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Take a peek at the activities and offering of our digital innovation community.
Take a peek at the activities and offering of our digital innovation community.
Headquartered in Leuven (Belgium) and with research sites across Belgium, in the Netherlands, Taiwan and the USA, an rep offices in China and Japan, imec leverages its state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure and its team of about 4,000 expert scientists, to drive open innovation across the globe. They unite world-industry leaders, Flanders-based and international companies, start-ups, and academia and knowledge centers, for R&D in nano-electronics and digital technologies, including advanced semiconductor scaling, silicon photonics, smart health, smart energy, smart mobility and smart cities solutions, artificial intelligence, beyond-5G and sensing technologies and more.
Next to its R&D offering, imec also leverages its expertise and large international industry network to support smaller organizations that have limited in-house R&D resources as well as larger companies with their innovation process from initial idea to fully functioning product, from the design of a product or chip, to prototyping, testing and optimizing, and manufacturing.
Finally, imec supports tech start-ups and scale-ups with a tailored offering. The imec.istart program is a business acceleration program that provides tech entrepreneurs with specialized coaching, facilities and overall support to help them grow their businesses, while the imec.scale-ups program focuses on larger innovative tech scale-ups looking to conquer the European market.
Commissioned by the Flemish government, Lantis is building connections that make the city and region flourish. Lantis is responsible for the realisation of the Oosterweel connection, which will increase prosperity and improve the quality of life. Lantis is contributing to this by promoting mobility, including the construction of numerous bicycle connections and multimodal junctions on the city outskirts of Antwerp.
Lantis strives for operational excellence in order to carry out projects as efficiently as possible and deliver quality. Thanks to intensive cooperation with the surrounding area, the organisation works transparently and with a focus on results. Innovation and transformation ensure future-oriented projects with a lasting impact on the dynamics of the region. This is the Lantis way of successfully realising large projects in an urban environment.
Lantis stands for Liveable Antwerp through Innovation and Cooperation and is a public limited company. The day-to-day management is in the hands of the management committee led by managing director Luc Hellemans. David Van Herreweghe chairs the board of directors.
As Europe’s second-largest port and largest integrated chemical cluster, the Port of Antwerp Bruges is a major lifeline for the Belgian economy: annually around 238 million tonnes of international maritime freight are handled. The Port of Antwerp Bruges accounts, directly and indirectly, for a total of around 143.000 jobs and more than €20 billion added value.
Innovation and digitisation enable our mission to be ‘a home port for a sustainable future’ as we aim to flexibly respond to a rapidly evolving maritime market. By supporting The Beacon, we want to ensure that our port platform finds relevant points of contact and vice versa. Furthermore, we want to facilitate the exchange effect created through the ecosystem being built around The Beacon.
The city of Antwerp welcomes businesses, researchers, citizens and city officials to experiment with smart technologies that aim to make urban life more enjoyable and sustainable. Antwerp is a living lab where solutions are tested and co-created with its inhabitants. The city is home to highly innovative businesses and with 171 nationalities that live in Antwerp, it is above all a very diverse, and international city. The Ecosystem in Antwerp is developing rapidly, over the past years the amount of start-ups and scaleups in Antwerp doubled.
Innovative companies are the driving force behind the Antwerp knowledge economy. Their growth is crucial for our future. The City of Antwerp therefore strongly believes in the power of digital networking and is developing an ecosystem for digital innovation in which large and small businesses, startups, scaleups, researchers and capital providers with an interest in the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence can meet each other. Thanks to the cross-pollination that occurs in The Beacon, innovative products are developed that are relevant to Antwerp’s ‘smart city’ ambitions and to our financial stakeholders: industry and logistics.
The University of Antwerp is a research university where pioneering, innovative research is conducted at an international level. Research and education are closely linked, with 20,000 students and 6000 staff spread across our nine faculties. As a driving force in the Antwerp innovation ecosystem, innovation is a constant focus.
The Beacon is the university’s pioneering pre-incubation structure for the domain of Metropolitanism, Smart City, Mobility & Logistics. It houses the IDLab research group and the Design Sciences Hub.
