• New buidings on the De Nayer Campus
• Collaboration with City University of Hong Kong
• Solar Team dominates solar competition
• Belgium’s first self-driving electric race car
• The power of feedback literacy
• Mobile surgical collaboration using 5G
• Bert Geerinckx, CEO Reynaers Group
• Winner Apple Design Award 2024
• Exploring Big Data in a Sustainable World
In less than a year, the Innoptus Solar Team has won all major titles. After the second consecutive world title in October 2023 in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia, the Leuven team triumphed in September 2024 in the Sasol Solar Challenge in South Africa and extended its European title at the iLumen European Solar Challenge. No team in the world has ever done that before.
ConnectING is the magazine of the Faculty of Engineering Technology of KU Leuven. It is published three times a year and is intended for all students and staff of the faculty and its 6 campuses, alumni, external relations and the broad social field with which the faculty maintains a network.
Responsible publisher: Prof. Wim Dewulf , Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Technology
Editorial board: Dorine Bruneel, Sofie Craps (chairwoman), Jeroen De Smet, Wim Dewulf, Kris Henrioulle, Hilde Lauwereys, Jack Pou, Inge Van Cauter
Editor: Yves Persoons, Hettie de Kruijf | Editorial Secretariat: Inge Van Cauter
Editorial Adress: ConnectING
•
•
Faculty of Engineering Technology Willem de Croylaan 56, building E, bus 2203 3001 Heverlee (Belgium) connecting@kuleuven.be www.fet.kuleuven.be
Photos: Joren De Weerdt, Liesbeth Driessen, Julie Feyaerts, Tom Talloen, Tine Desodt, Dries De Krom, Geert Vanden Wijngaert, Filip Van Loock
Layout and printing Office: artoos group – www.artoosgroup.eu
The new academic year kicked off with good news. KU Leuven rises to 43ste place in the 2025 Times Higher Education World University Ranking. With a score of 77.0, our university reinforces its leading position as the best in Belgium. According to THE, KU Leuven excels in the ‘industry’ section where it achieves a perfect score of 100. This result reflects its intensive collaboration with companies and its leadership in knowledge transfer and innovation.
Further notable is the systematic improvement in the score on ‘International outlook’. This increased from 71.8 in 2020 to 80.6 today. Determinants in this score are the share of international students and staff and the extent of international collaborations. With this growth, KU Leuven is well on its way to becoming the ‘truly international’ university it aspires to be.
Cooperation with industry and international outlook are not coincidentally also the strongholds of our faculty. In this international edition of our magazine, you will discover striking examples and interesting cases. Take applied scientific and technological research on our campuses. Whether it concerns circular battery recycling, green chemistry, tissue engineering, food digestion simulation or mobile surgical collaboration, geopolymers as an ecological alternative to cement or thin-film electronics for flexible chip design, each time companies are involved, and the validation of the research focuses on industrial applications. In this issue, several alumni also testify how the contacts with the field during their education have contributed to their success as engineers and entrepreneurs.
In recent months, our faculty has also been prominent on the international stage. The students of the Solar Team and Formula Electric Belgium excelled with a home-made racing car in international competitions in South Africa, Germany, Czech Republic and Croatia where they successfully competed against the best student team in the world. Tiësto ‘T Jolle and his team won Huawei’s European Seeds for the Future and will go to the world finals in Shenzhen (China) in January. And young alumnus Willem van de Mierop won the prestigious Appel Design Award 2024. Furthermore, numerous exchange students swarmed from all over the world. And the Ghent Campus has just launched a European project in which knowledge is exchanged on sustainable energy with five universities in Southern and Eastern Europe. The highlight of our international activity was the signing
of the cooperation agreement with the City of Hong Kong University, not coincidentally the most international university in the world.
Rector Luc Sels called the rise in the Times Higher Education Ranking an important recognition of KU Leuven’s drive for innovation and internationalisation. The score also confirms the value of collaboration with industry. In both cases, it strengthens our position as one of the leading universities in Europe.
We are happy and proud that our faculty and its campuses have contributed to this achievement. At the same time, it is also a call and an incentive to further develop cooperation with companies and internationalisation without delay.
Professor Wim Dewulf, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Technology
High visibility, strong technological appeal and high appeal to young talent. These are the goals that KU Leuven and Thomas More University College have in mind with respect to their new building plans on the De Nayer Campus. Adding a brand new research centre to a somewhat sleepy site in Sint-Katelijne-Waver will become a hotspot of creativity and innovation. If everything goes smoothly, sitework will start this academic year.
