Canvas | Community | The Beacon

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Strides reveals your team's soft skills

In an extensive coverage by Belgian newspaper De Tijd, Strides co-founder Mark Van Achter explains how their game boost the performance of teams. Based on thousands of decisions a team makes in the game, the Strides algorithm estimates a team's productivity, curiosity and decision making skills. In time, it will also add leadership qualities and communication. 'In a game you quickly see the true nature of a team member', says Mark.

Strides has three gaming tables at The Beacon clubhouse, which can host teams up to 12 people simultaneously.

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Port of Antwerp digitizes radar network

Radar infrastructure plays an important role in the guidance of shipping traffic. As part of this, Port of Antwerp recently awarded a framework contract to Securitas to fully digitalise and further expand this infrastructure.

The 12 current analogue radars will be gradually replaced and, in addition, seven radar set-up points will be added. An IALA-compliant (International Association of Lighthouse Authorities) Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) is the final objective to be rolled out by the first quarter of 2022 and will have three sectors. The introduction of VTS is in full swing.

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CEO of Flow Pilots speaks at the Tedx Conference in Antwerp

This past Saturday, Dewi Van De Vyver spoke at TedXAntwerp! Dewi spoke about 'wicked problems', a problem that is difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory or changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.
Wicked problems require us to look at problems in a different way.

Did you miss Dewi's TedxAntwerp? We will post the recording as soon if it comes online.

Minister-President of Flanders lauds Mobilidata (Imec)

Mr. Jan Jambon, Minister-President of the Government of Flanders, called Mobilidata thé innovative mobility project in Flanders, at the G-STIC conference "Shaping a Post Pandemic World" at the World Expo in Dubai. A few weeks back, his government approved the project, which includes the development of no less than 31 new smart city projects. The project is led by Imec, in collaboration with the Government of Flanders and private company BeMobile.

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CEO & Founder of Linkedcar Nominated

Congrats to the Founder and CEO of our community member Linkedcar.
Mario Schraepen is named "10 most Outstanding Business Personalities of the year "

Read the full story here

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Cegeka nominated for the Limburg innovation award 2021

Congrats to our community member Cegeka !

Cegeka, with its Mobilize platform, is among the last 4 remaining candidates for the Limburg Innovation Award 2021 from Voka - Chamber of Commerce Limburg.

Read all about it here.

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Marple raises 500K in growth capital

Amazing news for our community member Marple.

Marple, which develops smart innovation software for engineers, has raised 500,000 euros in growth capital in a second investment round. In addition to private investors, imec and VLAIO also put their money in the pot. With the capital, the Antwerp tech company wants to expand its team - both on the technical and the sales side - and further connect with the software market for R&D engineers.

Read the full article here.

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Peripass and Robovision combine vision learning with innovative yard management solutions

Awesome news from our two community members Peripass and Robovision. They have combined vision learning with innovative yard management solutions in a proof-of-concept for 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 at the H.Essers site.

Read all about it here

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Become senior account manager @ MCS

Our community member MCS are looking for a senior account manager for the Belgian market. Do you have a combined technical en commercial skill set ?

Don't hesitate to apply !

More info here

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Peripass welcomes Danone to their community

Congrats to our community memebers at Peripass.

They are thrilled by adding Danone into their community

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Become technical sales & marketing support @ Skyebase

SKYEBASE is hiring a talented sales & marketing profile with technical affinity, skills or background. If you want to join a fast growing company in Drones & AI and like to work in a young and dynamic environment in the Antwerp city center in a startup-hub, please reach out to them.

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Voxdale recieves the Henry Van De Velde award

Congrats to our community members at Voxdale !

They received a Henry van de Velde Award for Ergotrics - MORPHEMAT in the category ‘Business Innovation’!

Read all about their innovation here.

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ML6 launches a new initiative

ML6 launches a new initiative close their hearts.

With their - ML6 for Good - program they aim to help charitable organizations accelerate their efforts to solve critical global issues, by using AI and their expertise so that nonprofits can have access to the same cutting-edge AI solutions that businesses do.

If you are a nonprofit and social good organization and you have a project that has an impact on the community and could use some AI magic, you can fill in the form on their website.

More information here

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Cinvio featured in Trends

Cinvio's CEO Luc De Clerck was interviewed by Trends - He gave more insights of Cinvio's future and their plans plans for growth.

Read here the article

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Toqua wins the blue innovation award and is featured in Trends

Double good news from our community member Toqua.
After winning the Blue Innovation Award this week at the World Expo in Dubai - a prize awarded by Blauwe Cluster (Blue Cluster) vzw to recognize innovation in the Blue Economy - They are also featured in today's edition of Trends in a series on Belgian climate start-ups to speak about the Climate Conference #COP26 in Glasgow.

Read all about it here

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Seafar obtains permission for night operations

Seafar obtained permission for night operations supported from the Seafar Control Center. The permission makes it possible to operate 24h/24h, opening a huge opportunity to increase operational efficiency.

Congrats Seafar !

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Become Business analyst @ Nxtport

Nxtport are looking for a new colleague to join them in their offices in Antwerp. Want to be the glue between the logistics supply chain of a port and our state-of-the-art datasharing platform?

More info here

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Rombit seals partnership with SoftwareAG

Congrats to Rombit by officially officially signing the partnership agreement for the Middle East at GITEX Technology Week to bring increased operational efficiency and safety to companies in the GCC countries.

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Strides Featured in Bloovi Magazine

Our gaming partners Strides on the third floor are featured in a briljant bloovi interview.
With Strides, They take a broad look at team performance and analyse the functioning of corporate teams within one hour of game experience.

Read all about it here

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Sirus wins a new smart city project

Congrats to our community member Sirus !

Together with CEGEKA they will develop a Smart City Open Data Platform for the cities Brugge, Leuven and Roeselare. Developing a Smart Data Platform on such a large scale is something that has never been done in Belgium before.

Read all about it here

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