"Whether I’m proud of us? Certainly. With our relatively small team, we work together with the largest chip manufacturers in the world. Think about NXP, Microchip, Silicon Labs and Intel." Meet Geert-Jan Schrijen, who started at Philips Research and is now one of the founders & CTO of Intrinsic ID. The company spun out of Philips twelve years ago, and is located at High Tech Campus building 83. Their technology is already used in 200 million devices in the field.

What they do? “It is important that chips can store secrets. Think of cryptographic keys, which are for example needed to secure communications between billions of devices in the vastly growing Internet of Things. You don’t want these to be hacked. So our solution? Each chip has a unique fingerprint, which we can read. We place a building block on a chip with which we can read the fingerprint and turn that into a secure encryption key. This means that you no longer have to store the key on the chip, making it nearly impossible for attackers to find.”

A unique concept in the world.

What is it like for you to work in a startup? “I enjoy it very much. When I was still working at Philips Research, I never met ‘the customer’. Now I am convincing our new customers why they should work with us. I get to talk to inspiring, big giants in the tech world.”

And the High Tech Campus? “This place is wonderful. Last year when we were looking for more office space, we checked whether we wanted to move to a different location. But we don’t. Nowhere does it feel like it feels on the Campus. This is not an industrial area, it is a place where nature, sports and good facilities come together. One of those facilities is the Eurofins Laboratory, where we continuously measure chips for their unique characteristics. We can just walk to the lab. That's the Campus!”

Do you know an inspiring high tech hero who works at High Tech Campus Eindhoven? Send an email to ingelou.stol@hightechcampus.com.