen, then the Netherlands would probably benefit the most, being culturally closer than either Germany or France. Because we’ve been mapping London for a couple of years now, we know who owns what and can determine which funds would be hit the hardest by a Brexit scenario.

Cash Flow Positive from Launch

“We’re still a young company but very much in the scale-up phase now” says Teun. “Geophy was founded in November 2013 and we launched in June 2014. Our presence at major European startup competitions in 2015 triggered a lot of very important high-level investor discussions.”

“We want to become the global independent, trusted intermediary. We know that our primary source of revenue will simply be to put this data in context as a subscription. We think that freemium models, where the user is effectively the product and access to their data has a value to others, is not going to work for us.”

“One of the interesting side effects from an operation like this, is that it will become very hard for the bad guys to commit fraud. That’s because the property values and transaction history will be publicly available.”

We know our reputation is based on being fiercely independent. That’s why our basic data is open for public scrutiny. And the database is distributed rather like the “Block-chain concept”, so no one government or country controls access to the data.”

“We make our money from subscriptions to our unique set of analytical tools. I can’t name all our clients in public. But I can say that if you go to any bank in the Netherlands for a commercial loan on a building, they will use Geophy to make a decision.”

Defining the Geophy business model

“It makes a lot of sense for Geophy to be headquartered in Europe. And the Netherlands, having diplomatic relations with so many countries, is the best place for the moment. It has excellent connectivity and technical infrastructure, so the core development team will remain here”.

Geophy hasn’t released its revenue projections publically, but several analysts and major international investment funds have already shown keen interest.

What’s the next big challenge?

“The classical challenge is always raising capital. In our case, everything has been funded on revenue. That means we have a solid business, but it doesn’t allow us to accelerate.”

“At the moment, my main focus as CEO is finding good and affordable talent. Finding that one good developer in the Netherlands is tough. There are ten times the number of good developers in London but they are also ten times the price.”

“We do complex things fast. That requires that everything is developed in-house. So offshoring and managing a satellite team of developers in Eastern Europe or India is not going to work. Also finding clever people in sales and marketing who understand our business is a challenge.”

“We have obviously taken advice from both clients and third parties on the direction the company should take. But we have avoided the largest pitfalls which are legal and financial by learning to stand-up for ourselves. We have contacts with large corporations which work with some of the toughest terms and conditions you’ll find. But because we know what we are worth, we’ve managed to get them to accept our terms. In this business, getting contracts isn’t the problem. Getting contracts with the terms that we want is tough. Get paid by customers upfront — not six months down the road.”

Advice for other startups planning to scale

“Let me share some personal insights that I’ve learned on the journey so far.”

1. Focus on Revenue First

“Make some money first and get VC’s on board when you have a model that generates revenue, ideally profit — though that is often tough. If you are dependent on a VC for growth, you are never going to get a good deal.

We have been generating revenue since we started. A year ago, we went to some Dutch VC’s with the aim of raising about two million Euros. The response we got was “we love what you’re building but call back when you’ve found a client for a million+ Euro per year”. That makes no sense at all because once I have that client, I will never go back to the VC.

The Dutch ecosystem is famously risk averse. In London they expect you to be global from day one, and they are used to bigger tickets. It is not that the money isn’t here in the Netherlands, it is still more of mental attitude. There is a fundamental mismatch between what the Dutch VC’s have in mind, and what the company really needs to scale. Part of our income is in data, which is really hard to value. It requires domain knowledge to see this.”

Banks can be a poison pill

“The problem with funding that is equity linked is that it will always be the wrong value at the wrong time. Especially if you’re talking to the pension funds — they are only interested in large tickets. I’m avoiding investments from both governments and banks because we believe it is a kind of poison pill. Every bank I have seen that invests in Fintech just ends up destroying the business without adding value. They do it because it gives them exposure to this ecosystem which they don’t really understand. It would be much better if they took the €500.000 they want to invest, split it into €100K projects and handed it out to high potentials. Give them revenue so you can do a pilot with them and rapidly prototype.”

“There is currently an outbreak of Dutch corporate venture funds from telecom and media companies as well as famous name accountants. I fear that many will be shuttered within a year because the corporates still have difficulty in understanding that being an entrepreneur is a calling. It is not a profession.”

2. Think beyond borders

“If you’re serious about building a real global company, then you need to think and act global from day one. That’s a first requirement for serious investors. But it also makes a lot of sense. In our case, we spent too much time just testing the service in the Netherlands. Our breakthrough was to open a second office in London, where we quickly discovered challenges we didn’t think of earlier. The UK still uses Imperial measurements in feet and inches. We had to do a lot of tech work behind the scenes to bring the UK and Netherlands together in one database. It amounted to reverse engineering the whole platform. But I’m glad we did. Because now we have a giant head start when compared to what’s already out there.”

3. Everything is checked in our business

“It’s always better to under promise and over perform. When you’re playing at this level, assume that investors are doing due diligence on everything you do. say. Because they are. And they will.”

The Inscope research institute at Erasmus University Rotterdam has announced the findings of the annual Erasmus Competition and Innovation Monitor. Dutch companies are becoming more and more innovative. But amongst the good news came a very clear warning. Henk Volberda is Professor of Strategic Management and Business Policy at Rotterdam School of Management and leads the research. He is very concerned that average investments in technological innovation in some other sectors have hit an all-time low. So we asked Henk Volberda to elaborate on why we need action now and the role that startups play in innovation.

Why monitoring innovation is important

We’ve been running the Erasmus Competition & Innovation monitor on an annual basis since 2006. We do it because we believe innovation is important for the economy of a smart society such as The Netherlands. If you don’t measure it, you can’t steer it when it goes wrong. I’m also involved with the global competitive ranking of the World Economic Forum and saw a need to do a comparison in the Netherlands on an enterprise level. It also provides useful data for the business research that we’re doing at the Rotterdam School of Management. We’re looking for the conditions needed to bring about success for companies large and small.

We’ve developed a scientifically accepted scale of disrupted innovation. To supplement the panel research amongst the companies, we also do site visits to interview managers in selected companies. We have access to archive data so we can examine what percentage of revenue comes from new and improved products and data. And although this particular study was a national study, it including both Dutch and foreign enterprises operating in the Netherlands. We also conduct a similar survey in partnership with universities in Italy, France, the UK and Belgium as well in Saudi Arabia and Australia. There is not a lot of data on the firm level anywhere.

When some companies and countries talk about “innovation” they assume that’s simply a measure of investments put into R & D. Our data shows it isn’t.

Sorting out different types of Innovation

So how does Dutch innovation compare with its European neighbours? Can it really compete with the likes of Germany or is its strength in focusing on specific areas of expertise (e.g. photonics or medical robotics?)

We are measuring different factors, not just technological innovation. Here’s the fact that most CTO’s don’t know. Only 25% of Innovation success depends on the investments in ICT and related technologies. But 75% comes from other factors such as management innovation, leadership style, methods of organizing, investment in human capital and co-creation with partners.

