DIH-HERO Brokerage Event
DIH-HERO, the Digital Innovation Hub Healthcare Robotics is an open network, funded by the European Commission, has opened its doors for the first brokerage event on October 30 and 31.
The purpose of the first DIH-HERO get-together was to increase cross-national collaboration, in order to accelerate innovation of robotics in healthcare. Building a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hub Network, DIH-HERO offers several opportunities for the players in the European healthcare market such as different services or the engagement in the DIH-HERO Technology Demonstrator and Technology Transfer Experiment calls.
SMEs, friends and networking partners met at the University Twente (NL) to discuss the opportunities of innovations to market within the healthcare domains and potential partnerships for the open and upcoming calls. The programme of these two days was diverse and of high quality focusing on up-to-date topics in healthcare robotics. Presentations by the operational project coordinator Dr. Françoise Siepel and project manager Maren Bödding informed about the project and the open calls that are dedicated to support SMEs and slightly larger companies in developing innovative technologies for the market. Keynotes of Dennis McWilliams of Santé Ventures, Cyrill von Tiesenhausen of KUKA and Amir Szold of Hernia Solutions were as entertaining as informative and presented risks and needs of realizing a vision and inventing new products. With presentations about the 5 domains in healthcare robotics the great variety of healthcare was pointed out.
Partners of the network and companies took the opportunity to present themselves in pitches and announced possibilities to cooperate. In speed dates possible common interests and networking opportunities were considered. Lab tours at the Technical Medical Centre guided by Prof. Stefano Stramigioli were of great interest and gave a comprehensive insight in research methods. Furthermore, 16 Innovation Hubs and their partners introduced themselves in an exhibition where in personal dialogues individual questions were discussed.
One of these hubs was the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab of ETH Zurich. The Sensory-Motor Systems Lab develops assistive technologies that are tailored to the current needs of the user in order to achieve maximum progress in rehabilitation and motor learning.Current developments include robotic arm rehabilitation combined with virtual reality, automated beds for vestibular stimulation or treatment of sleep disorders, soft wearable robotics for the upper and lower limbs to support activities of daily life, and assistive technologies applied in sports to elaborate robot-aided trainings strategies.
All these hubs provide the DIH-HERO networking partners with individual services to facilitate the development of innovation in the European market of healthcare robotics.