Billions from the gaming world give digital twin momentum
With a game engine under the hood of its digital twin toolbox, Unit040 is leveraging the developments in the gaming industry. The impact of gaming technology on simulation and visualization in high tech has taken the traditional CAD industry by surprise. “We’ve been tapping into the knowledge from the game engine development race for years,” says Guido van Gageldonk, the CTO of Unit040.
Polishing raw software talent into industry-ready gems
The company where he did his internship and graduation project was very eager to take him onboard and he got offered not one but two prestigious PhD positions. Yet, Robin Mennens chose to enroll in the PDEng Software Technology program to further develop his technical, professional and personal skills and become a software designer and well-rounded engineer.
Focus on what you can control
Over the years (decades by now) that I’ve worked in industry and academia, I noticed a common pattern in organizations that don’t perform well or that have great difficulty delivering on expectations: a culture has taken hold that explains phenomena in and around the organization in terms of factors that are not under the control of the organization. Instead, these factors originate outside the organization’s walls and, to a large extent, aren’t even influenceable by the organizat
Combining disciplines for smart vehicles and machinery
Self-driving cars capture everyone’s imagination. Less common knowledge is that the development of the technology to make machinery and other vehicles autonomous is supported in Flanders. Flanders Make, the research center for the manufacturing industry, maintains close partnerships with the industry to study a wide range of applications: from logistic robots, tractors and weaving machines to assembly cells within production areas. The key to success is a simultaneous design combining mechanics, electricity, electronics, software and control. We give the floor to two researchers.
Unity deal brings Unit040 closer to being a global player in digital twins
Dutch Unit040 and American game engine giant Unity Technologies have agreed on a strategic partnership in which the latter will market and sell the digital twin toolbox from Eindhoven on a worldwide scale. This deal will move Unit040 closer to its ambition to become a global player in the digital twin market.
Formula 1 system architecting – Part 4: Fighting against silos
‘System architecting under extreme circumstances’ is how you could describe Guido de Boer’s job at Mapper over the past fourteen years. The fourth and final part in a series of interviews in which he shares with Bits&Chips his unconventional view on developing systems, in the run-up to his keynote at the Dutch System Architecting Conference on 20 June.
The dynamics of high tech project management
Project manager in the high tech industry is a very dynamic role that enables you to work with interesting people, products, and technologies. Within Alten, Bernard Venemans is responsible for the project management at the internal project delivery center. In addition, he works as a consultant/project manager for a client. A typical week reveals the diversity of projects and activities.
Formula 1 system architecting – Part 3: Fast to fail
‘System architecting under extreme circumstances’ is how you could describe Guido de Boer’s job at Mapper over the past fourteen years. Part 3 in a series of interviews in which he shares with Bits&Chips his unconventional view on developing systems, in the run-up to his keynote at the Dutch System Architecting Conference on 20 June.
Building a billion dollar integrated photonics industry
Working in high tech for 35 years, René Penning de Vries has never seen more potential waiting to come to fruition. The technology, the ideas, the means: it’s all there. But creating a billion euro integrated photonics industry in the Netherlands will require a lot more hard work and persistence. “Our biggest pitfall is complacency,” says the chairman of PhotonDelta, a collaboration founded to steer the effort.
The illusion of alignment
As I work with teams in dozens of companies, I’ve noticed an interesting pattern over the years. When I start to work with the team and we go through introductions and the preliminaries, everything looks peachy and wonderful. As we get into the work at hand and I (innocently) start to ask questions, a certain level of discomfort starts to emerge in the team. And as the answers I get back become less precise, more avoiding and fluffy, I start to drill deeper as it’s obvious that there’s something fi
Ask the headhunter
After having worked for eight years as the CTO of a life sciences start-up in which I got assigned more and more management tasks, I was eager to be submerged in technology again. That’s why, a little while ago, I joined a high tech start-up in Berlin as a principal systems architect. Five months later, I’m out of a j