The High Tech Campus Eindhoven was singled out in the report. Why was that?

We found that the High Tech Campus Eindhoven is outperforming the others in all the innovation types. There are very high scores on radical innovation, incremental innovation, but also social innovation.

Many innovation studies are based on a calibrated scale which measures investment in research and development. But I call this invention rather than innovation.

Well before an innovation can become a marketable invention, a company needs to find people willing to invest in that technology. Many corporate managers are only focused on the short-term, delaying innovative research so they can reach their key performance indicators. Or perhaps it doesn’t fit the existing organizational structure. Or employees are not willing to co-operate.

Spotting Genuine Innovation

The real innovative companies are ones that encourage intrapreneurial clusters within the organization and invest in human capital embracing ideas from all levels within the organization. There needs to be transformational leadership.

When measuring innovation, we study per industry but we also look at performance per region. In the Eindhoven area, corporates, startups, government, knowledge institutes, and supply chains have built trusted relationships with each other in a very pragmatic, open way.

Each company knows they don’t have the funds, time or capacity to achieve success fast enough on their own. Strategic alliances are the way of cutting development costs and accelerating time to market.

The Eindhoven region outperforms the rest of the country in disruptive innovation, but also in the other categories we measure. I remember in earlier studies, Eindhoven was already leading in investments in R & D, although high-tech is capital intensive by nature and demands it. But we’re seeing evidence in our survey that they are leading with other types of innovation — co-create with partners, giving room for ideas for employees, getting rid of hierarchical pyramids. Managers in the Eindhoven area focus not only on performance but also on innovation.

Where do startups fit into the picture?

We focus on firms, large and small. Incidences of disruptive innovation are much higher in startups than in large enterprises. Age and size of a company tends to have a negative effect on innovation. Some larger corporates now see the need to speed up their innovation to maintain an edge in global markets. They do this by partnering with startups and adopting lean methodologies, often in a way that benefits both — corporates have to be more than an exit strategy for startups. If they get it right, then they innovate faster with startups than if they try to do it themselves inside their own structured R & D labs.

High tech is one of the so-called 9 Top Sectors that is doing well. But the same cannot be said of other sectors. We see logistics and energy both have relative poor scores when it comes to innovation. It’s important that more innovation happens in energy. We have Dutch national targets for CO2 reduction that need to be met by 2020 as well as a larger share needed from renewable sources. I feel that because the energy sector is dominated by large incumbents, we need more disruptive input from startups and smaller enterprises to give this sector the innovation boost it clearly needs.

Every industry seems to have its own clock speed. High-tech is clearly running a lot faster than the huge capital intensive sectors like logistics and energy.

Creative Industry Challenges

The creative industry is also a separate chapter in itself. It is very innovative in coming up with fresh ideas. But following through and scaling up is rare. The sector is dominated by the self-employed, operating on their own or in very small groups. They hate routine, and in their never ending quest for something new, they are not good at exploiting what they build. That means they find it difficult to collaborate with others on longer term projects, scoring low on our scale of social innovation. There are exceptions, of course when these top sectors overlap and interact. Architects like Daan Rosengaarde are doing a number of excellent world-class projects with high-tech companies. But he’s adjusted his tempo to match the clock speed of the high-tech industry. And he understands that the big opportunities for the Netherlands lie in the intersection between these top sectors rather than inside the individual verticals.

Far Shoring & Near Shoring

In absolute terms companies operating in the Netherlands appear to be spending the same on research and development, but an increasing proportion of this is done in Asia. Originally this was related to cost reduction, but increasingly the reason given by CEO’s is that they want to be close to the market — and the availability of qualified talents. India for instance has an abundance of level-5 qualified software engineers. They are far-shoring their research.

There is a gradual return to the Netherlands of some types of manufacturing. And here you see innovation in 3D-printing and smart robotics for production. Operating in, for example, Eastern Europe leads to language and cultural challenges — only 20% of Dutch companies that move production abroad turn out to be successful. And they are the companies that have some prior experience of operating in those markets. Times are changing as salaries are re-adjusted in what we used to call “low-wage” countries. So in many cases the benefits of near-shoring production are going away.

The Dutch government has started to restructure its innovation policy to make it easier for foreign companies to establish in the Netherlands. There are fiscal incentives when they invest in R&D and collaborate with Dutch firms and institutions. Companies pay less income tax and national insurance contributions and self-employed individuals can make use of a fixed deduction.

More Ecosystems Needed like Eindhoven

I believe we need to do more to build attractive ecosystems across the StartupDelta. That means tax incentives, but also access to qualified talent, supply chains as well as attractive and affordable facilities. The Netherlands is a great test market for many industries, being compact, connected, tech-savvy and relatively affluent. If it works here, it will work in much larger markets. Foreign venture capital and angel investors are increasingly finding that establishing a company here as a portal into other European markets makes more and more sense. As serial entrepreneurs start their second and third companies here and share their knowledge and experience, I think we will see more second and third-round investments in start-ups.

Remember that best VC’s are excellent judges of the innovation capacity of startups.

I’m frequently in various parts of the United States. I must say if I bring up the subject of co-creation and ask if they know any examples, High Tech Campus Eindhoven is mentioned repeatedly by US academics, like the person credited with coining the term open innovation, Professor Henry Chesbrough of Berkeley, California.

I think it also has to do with changing attitudes in both the public and private sectors — the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) is doing more investment in startups, Philips has put innovation at the centre of its revised mission, and the current Mayor of Eindhoven has led the outreach abroad to explain that his region encourages collaboration in high-tech.

So I conclude that the success of Eindhoven has got out in many foreign circles. Now we need more places in the Netherlands to reach the benchmark achieved by the High Tech Campus. Because there are other important sectors where we have expertise. You can see that areas like the Port of Rotterdam now understand that this collaborative approach is the way forward. But they are still several years behind in their development of a local trusted ecosystem and active implementation of the triple helix partnerships.

In some sectors, R & D trends are worrying

Let me finish by sharing an important concern. It doesn’t apply to high-tech. But is does apply to other top sectors

I notice that there is a general trend in the Netherlands to reduce the budgets of R & D, something that has been showing up as a downward trend since 2009. It used to be on average 6.6% of sales turnover. It’s now dropped to an average of 2.4%. This is puzzling, bearing in mind all the talk about the importance of innovation. It is true that the efficiency of R & D is increasing, unnecessary management levels have gone, and innovation with trusted partners has meant less duplication of effort. But I believe we need to put more investment back into R & D back to levels of at least 5–6%. If not, we will face some serious challenges in 5 to 10 years when foreign competitors who are investing much more now will start to reap the benefits. Any startup will tell you that you cannot schedule innovation — you need time to discover it!

The report (in Dutch) can be downloaded here.

Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways was the keynote speaker in the recent Eindhoven Startup Summit. He shared some numbers of the success of 3D-printing within just a few years of opening two factories and what’s just around the corner. And he concludes with 2 important pieces of advice!