The current buildings date from 1982 and no longer meet KU Leuven’s current needs and ambitions”, says Professor Raf Dewil, former Campus Chair. “Therefore, the infrastructure is being thoroughly renovated and there is also substantial investment in new buildings. The entire site is thus undergoing a complete transformation and will become a beacon of renewal in the rural environment.”
The new campus is a multi-year project consisting of several phases. “The first phase, which will start this year, includes both new construction and renovation and aims to upgrade the campus into a place where it is pleasant to study, work, meet and relax”, says Wim Decoster, Programme Owner at KU Leuven’s New Construction & Laboratories Department. “The current concrete car park will disappear to make way for a green open space. In fact, the whole site will become car-free. There will be a separate entrance for vehicles to a newly constructed green park. Cyclists and pedestrians will also have their own access.”
“In the first phase, the main building will undergo major renovations”, Wim continues. “Two of the five existing blocks will disappear. In their place will rise a new Living Campus that includes a learning centre, a new restaurant and cafeteria, collaborative spaces, student facilities and campus services. Architecturally, the Living Campus will stand out as a tower rising above all the buildings. This tower will be a landmark, the face of the entire site.”
The Living Campus Tower will consist of five levels. “On the ground floor there will be a large lobby and you will also find the reception area, an administrative cluster and meeting rooms”, says Wim. “The first floor will also be dedicated to meeting with a foyer and variable spaces for group work. On the other floors, we set up classrooms that can be flexibly adapted. Even the roof will have an educational function. Students will be able to carry out measurements and experiments there as part of their studies or research.”
The remaining buildings of the main complex will be completely gutted,
refurbished and equipped with all modern comforts. In this context, Wim speaks of an ‘inside-out effect’. “All technical facilities, cables and ventilation ducts will be made visible. The choice of materials, including natural colored materials, should also provide a technical look. The ‘Tradition in Engineering’ feeling that permeates the campus will be preserved in this way.” In a later phase, the construction of a new student residence with around 80 rooms is still planned.
The second phase will have to wait until 2031. “The brand new research centre will be built on the site where the central car park is currently located”, Raf explains. “First to get a new building are the Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering research groups. They not only count a large number of researchers but also need by far the most space. Since the Arenberg Campus in Leuven is gradually filling up, KU Leuven wants to accommodate the large research infrastructure on our campus. For example, civil engineering involves test equipment for robust steel and concrete
constructions, whereas chemical engineering asks for test installations for water purification and resource recovery. So no scale models, but equipment of industrial caliber that lends itself to intensive collaboration with companies.”
With this investment, KU Leuven and Thomas More are betting heavily on
growth. Growth in teaching, research and services. Growth also in students, researchers and staff. The Nayer Campus is becoming more than ever a strong brand”, Raf concludes. “A quality label that links tradition in engineering to future in high tech.”
Yves Persoons
Since 1 October 2024, Martin Meganck is professor emeritus. KU Leuven-Ghent engineering students will have to do without him as their Philosophy and Ethics professor. The Faculty of Engineering Technology and by extension the entire university will also not be the same after the farewell of the chemical engineer and moral theologian who stood out for his modesty, erudition and engagement in various ethics and other committees.
Since 1993, Prof Meganck taught Philosophy of Science and Technology in the undergraduate programme and Professional and Business Ethics in the master’s programme. His subjects belong to the so-called ‘social sciences or humanities’, while mathematics, physics, chemistry and all technical subjects are considered ‘exact sciences’. Prof Meganck never agreed with this division. According to him, it is not only artificial but also outdated. “Science and engineering are just as much social realities. Technology is a product of human activity, so human factors inevitably come into play. As technology becomes more pervasive in everyday life, you see people asking more questions than before about its impact and consequences for society, nature and culture.”
Prof Meganck did not dish out the works of Kant or Spinoza to his students. Above all, he knew how to sensitise them to their responsibility as engineers. “That starts with thinking about what you do and its consequences. As reflective practitioners, engineers not only design and make products and processes, they must also be able to justify at any time why they are doing things this way and not another.”
Just how seriously Prof Meganck himself did take his responsibilities is shown by the many functions and roles he fulfilled in addition to his teaching duties. All of them are related to interpersonal relations, mediation, prevention and resolution of tensions and conflicts and improving the working climate. Even during the KAHO Sint-Lieven university college period, he was already active as an ombudsman and confidant. When the KU Leuven Association founded its Commission for
Research Integrity, he was invited (with his background in both technology and ethics) to join it as a representative for the university colleges. “There, most disputes are about authorship and plagiarism”, Prof Meganck says. After two four-year terms, he became the Research Integrity Advisor for the Science and Technology Group of KU Leuven, giving individual information or advise on copyright, for example. In this way, many problems could already be solved without being formally submitted to the commission.”
