In his new role as Managing Director of Holst Centre/imec John Baekelmans wants to grow, both financially and technologically, to perfect the IoT evolution. 

John Baekelmans had a dream job at Cisco, where he was Chief Technology Officer, responsible for IoT globally. But he chose to move to Eindhoven and lead imec / Holst Centre, located at High Tech Campus Eindhoven.

He wrote an insightful blog  about his first week in office. Now, a month into his new job, we asked him about his ambitions for Holst, the future of the Internet of Things (IoT) and his views on the Campus as an innovation model.

Why did you choose to leave Cisco for imec / Holst Centre, which is a much smaller company?
“The smaller size is exactly what attracted me, because small companies are often faster and more agile in initiating innovations and time to market. But the decisive factor was the new technologies that Holst Centre is working on.”

What are your ambitions as their new Managing Director?
“We always want to grow. On the one hand that means financial growth, but we also want to grow our leadership position in new technologies around health care and IoT. We specialize in health care wearables that monitor people with chronic ailments in order to improve their quality of life. These wearables can’t just be fun gadgets anymore, they need to function perfectly. That’s what we’re working very hard on.”

What are the main bottlenecks in IoT technology today?
“In one word: security. Sensors nowadays do not always have enough computing power to make them smart enough to trust them with our data, because they can still be hacked. If I have a device that monitors my heart that communicates through the internet, how can I make sure that heart monitor is really sending my data? Sensors require an identity that can be communicated. The safe and perfect cooperation of all those endpoints, the wearables and sensors, is the great challenge of the IoT. If we can tackle that, I think we have a beautiful future ahead of us. Then IoT will become much bigger than the internet is today.”

Holst Centre often uses the term ‘intuitive IoT’. What do you mean by that?
“It’s our way of saying that IoT is not only about connecting things to one another, but also about communicating and creating intuitive solutions. We don’t want technology for the sake of technology, but we want technology for the sake of use cases and experiences. First you have to think about how you can make life simpler and how to optimise it, and only then should you look at the technology to make it happen. You have to make the technology as intuitive and user-friendly as possible, otherwise people will not use it. The integration of the user experience and the improvement of life is what we call intuitive IoT.”

Could you give a practical example?
“We are working on improving the overall retail experience. A webshop already knows your tastes and preferences when you visit them online, and it will offer you suggestions of products you might like. Why can’t we do the same in a physical store? So that when you enter a physical store, the store itself will know your identity and will start interacting with you pro-actively, possibly offering you specific products. For instance, through secure proximity technologies the store may learn that you like black shoes. As soon as you pass the rack with black shoes that rack will send a message to your phone that they are now on sale. We’re helping to make that possible. Another example is the health patch. We have developed a patch you can simply stick on your chest to track your physical and cardiac activity. The medical grade data can then be sent securely to your mobile phone or read out by a physician. With this health patch patients with cardiac problems can be monitored in their home environment, which is more comfortable for the patient, saves costs and relieves pressure on hospitals. We call these solutions intuitive, because they totally make sense and also make you wonder why they weren’t around before.”

The king and queen of Belgium recently visited the Holst Centre. How did they enjoy their visit?
“They loved it! They really interacted well with the demo’s we showed them and had a lot of questions. They especially enjoyed a demonstration of a wearable pregnancy monitoring sensor, developed by Holst Centre spin-off Bloom-Life . As parents they understood the value of the technology. In fact they liked it so much, we almost had to push them to the next demo.”

A Dutch professor recently criticised the innovation model  of companies clustering together. What is your opinion on that?
“I haven’t read the article yet, but I would like to invite him to Holst Centre so he can see what’s going on with his own eyes. The convergence of 10,000 smart people sharing and collaborating at close range is crucial for innovation. I spent half of my life in Silicon Valley. One of the reasons they are doing so well is because those companies are clustered together. Another reason is their risk taking culture. It’s very important to be allowed to fail and try things out. That’s what I see happening at the Campus as well. Eindhoven could be the European answer to Silicon Valley.”

 Do you feel that Europe could benefit from some more of that risk taking spirit they have in the US and in Eindhoven?
“Definitely. We’re very smart and hard-working people, but we should dare to express and capitalize on that more. Americans are more outspoken in that respect. Expressing yourself differently, even if you don’t have all your ducks in one row yet, sometimes brings you further. That risk taking culture is something we need to learn from in Europe.”