3D-printing is the bridge between the digital world and the physical world. As a result, everything we understand about how things get made will change. Individuals, rather than companies, will decide what gets made. It’s going from mass market to an infinite number of personalized products, and from a controlled environment with big factories to networks of local manufacturers. Time to market goes from years or months to just a few hours. Those are very profound changes and I’m convinced it’s going to really disrupt the existing way of manufacturing. 3D-printing is also following the path Broadband internet disrupted enterprises, creating all kinds of new startup businesses.

Big success in such a short time

As a company, Shapeways has grown very quickly. In the last 8 years we’ve grown from an idea when I worked at the High Tech Campus for Philips to a company which is now headquartered in Manhattan. Shapeways has factories and offices in Eindhoven, Long Island City and Seattle, Washington and we’re active in over 170 countries. We now have a platform with over 3.8 million models and business that is growing exponentially.

50% of our customers have never used 3D-printing software before, yet they are clearly so empowered by the fact that they can make their own products, that they learned how to use the technology successfully. The number of people who have managed to sell their products to others has grown by 100% in the last year. I think that’s amazing.

More and more people are satisfying their own passions, building gadgets, making jewelry, scale models, parts for drones, industrial designs to replace obsolete parts, or inventing totally new products for new businesses; think about Raspberry Pie or iPhone cases, beautiful home décor printed in porcelain, and so the list continues. We’ve printed a bikini, a fantastic dress, and a product for Victoria’s Secret. That’s on the fashion side. We also printed an ion-plasma engine for a spacecraft that’s now in orbit, built by a company in Boston.

It shows you how influential you can be with a great idea — that 3D printing is not just for prototyping, it can be used to turn designs into physical products that everyone can use.

The stats from our platform are impressive. You can not only use the Shapeways platform to make something, but also sell it. Here are some top sellers. Nervous Systems, who make jewelry — have sold over 22,500 products. Dutch designer Michiel Cornelissen has sold over 6500 products. And Ceramic Wombat, our most prolific producer, has made and sold no less than 38,500 dungeons and dragons models!

So Shapeways is evolving from a startup ourselves into an engine which empowers other startups. At this moment, 38,000 entrepreneurs have opened stores on the Shapeways platform and are busy changing the world of manufacturing.

Let me highlight two things that are happening in the world of 3D printing right now, which I think takes this industry to the next level.

One of the trends is 3D scanning. It turns out that people love to be scanned and have it turned into a “miniature me”. Think of it as the 3D selfie. If you give the power of 3D scanning to the community, with a €500 piece of kit and an iPad, they can go to events, parties, weddings. We’re working on a booth, rather like taking a passport photo. It takes 117 photos, knits them together and then we’re able to take the information and turn it into a physical product. Of course, you can put your head onto the body of your favorite superhero if you like. I personally believe this is a way to get the general public engaged in 3D printing.

The Netherlands have the premiere, but we will be expanding rapidly to other places. Anyone in the country who wants to get scanned simply has to visit one of 9 locations and stand still for about 60 seconds. It is even possible to scan multiple people at once for fun family portraits. After the scan is complete, a digital file is automatically uploaded to Shapeways via an app on an iPad. The customer receives a link to purchase a 3D Selfie on Shapeways.com, where they can select to have it printed in a variety of sizes or more than 50 materials including metals like steel, bronze, silver or even gold!

The other trend is customization. We’ve launched free technology called Custom Maker. It means we are able to customize most of the 3.8 million products on the Shapeways Platform and to do it in an easy way that everyone understands. Customization is in fact the golden key to the success of 3D printing, because every item has the potential of becoming unique. It wasn’t possible until very recently and the community started using it the second it was available. You can easily put your name on something, or upload a logo or a picture. Then every item becomes one of a kind.

Growing on both sides of the Atlantic

We started our company in the Lifestyle Accelerator on the High Tech Campus which belonged to Royal Dutch Philips. It was an important start and without it, Shapeways would not exist today. The accelerator gave me the right amount of coaching and feedback. And of course we got the resources to turn an idea into a physical product. We started in 2007 and we knew that we had to scale fast.

So within 9 months we had our platform up and running, so we were able to take orders from customers. We iterated for about 5 months using money from friends and family and then we started getting international publicity in online magazines like TechCrunch. It took us a year to spin-out the company from Philips which is a little more complex than if you start the company by yourself. Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures were our first backers so we were able to open our first factory in Eindhoven in 2011 and also establish our headquarters in the heart of New York City.

We have since opened a second factory of 2500 sq metres in New York — and that facility is nearly full to capacity. I’m delighted we managed to find Chris Dixon of Andreesen Horowitz to share our vision and join the board. Their investment has enabled us to expand to a new 2500 sq metre facility in Eindhoven. It makes perfect sense to manufacture close to the marketplace, which is why we’re expanding on both sides of the Atlantic. We do tours every month via meetup.com so you’re welcome to come and do the tour yourself. The most recent piece of news is that HP is launching a truly revolutionary 3D printer — 10 times faster and cheaper — and they saw Shapeways as the perfect launching customer. 3D printing is still in the early stages of development — it’s a market of €2 billion compared to 1 trillion in total manufacturing. So we have a factor of 500 to go before we dominate manufacturing. Let’s see what happens!

Can you share two important pieces of advice for other startups?

1. If you get a chance, make full use of a mentor network. When we started out with Shapeways, we were fortunate to meet a guy who had experience at a European VC firm. Once he understood our goals and direction, he gave us a lot of introductions as well as advice on how to approach investors and tell the story. Forget about trying to cold call US VC’s. You will never get their attention.
2. Make very very sure that you get the right investor, if you have the luxury to choose. You can do that by talking to other startup CEO’s to filter out the best. Word gets around — and if you talk to startups who have already built a relationship with a particular VC and are exited, you get very valuable advice on what works and what doesn’t. We had amazing help from Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. So never stop networking, and as a CEO make sure you understand the world of investing. Because it is just as defining to your success as your product or services.

Tapping into international expertise already here

“Smart people are the best at spotting other smart people” says Guus Frericks, CEO of HighTechXL. “And as our next accelerator program prepares to launch a new program at High Tech Campus Eindhoven, we’re delighted to have found an excellent partner in our global search for brilliant teams.”

“In the course of my career, I’ve spent several years abroad. I know what can mean for the partners of expats. My wife is well qualified, yet it is never as easy for a partner to find employment in a foreign country. We realised that it’s the same situation here in the South-Eastern part of the Netherlands. There are over 9000 internationals in this region alone, many of whom have a partner. So we’ve teamed up with an excellent new initiative called the Expats Spouses Initiative run by Anne Theiss-Yanni and Kavitha Varathan.”

“A team of local expat spouses is helping us hunt for outstanding teams in the field of new materials and high-tech hardware. They turn out to be chemists, scientists, engineers and mathematicians who are perfectly qualified to reach out to find new startup ventures. They come from all over the world — we realized that together they command over 20 languages. Our searches benefit the spouses because they get a clearer picture of the regional job market. They get introduced to the local community in a different way. Several members of our first team have already landed a job. They also bring with them their international network which is some cases is already very extensive.”