The IDLab research group of the University of Antwerp and imec performs fundamental and applied research on Wireless technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. IDLab, headed by prof. Steven Latré, targets the most daunting challenges industry is facing to deliver digital transformation, connecting everything and extracting high value from data. Bringing researchers and industrial partners together at the same location facilitates knowledge transfer and enables the cross-fertilization and co-creation insights on smart cities, IoT and AI towards the industrial partners in The Beacon.
The Design Sciences Hub of the Faculty of Design Sciences is an interdisciplinary innovation and valorization lab. They offer design solutions for urban challenges and wicked problems in the triangle of urban planning, built environment, and urban health.
Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform mintBlue heeft een nieuw record in de blockchain geschiedenis bereikt door meer dan 50,53 miljoen transacties te verwerken in slechts 24 uur. Dit markeert het hoogste aantal transacties ooit verwerkt op de publieke blockchain. Deze prestatie bewijst de levensvatbaarheid van hun infrastructuur op schaal en staat gelijk aan ongeveer 2,1 miljoen transacties per uur of 35.000 transacties per minuut, wat de mogelijkheid van het platform bewijst om blockchain functies te ondersteunen, inclusief on-chain opslag, met extreme efficiëntie bij enorme volumes.
Michiel Valee and Pauline Van Ostaeyen, united by a shared passion for digitizing the archaic maritime shipping industry, founded Antwerp-based Dockflow in 2019. Its AI-powered platform integrates data sources, enables real-time container traceability, and monitors CO2 emissions and carbon offsetting for the logistics market. In 2023, the startup tracked $16 billion in cargo value, serving over 15,000 companies with 2,000 active users. Valee brings blockchain expertise, while Van Ostaeyen, a Veuve Clicquot Bold Future Award winner, leads with growth marketing and sales experience. Dockflow has raised $1.1 million in funding to date.
‘With just one connection to the NxtPort International platform our global customers can now securely exchange data with our liquid terminals. This will enhance real-time order execution in the most #sustainable way.’ says Leo Brand CIO Vopak
Scalable and Proven Solution
Nxtport International is not just a concept but a #scalable, #proven solution already serving 120 customers across all continents. This broad adoption demonstrates the platform's capacity to handle diverse and growing demands, ensuring that as your business expands, Nxtport International can seamlessly scale to accommodate increased #data flows and more complex #logistics networks. Its global footprint underscores the platform's reliability and the #trust it has earned across the industry.
Specialized Focus on Liquid Commodities
With a specialized focus on liquid commodities, Nxtport International addresses the unique challenges and requirements of managing liquid logistics. This specialization ensures that the platform is finely tuned to support the intricacies of liquid transportation and storage, offering tailored solutions that enhance #efficiency , #safety , and #compliance for #chemical and #petrochemical companies dealing with these materials.
Nxtport International’s existing deployment showcases its scalability and its tailored approach to managing liquid commodities. As the chemical and petrochemical industry, along with the emerging #newenergy sector, continues to evolve, Nxtport stands ready as a key enabler of real-time communication, efficiency, and sustainability. Its proven track record, specialized focus, and adaptability position Nxtport as the go-to platform for companies looking to thrive in the dynamic global market while contributing to a sustainable future.
Geert De Wilde, CEO of Nxtport International adds : ‘#futureready for New Energies: As the industry evolves towards embracing new energy sources, Nxtport International’s capabilities on top of the Intertrust technology, extend to meet the emerging needs of this sector. The platform's #cybersecure #realtime communication features are perfectly aligned with the requirements for managing new energies, facilitating efficient, secure, and transparent data exchange among all stakeholders involved in the new energy ecosystem. This adaptability makes Nxtport International a future-proof solution, ready to support the industry's transition towards sustainable energy sources.’
In conclusion, Nxtport International is not just facilitating the current needs of the chemical and petrochemical industry; it is also paving the way for the #integration and #growth of new energy sectors. Its scalable, specialized, and future-proof platform offers a comprehensive solution that spans across traditional and emerging energy landscapes, underscoring its critical role in the industry's journey towards innovation and sustainability.
SAIDD is back! Save the date and pre-register now for the second edition of this inspiring demo day
Join us at COOCK Smart Port 2025 for an exciting in-person event on November 16, 2023, where we dive into data-driven port operations.