“Our pilot scheme was recently extended to include 50 expat spouses, as we start a new round of scouting for the world’s best teams. Most come from areas in the world with innovative talent. They not only act as an ambassador for our accelerator program HighTechXL, they also tap into their own international network to build useful and trusted relations.”

Why this idea is working

Kavitha Varathan is one of the co-founders who saw an important opportunity. “I co-founded the Expat Spouses Initiative because I believe in activating the untapped potential of my expat colleagues. Partners in the Eindhoven area need help in matching their knowledge skills to the great career opportunities to be found in the Brainport region. I have been amazed at the exponential growth in active membership. We believe the initiative should scale up to other innovative hubs in this country and beyond.”

“It has quickly grown into a pro-active network of professionals helping women and men to start their own business, find a job that more closely matches their qualifications as well as collaborating on regional, national and international assignments. Activities include training & briefing sessions to make it easier to (re)-start a career in the Southern part of the Netherlands. And start-ups, in particular, are always looking for skilled talent as they expand.”

Cofounder Anne Theiss-Yanni originally comes from Germany. “I enjoy collaborating with others. I am not scared of thinking out of the box — and disruptive thinking is part of my personal DNA. So that makes our work with startups especially interesting. I enjoy spotting the talents of others and connecting like-minded people to my network of business professionals. “ “The Eindhoven metropolitan area has one of the highest concentrations of expats in the Netherlands. Apart from being tremendously diverse, this workforce is also very well educated, as about one in five of the city’s residents holds a graduate or professional degree. This highly qualified labour force is one of this region’s most valuable resources, essential for the international success of both established corporates like ASML, DSM and Philips and local high-tech startups who want to scale up.”

Arati is an active member of the expat spouse initiative. “It has been interesting to compare the welcome we’ve received here with other parts of Europe” she explains. “Originally from Mumbai, India I have a PhD in Mathematics. I’ve been based in Munich and my partner and I only moved to Eindhoven quite recently. As an English speaker, I’ve found it easier to converse with Dutch entrepreneurs and businesses. And there is clearly much less hierarchy to deal with here than in Germany, even in the larger corporations. People seem more relaxed and open. I’m finding this new challenge to be very interesting and the network that the expat-spouses initiative builds is just the right idea at the right moment. It’s turning into a win-win for everyone.”

In a re-furbished research building 12 on High Tech Campus Eindhoven, the first of a new team of startups is unpacking their removal boxes and already showing curious visitors what they’re up to. We meet up with Heico Sandee, Managing Director of Smart Robotics to find out more. Although just a month old, the team have a wealth of experience. Now it’s time to scale extensive planning into a global business.

“In fact, we’re doing two things” says Heico. “We’re developing software for flexible automation using robots, and we’re marketing the software to put these robots into the market.”

Robots Need to Adapt to Change

“Robots have been used to assemble or package products for decades. They are ideal for repetitive work, being designed and manufactured to do the same job for several years in a row. But as we see the life cycle of products shortening, the variances are getting bigger and bigger, so it is difficult and prohibitively expensive to make an automation for one specific product.”

“So people would like to configure the robot rather than program it. What you see at the moment is that people buy the hardware, which is already rather expensive. But there is also a lot of programming effort needed before you have your application. That can be 50–80% of the total price you pay for a robot. We’re working on one software package which is able to control various types of robots. A customer can purchase a robot and our package, configure it to do a job for weeks or months, in the same way that companies use freelance talent now. In this phase, we’re focussed on inorganic products which have the same dimensions, although organic products like fruit are not far off.”

“Because our robots are sensitive to their surroundings, they can operate without safety fences around them. They can easily co-operate with humans working close by. So I see a world where robots and humans are both involved in rebuilding our economy.”

Why this a business and not just an idea

“Although our company only started in May 2015, both my co-founder Mark Menting and I have extensive experience in the robotics business. We have long connections with Eindhoven University of Technology. And we set up the robotics division within Alten, a leading service provider in the field of technical consultancy and engineering. It’s about 600 people working in software and megatronics, of which around 30 people are working on robotics.

While at Alten we heard a lot of requests from customers who were asking us to make these robots more generic. You cannot do all the software development for one specific customer. It couldn’t scale. Alten, being a contract development company, wasn’t the best partner to develop generic software and sell it to its customers. So we decided to form a separate company to address the specific needs of these customers”.

Selecting a space for scaling up — Consider the location

“The building we’re now in has a fascinating heritage. It used to house a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator, which Philips used to study subatomic structures. It has now been transformed into a building open to young startup companies like ourselves. In fact, we’re the first team to move in, but more have just signed up as from, July 1st. We have several reasons for wanting to be here on the campus. There’s a good match because we’re surrounded by companies here who are all doing high tech development. For instance, I’ve been trying to solve a specific challenge involving cameras. I know Philips research has a unit specialised in cameras, and it took one phone call and a three minute walk to talk with the right developer to hear how they would approach the problem. We’re also delighted with help we’ve been getting from the High Tech Campus Management team. They are brilliant informal connectors — so when you can define what you’re trying to solve, then can connect you with others on campus who may be able to help. And because there’s a constant stream of international visitors, if delegations have an interest in robotics, they make sure we’re part of their guided tour. We’re getting a constant stream of visitors and several have turned out to be excellent leads.”

Ensure your surroundings inspire

“We also considered other locations in the area. But as we looked at offices on industrial parks, we realised that it is difficult to operate in splendid isolation. At all these places I was asking myself, is this the right environment for my team? You don’t get much inspiration if your neighbours are running a dry-cleaning business. When our team has a lunch break in the afternoon, they only have each other because they’re working in an extremely specialised field. Having lunch on the Strip amongst a few thousand technical geeks is something else.”

“This building dates from the sixties. We did gave our offices a fresh coat of paint but we definitely want to keep a few bits of the heritage of the past, like some early power sockets. A lot of interesting discoveries were made here, so we want to continue the tradition.”

“Robotics is very broad area — anything from flying robots, self-driving cars. But we’re focussed on robotic arms and the software to steer them. It turn outs that writing that software takes a very high degree of skill in dealing with a vast amount of complex sensor information. We’re different because we’re making the robot aware of its surroundings. So it can correct its own faults. So if it trying to grasp a large bolt, for instance, and for some reason the bolt isn’t there, it will know that and start searching for it. Other systems would simply carry on as if the bolt were there, leading to a misplacement and a faulty product.”

“Our approach is to work with 3D cameras, which gives us a lot of information on the environment which we have to make sense of it all. In the end, we’re able to ensure the robot does smarter things. We have built and tested a lot of our technology in the academic research setting. Now we’re taking that knowledge and software to the next level, so that it becomes a reliable, robust industrial application which can run 24/7 in a factory.”

“We started our physical activity on May 1st, but we’ve been planning the company since the summer of 2014. We developed our business model canvas and raised a first round of funding to give us a runway for the next 18 months. But we’re quite advanced in the discussions with investors for the funds we still need.”

Global Vision from Day One

“What we’re doing in robotics is really new. The market still has to establish itself. That’s difficult for some investors to grasp the complexity and therefore authenticate the risk. But since our company was born out of customer requests, and we still get more requests daily, we’re sure we’ve validated our technology. It’s an example of “market pull” rather than “technology push”.

“Our company vision has been global from day one. We know we can scale quickly now. And we notice that’s important in discussions with manufacturers, most of whom have production facilities in several locations worldwide.”

Robots who understand their surroundings

“We’re telling the world that we’re developing a new type of employment agency, but using robots rather than humans. About a year ago there was a lot of debate in the Netherlands, especially as both regional and national government is trying to revitalise local manufacturing. We think manufacturing can return, but successful companies will operate in new and different ways.”

“For decades we have outsourced manufacturing to low-wage countries. Now people are realising that if we can use robots to make production viable in the Netherlands, then it will create a number of highly skilled jobs. Robots are good at doing routine serial tasks. But the human brain is much better at thinking about complex tasks in parallel, doing things that robots cannot do.”

Fun fact

“You may like to know that a few years back we formed a robotics band on campus called TeamDARE, performing here in the Netherlands but also at the Maker Faire in Rome. Now it shows what’s possible with robotics in a completely different context — I’m particularly proud of what we’ve been able to do with robotic pan-pipes!”

Contact: hsandee@smart-robotics.nl for more information about Smart Robotics

Massoud Hassani

Next steps in designing a better future — without landmines

As international troops pull out of Afghanistan, they leave behind them a lethal legacy of unexploded bombs and shells. Around 10 million land mines still contaminate more than 500 square kilometres of land. They are still killing and maiming people at a rate approaching 400 a year. The vast majority of the victims are children. More than 20,000 tonnes of ammunitions have been dropped over Afghanistan. Around 10% of munitions do not detonate: some malfunction, others land on sandy ground. Foreign soldiers have also used valleys, fields and dry river beds as firing ranges and left them peppered with undetonated ammunition.

Sadly the situation in Afghanistan is not unique. There are other countries like Angola, Iraq, Cambodia and Bosnia where the continued presence of millions of landmines brings daily misery to families living in the legacy of conflict zones.

Tapping into an idea from the past.

Massoud Hassani is an Afghan-Dutch designer who is taking direct action to change this terrible situation. He spent the first 10 years of his life in Afghanistan in the early 1990’s.

“I grew up in Qasaba, Kabul” recalls Massoud. “My family moved there when I was 5, and at the time there were several wars going on. My brother Mahmud and I played every day on the fields surrounded with high mountains in our neighbourhood. We had little money or possessions. So we learned to make our own toys”

“One of my favourites was a small rolling object that was powered by the wind. We used to race them against the other kids on the open fields that surrounded our neighbourhood. There was always a strong wind blowing towards the mountains. I noticed that our toys often rolled too fast and too far. But they would end up in areas where we couldn't go to rescue them because of landmines. I still remember those toys I’d made that we lost and watching them just beyond where we could go. That gave me an idea.”

Let the wind help destroy landmines

Massoud has made an ambitious personal goal to rid the world of landmines within a decade.

“In 2011, for my graduation project for the Design Academy in Eindhoven, I returned to Qasaba. We decided to re-make those toys. But this time, we made them 20 times larger, heavier and stronger, renaming the device “Mine Kafon” (which means Mine Detonator in the local Dari language).”

“When it rolls over a mine the device destroys itself and the landmine at the same time. “Mine Kafon” has developed into a spherical mobile made out of biodegradable plastic and bamboo. It’s light enough that the wind pushes it around naturally. But it is also heavy enough to set off landmines as it rolls over them.”

“With each detonation, the Mine Kafon loses just one or two of its legs so it can destroy three or four land mines for each journey.”

“Mine Kafon also has a GPS chip integrated inside. You can track its movement on a website and see where it goes. It can build maps showing the safest paths to walk on and keeps track of how many land mines are destroyed in that area.” explains Massoud.

The global statistics on land mines and their effects make for sober reading. According to the United Nations, up to 110 million mines have been laid across more than 70 countries since the 1960s. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people die each year because of them.

“On paper, Afghanistan is said to have 10 million land mines. In truth, I believe there are many more. And if this idea works in Afghanistan, I believe it can be deployed worldwide where the need is just as great. Every destroyed land mine means a saved life and every life counts in this world.”

What’s New: The Mine Marker Drone is next

During Dutch Technology Week June 1–6th 2015, an international exhibition opened in the heart of city of Eindhoven, where Massoud has been showing the next stage of the “Mine Kafon” project. Following a successful Kickstarter funding round two years ago, Massoud has been working with several partners to perfect the design, yet cut the costs of production. They have been experimenting with smart materials developed in this region of the Netherlands.

Drones are getting a bad reputation the minds of the general public, especially as they regularly used in military operations. According to many international newspapers, including the Washington Post, US drones have recently killed US citizens.

“I’ve been fascinated with drones for a while” says Massoud, “but this time I want to use them to save lives instead of ending them. We therefore looked at ways in which we deploy a drone to identify and tag the exact position of a landmine. It is so much easier for de-mining teams to operate in an area if they know the exact location of the mine.”

“So we built a drone which has a sensitive mine detector attached to a robotic arm that is positioned below it. It hovers above the area which is being de-mined. When a mine is detected, the drone spray paints the area directly below it and sends the exact coordinates to a digital map on the area. We have to use special non-ferrous materials to make the drone, otherwise there is a danger the drone and the robot arm would trigger the mine below it.

So, although it is a simple idea, making it into a working prototype has been a team effort. I hope the demo in Kazerne during Dutch Technology Week will trigger interest from the international community. We're currently looking for partners to help us with the mapping part of the project as well as fund the next stage to turn this prototype into commercial production.”

Combining technology, design and art in a fresh, inspiring venue

Mine Kafon forms part of the second season of Open World, being held at Kazerne, a venue which has quickly established itself as the new international podium for the Dutch creative industry. It’s located in the former military barracks in the centre of Eindhoven, Holland’s smart tech capital.

A conversation with Szabolcs Kun, CEO of Crypttalk

It’s late June 2015. Though the headquarters of CryptTalk are in Stockholm, Sweden, the conversation with Szabolcs Kun is in his native Budapest. Recently spotlighted by Forbes Magazine, the Hungarian capital is a hotbed of engineering expertise, especially in the area of telecom security. “This small Eastern European country turns out to have a pool of brilliant telecom security experts — as well as being a healthy sceptical market for anything as disruptive as this. But then, we love a tough challenge”.

The growing erosion of personal privacy enters a new phase.

In February 2015, fresh revelations by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden renewed a global discussion about cell phone privacy. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, claimed the surveillance agencies had the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data. They did it by hacking into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world and stealing encryption keys. Gemalto, the company being targeted responded with a statement that they were attacked but none of the keys were stolen.

In May 2015, a new French law designed to strengthen intelligence-gathering gained a comfortable majority as it was fast-tracked through the French National Assembly.

It is being opposed by an alliance of internet operators, defenders of civil liberties, journalists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). They say it is a dangerous extension of government power that authorises mass surveillance and threatens the independence of the digital economy.

Confusing implications for Citizens

As BBC journalist Hugh Schofield reported recently, the main provisions of the new law include the authorization of “new methods” in which France’s six different security agencies may act. Some are not controversial, such as “prevention of terrorism” and “national defence”.

But what, say critics, of “major foreign policy interests”? Does that allow spying on opposition movements in other countries? Or what about “industrial and scientific interests”? Would that allow agents to eavesdrop on journalists investigating major French companies? It is all extremely unclear.

Industrial Espionage on an exponential rise

Just as people have the right to buy a virus scanner to keep out the bad guys attacking your home computer, a high-tech European start-up believes you have the right to ensure your phone calls cannot be eavesdropped by anyone. But they also have answers when quizzed if such technology could be misused.

“We believe that personal privacy matters a lot”, says Szabolcs. “The more someone knows about you, the more power they can have over you. Knowledge of personal information can affect reputations, influence life-changing decisions and shape your behaviour. Whilst the mainstream media has focused on the importance of encrypting offline technologies, like USB sticks or email, very little attention has been given to keeping live voice calls secure. Yet the demand from our 5000 initial customers for a secure phone system, secure from eavesdroppers, has never been greater. So we've made it so much easier to make fully secure, encrypted calls on both mobile and tablets.”

“We've heard too many accounts of business situations where important information leaked because the conversation happened over an unencrypted mobile phone. One client said he’d been participating in a very large international request for proposals. He had been discussing a final bidding offer with internal colleagues over a cellphone — and was astonished to discover later that what he thought was a “secret bid” was being leaked to their direct competitors. There’s plenty of cellphone monitoring equipment available if you do a simple Google search on the web. And just look at the live maps of Internet attacks going on right this minute, and you see the urgent need for a secure solution.”

Building a secure answer

“For the last year we've been validating our end-to-end system called CryptTalk, winning national awards as well as recognition from international industry bodies such as the Wireless Association (CTIA). We were also spotted by EIT-Digital, a leading European innovation network. They have been assisting as we scale up our operations.

At the end of June 2015, we received the results of an independent security assessment from one of the world’s most authoritative information assurance specialists, the NCC Group based in the UK. They found no practically exploitable vulnerabilities and concluded that our application was secured to a very good standard. The NCC security specialists said there was clear evidence of proactive security measures and the product’s design is very well thought-out. This extensive report clearly shows that CryptTalk is really doing what it is supposed to be doing. So now we've reached the phase where it’s time to scale-up our young company to provide secure communications for the rest of the world.”

“Our team has spent the last 15 years on securing live data for telecom companies all around the European Union. We've been working with the largest call centres and IP-telecom companies, developing a secure Voice-Over-IP engine to process voice calls. So when we decided to form a company to create the CryptTalk solution, we already had 90% of the technology needed for a secure calling and messaging solution.”

The secret lies in telecom not in encryption

“Most people outside the industry don’t realize that 80% of the work involved in building a secure telecom service is understanding and implementing the right telecom infrastructure. The encryption part is also important, but we decided not to claim our encryption was more secure than what is already out there. In fact, we’re using tried and tested encryption technology and IT best practices that have never failed. The industry of IT security, including telecom, banks and governments already trust these encryption systems. It’s pointless to reinvent the wheel.”

“The real problem is that most IT encryption systems are far too complicated for most people to use.”

“So our approach was the other way round. We've focused on putting proven encryption technology into an application which gives you end-to-end secure communication in an easy and affordable way. It sounds easy. But it is actually very difficult to do well.”

Customer Validation completed in toughest market

“Hungary is a country where many telecom companies run their tests. You can run pilots under the radar because few people speak Hungarian. So, even if they are successful, the word doesn't spread across the border! The Hungarian economy is not as advanced as other European countries. With the exception of the startups, the general public is conservative, so it’s a country of “late-adopters”. So if you can set your pricing and services so that Hungarians will buy it, then you have validated your business case for much more affluent economies. Now, all that hard work is starting to bear fruit.”

“We’re now ready to scale-up our technology to other, larger countries. And, strange as it may appear at first, we've decided what we’re NOT going to do. For a lean late-stage start-up company, currently with 20 people, selling globally would require major local resources that are not yet in place. So we’re in the process of building various partnerships. And we’re focussing on specific types of clients for whom privacy and confidentiality are paramount. For example, in order to reach some customers with our solution, we’re looking at telecom partners. They can provide us with access to potential customers, customer support and, of course, billing services — after all, they know who does what and for how long on their network. We’re also working with communications security specialists and advisors, some of whom have approached us for a white label solution. They would market our secure CryptTalk technology service under their own brand. ”

We’ve already sparked interest in specific professions including lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, stockmarket traders, analysts and several different branches of both state and private banking. CryptTalk was also discussed at the recent Global Editors Network summit in Barcelona. Secure communication is vital to both journalists and the news agencies, especially those operating from fragile states.

A Common Misconception: Wiretaps work

“Many people believe that security agencies like the NSA or GCHQ are able to overhear conversations because they tap into the open network and intercept the data packets. Actually, this turns out to be nonsense.”

“If I am a government hacker, I know that decoding an encrypted data package without the keys is nearly impossible. You’re going to need a large amount of computing power and maybe a million years to crack the sophisticated encryption systems already in use today. So what hackers do is to steal the encryption keys by attacking the end device. That’s why you should change the encryption keys after every call. So, once the call is over, you wipe the encryption key from the memory.”

“But imagine that some of that incomprehensible data is being recorded anyway — as leaked NSA documents confirm the agency is now doing at a giant facility the Utah desert. An eavesdropper who gets the secret key at any time in the future — even years later — could use it to decrypt all of the stored data! That means that the encrypted data, once stored, is only as secure as the secret key, which may be vulnerable to compromised server security or disclosure by the service provider.”

“We’re using the Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange that provides what’s called “perfect forward secrecy”. In nutshell: the key is generated as a shared secret, it is never sent over the network (not even in encrypted format). Once the call is over, the key is destroyed. It can never be recovered by anyone.”

“This is important in the case that, for example, a curious government agency has recorded your encrypted calls and then seizes your mobile phone when you’re going through customs. Even in this case, they cannot get anything out of the phone which they could use to decrypt the recorded calls made in the past. That’s because the actual decryption key is generated inside the phone and never leaves the device. So without the encryption keys, the contents of the call will always remain encrypted.”

So how does CryptTalk work?

“When you open the CryptTalk app, you have to authenticate yourself with a six-digit passcode. The app needs to know the right user is accessing the phone — and it hasn't been stolen.”

“Once you have proved you’re the user, you get access to your special personal phone book. Each of the people on that list have also installed the CryptTalk app on their smart phone. All you do is select the person you want to call and press the button. When the other party answers, CryptTalk takes just a few seconds to generate the encryption keys and set up an end-to-end secure peer-to-peer link between both parties. That’s it.”

“Our telecom background means we've designed a system which is completely network independent. I could be making the call through a LTE mobile phone network. The other party could be taking the call on a handset connected to a WiFi-network. The only requirement is that both parties need access to the Internet, although it doesn’t need to be a very fast connection.”

“We can provide a high-quality voice call without any latency in the call. Some competing systems have anything up to 3–5 seconds delay, while the system is encrypting and decrypting. We have spent more than two years finding a solution for fast data transmission over networks, so that our latency is actually better than an average GSM call — that means it is imperceptible.”

Roll out on IoS — Android on standby

“At the moment, we are supporting both iPhone and iPad. But the technology is also platform independent. So we are ready to use it on Windows Phone and Android. But we chose Apple IOS because, for the moment, it’s the most secure.”

“Of course, we’re under pressure to create an Android version, but we’re not releasing it until Android solves a number of security issues. The problem with Android is that mobile devices using it are often using out of date versions of the operating software, something which is less prevalent on iOS. Our customers want secure communications from the moment they use CryptTalk. We’re taking an active part to tell the Android developers what’s missing and hopefully get that the remaining issues fixed.”

“Our existing customers are in all kinds of businesses where security is paramount; e.g. people buying energy on world markets. Large companies can survive a security scare, just look at the recent news around Gemalto for example, but a security breach for a startup like us would be fatal. Fortunately, the NCC Group report is clear in its assessment.”

“The underpinning cryptographic protocol had been well conceived, and no faults were found within its implementation. It was confirmed that an attacker with no knowledge of the user’s PIN is not able to gain access to any sensitive information, either by intercepting traffic or analysing data held on the device’s storage. All such data is suitably encrypted, and extraction of sensitive data from a lost or stolen device (such as messages and contacts) would be entirely dependent on knowledge of the user’s PIN (or at least seizing an unlocked device while the app is active and logged in). NCC Group Assessment of CryptTalk June 2015”

So won’t your technology be used by the really bad guys?

“The CryptTalk service is unlikely to be of interest to the bad guys for several reasons. It is a paid subscription service for which you have to register. You need to provide bank account or credit card details. We always reserve the right to withdraw the service from those users who engage in illegal activities. Their subscription is cancelled and the app simply doesn't work anymore. In short, we have a zero-tolerance policy towards the bad guys. We created the product in good faith because we believe personal privacy is important.”

“In fact I think everyone has the right to protect themselves from the bad guys. If you look at many offices today, there’s an elaborate virus scanner needed on many PC’s in order to protect them from malware from being installed on the outside. In addition, companies spend huge amounts of money building firewalls to prevent hackers breaking in and gaining access to confidential data exchanged on internal, private networks.

Secure international private networks

International private enterprise has its own special requirements. Let’s say you are a major multinational corporation with several offices and factories spread all over the world — in Europe, the Americas, but also operating in fragile states. You need to establish a highly-secure network between all those different sites and exchange private information (including encrypted voice data) over those channels. We have designed a custom solution for the international private enterprises. ”

Why should customers trust your development team in Budapest?

“There is a fast yet transparent process you need to follow in order to subscribe to CryptTalk.”

“As a private individual, you need to enter your Apple ID, which is connected to a credit card. As CryptTalk all we know is that this person is an authorized Apple subscriber — and we have a contact email address. At the start of each encrypted call we simply authenticate that you have a valid CryptTalk subscription. But, that’s all. We don’t know the frequency of the calls, where they originate, or anything about the encryption keys.”

“But we know our customers don’t just want to take our word for it. So we have been getting independent third-party security assessments, like the one just completed by the NCC Group. But we are also working with “ethical hackers” who also independently create audit reports. They get full documentation and a working “sand box” system for them to hack and find possible exploits. We've been working with the best — and so we can show our customers independent evidence to back our claims.”

“In the case of large corporate clients, we've also opened our documentation to other investigative agencies paid for by the client. Provided the client signs an NDA, we're happy to support any audit process. We've taken part in three extensive technical audits — and passed each with flying colours.”

There is NEVER any backdoor

“It is ironic that some governments have enquired about using our solution, but their laws require that public servants’ communication be monitored by the security agencies. It’s true that some of them lose interest when we reveal that our system can never provide a backdoor. Secure means that the contents of a call are secure from anybody outside that particular CryptTalk conversation. However, we have also met some government clients in the last few weeks who think differently, saying that everyone has a right to privacy — government officials will be judged by observing their actions not by monitoring their words over the phone.”

More information

Subscriptions to CryptTalk start at US$9.99 a month for a personal subscription with up to 15 contacts. Recipients of encrypted calls need to install a free app available in the Apple App Store.

The app is currently available with interfaces that work in English, Chinese, Hungarian and Portuguese.

From left to right: Attila Megyeri Chief Technical Officer and co-founder & Szabolcs Kun, CEO and co-founder CryptTalk.

Hardware is hot. It is time for successful angel investors to broaden their interests. Because we need more startups to scale-up.

Candace Johnson is someone who has made a global impact on our modern international telecom and broadcast business. She co-initiated the foundation of SES-Astra and SES Global, which today owns a fleet of 54 satellites and broadcasts 6500 TV channels. And she founded the world’s first Internet-based online service, Europe Online, making it into one of the first broadband Internet services.

But it was in her role as president of EBAN, the European trade association of several hundred business angels, which brought her to Eindhoven’s High Tech Campus recently. She explains why angel investors are making a difference to the global start-up scene and explodes several myths that surrounds the way they do business. She spoke with StartupDelta’s Jonathan Marks.

Building the match between angel investors and hardware startups

“People often think that angel investors are people who do investments around the corner, locally, or in services like e-commerce. To be frank, when the HTCE management told me that they were focussing on the hardware side of things, I was thrilled.”

“What I’m trying to do as President of EBAN, and having incubated MBAN (MENA Business Angels Network) and ABAN (African Business Angels Network) under my presidency, is to extend the scope of angel investments. The vast majority of angels are already tech savvy. But we need to educate our successful angel investors to invest more in hardware and infrastructure. We also need to help start-ups develop a pitch that speaks to the interests of angels, so they can get funding for their initiative.”

“We run the EBAN Training Institute with the goal of raising standards. We’re seeing more and more that the best angel investors are serial entrepreneurs. They bring their trusted network, expertise and experience to the table.”

“Money is important too, but it is not at the top of the list. Business angel investors are high net worth individuals who usually provide smaller amounts of finance (€25,000 to €500,000) at an earlier stage than many venture capital funds are able to invest. They are increasingly investing alongside seed venture capital funds.”

Angels are more important than most people know

“We follow the guidelines and standards developed by the European Venture Capital Association. For over seven years, during the depths of the financial crisis in 2008 until the recent recovery started, it was the angel investors who took over the role of early stage financing. More than €7.5 billion are being invested annually in Europe, with a sustained growth in recent years. Of that €5.5 billion comes from angels. In fact we have had to professionalize our profession to meet the demand of the growth in this early stage ecosystem.”

We always have an exit strategy

“Angel investors can only continue to invest if they have exits. I hear many people talk about investing. Only a few discuss exits. I want to change that. I also stress that proven entrepreneurial success is essential in order to become a member of our association. We need to ensure that useful “lessons learned” are shared with the start-ups. They are always based on hands-on real-world experience. We have no time for people who are using new blood to try and correct mistakes they made in their own failed companies.”

“EBAN was started in 1999 together with the European commission. For the first ten years, I think people were too focussed on the investing part. Now we need to focus on exits and returns on investment. Without returns, business angels are out of business. And remember there is only a short window of opportunity during which start-ups can scale-up to becoming global success stories”.

“Our feeling is that you should not make an investment in a company unless you can see the path for the exit. The exit may be a trade sale, an IPO, etc. The exit also does not have to be 100 %. It does, however, have to bring you a return on your investment so that you can continue to invest. This approach helps you focus on building great companies. There’s always competition in healthy markets, so no-one can afford to waste time. We’re not a charity; we’re doing this because we love building and financing global success stories. We’re therefore looking for companies with a real marketable product, not a prototype or a collection of well-presented ideas.”

Is there specific advice you can share with high-tech startups?

“In the last few years we've seen the rise of the accelerators alongside incubators. They have helped raise standards because a good idea needs to be validated by the market before it is the basis for a high-growth company.”

“As investors, we always need to see a start-up demonstrate that they have first clients and initial revenues. We’re not saying that they have had to scale or show market traction. But if we are going to put in our personal money, then we expect the founder to be resourceful enough to work out the first product, to have found the first clients and show us evidence of the first revenues.”

“The incubators who help get an idea into reality and the accelerators have been good at making startups better prepared for angel investment, offering the right coaching to turn an idea into a validated business. That means angel investors are better able to select the growth companies and focus on making a good return on their investment.”

“We recognise that young companies need to present their business proposition to the angels attending our annual conference. So we’ve created ways that teams get immediate, honest feedback on the quality of their business presentation. We have one full day of preparation and coaching followed by a Global Investment Forum. The best go on to pitch to the entire network. This year, the “company to watch” category was won by Hanneke Stegweg, who is the Dutch CEO of the iLost company. Together with Neelie Kroes, I am keen to see more women founders lead entrepreneurial teams.”

What needs to change for things to move faster?

“We held this year’s EBAN congress in Eindhoven at the recommendation of several members. They all work in the innovation and financing of innovation field. But this region also came up in our discussions with StartupDelta. We have worked closely with Neelie Kroes when she was with the European Commission.”

“We were tipped off to the High Tech Campus specifically by our Russian members: the Russian Business Angels and the Skolkovo Foundation who are building the Skolkovo science park just outside Moscow.”

“And last, but not least, I know Eindhoven from my work in telecommunications and broadcasting hardware field. We often came here to work with Philips on the establishment of the DVD and MPEG-4 standards.”

“During our visit to the Brainport area it was clear that there is more than enough money in the region and a healthy appetite to invest in innovation. But there are some caveats that we feel need to be addressed.”

“Frankly, I think we are rather tired of the “nice-to-have” e-commerce companies. We would prefer to reinvest in world-class companies who are building something tangible, solving a real-world challenge. They need to demonstrate they can scale and become global.”

“We can see that the efforts by many have helped to raise the bar in the Netherlands and that’s good news for everyone. But remember there is a difference between entrepreneurs and SME’s. Entrepreneurs are the only ones to change our world. They create large companies, worthwhile employment, and that grows into large revenues.”

Failure is not an option

“We should get rid of this talk of failure being an option. If you’re taking angel money, it is NOT OK to fail.”

“If you take third party money, you have a responsibility as an entrepreneur to do everything you can to make a return on the investment of your business angel. The media keeps talking about friends, family and fools. But that’s nonsense! Founders, families and friends build great companies!”

“I have always been a free marketer at heart. Europe and The Netherlands need to create nations of investors. I believe in the power of private sector-led investment. Government needs to follow the leads set by business angels, not the other way round. We are investing our own money and using our years of experience to scale up these companies. An entrepreneur who is not willing to work and dedicate her or his lives 24/7 to achieve the goal should look elsewhere for money!”

“We’re fortunate that the EBAN network acts as a magnet for excellence. We were honoured to have the President of the European Research Council and the Head of Technology Transfer of the European Space Agency address our Congress to show us where the technology trends are going and where we should invest.”

“From a venture and entrepreneurial financing perspective, we were most grateful to our colleagues from the United States who joined with our European, MENA, and African colleagues to set the bar high in creating, building and financing global success stories. Amongst those joining us in Eindhoven from the United States were the president of the Global Accelerator Network from the USA, the president emeritus of the Angel Capital Association of the USA, the President of Start-Up Angels and Board Member of Up Global from the USA. We also welcomed the President Emeritus of the Crowd funding association of the US as well as the chairman of New York Angels. And we were delighted with the presence of David S. Rose, the president of GUST.com. These are some of the world’s best experts in angel investing.”

“They all said they were pleasantly surprised by the high standard of the startups that came to Eindhoven from all over the world. It was well above what they had expected. Start-ups from Africa, Middle East and Europe traditionally explain what they do, rather than explaining to investors why their idea is important. But that’s changing rapidly for the better. Entrepreneurs are also getting better at defining what they need in order to scale-up.”

NEXT STEPS : It’s all about active networking

“I should explain that in expanding our reach in Europe, with have formed alliances with the European Space Agency and the European Research Council. They also have their own accelerators and incubators. I think the onus is on the angel investor community to help bring this scientific community to a higher level of entrepreneurship. They need to think about the market for their inventions from the beginning. I believe we can help these organisations filter out the very best ideas and give those the attention they need to scale ideas into real businesses. There needs to be a validated market need for the technology they are developing.”

“We have two main events. There is the annual EBAN congress, this year in Eindhoven and next year in Porto, Portugal. And we run the EBAN Winter University, this year running from November 17–19th in Copenhagen. We’re doing this with leading organisations active in Europe’s creative industries. And all this is in addition to individual events and competitions organised by EBAN members at a local, regional and national level.

Increasingly we’re assembling cross-border syndicates, both between European countries and increasingly inter-continental networks linking Europe with innovation hubs in Africa, Middle East and North America. As companies scale and go global, it is important they have access to an international shareholder network. It’s a softer landing when they cross continents.

We also believe there is a way in which we can build partnerships with techno-business parks around the globe, led by the flywheel initiatives shown by High Tech Campus Eindhoven over these very fruitful days in the Netherlands.