Similarly, Prof Meganck was the ombuds for PhD students of the Faculty of Engineering Technology for a few years, a position that he held until he was elected to serve on the Faculty Assessment Committee. He then found both roles deontologically difficult to combine and resigned as a PhD ombuds.
Aa a professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Martin Meganck was also member of KU Leuven’s Social and Societal Ethics Committee for eight years. “This committee is authorised to subject research proposals involving human participants to an ethical-deontological review”, Prof Meganck explains. “It checks whether the integrity, dignity and rights of the people involved in the research are respected. It also looks at how confidential research information and the code of conduct are handled in resource-poor settings. Increasingly, we see that project applications to the EU or the FWO require an opinion from an ethics body.”
From the ethics committee to the Ethical Committee on Dual Use, Military Use and Misuse (EC DMM) seems only a small step, but in terms of content, these are files with more weight and impact. “Dual Use refers to research that has the
potentials for military applications”, Prof. Meganck continues. “Misuse refers to projects that have the potential for malevolent, criminal or terrorist abusal. This often involved fields like cryptography or materials research, but also cooperation with countries that do not take human rights too closely. In recent years, more and more dossiers on AI are popping up, usually after an initial screening by KU Leuven Research and Development.”
Moreover, Prof Meganck also distinguished himself in councils and committees on education-related matters. On behalf of the faculty, he sat on the Working Group on Irregularities where cases of plagiarism and exam fraud are dealt with. He was also a member of KU Leuven’s Diversity Council, an important advisory organ in the decision-making process regarding one of the university’s key objectives: creating an inclusive community of professors, students, researchers and support staff. During his prolific career, Prof Meganck rarely came to the fore. Nor did he seek the public eye and rarely raised his voice during debates or deliberations. His thoughts were ordered, his words deliberate, his interventions always considerate and soothing. Prof Meganck was a symbol of balance. The German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant called this “the self-sense of the healthy mind”. For those who know and knew him, Prof Meganck’s example is an invitation to keep reason and humanity, even in an uncertain and at times confused world.
Yves Persoons
Professor Yves Persoons is no stranger to the readers of this magazine. In addition to being the editor-in-chief of ConnectING and the author of numerous articles, he was also Head of Communications at KU Leuven Group T Campus for almost 40 years. He was the driving force behind the recruitment campaigns that put the former Group T University College on the map. Since 1 October 2024 Yves is professor emeritus. The perfect moment to discuss with him his experiences, career highlights, the evolution of engineering technology over the years, and his future as a professor emeritus.
With a father who graduated as an engineer from the Catholic University College Sint-Lieven in Ghent (now KU Leuven Ghent) and a mother who was a mathematics teacher, Yves grew up in a family where science and maths were seen as the ideal path, and engineers were held in high regard. However, it soon became clear that this was not meant for Yves. His true interests and passion lay in (classical) languages and writing. His brothers also chose different paths: one became a fashion designer and the other an architect. Architecture was barely acceptable to Persoons senior, who himself worked as an engineer and was head of the Development Department at Unilever (Iglo-Ola).
Hallmark
In 1986, many wondered, “What is a Germanic philologist and Doctor of Arts and Philosophy doing among the engineers at Group T?” Few could have predicted that Yves would dedicate nearly forty years of his career to them.
After completing his PhD in Arts and Philosophy at the University of Antwerp, Yves had to wait a year for an assistant position in Dutch linguistics at the same university. In the meantime, he applied for the role of ‘language expert’ at Group T. “I was destined to end up with engineers again”, Yves says with a grin. His task was to modernize the unpopular language
courses within the program, aligning them more with what engineers need in practice. The language courses remained, but the focus shifted to communication skills, emphasizing presentations, reporting, meetings, and job interviews. This became the hallmark of the then Group T University College, distinguishing it from other engineering programs. The combination of Technology, Management, and Communication became the flagship and success formula of Group T’s engineering education.
Marketing & Communication
In no time, Yves was pulled from the communication classroom to focus on the marketing and communication strategy for Group T. Under his leadership, the open days events were transformed, bringing about a more personalized and immersive experience for potential students. The number of events tripled, and the student population grew so rapidly that the old campus soon became too small.
Before long, Yves was also tasked with Group T’s recruitment campaigns, which were developed in collaboration with major advertising agencies. A new world opened up for him, leading to high-profile campaigns such as “Aux armes, engineers!” and “Rebels with a cause”. These were golden times for Group T, and Yves decided to stay in Leuven. What he hadn’t planned for, happened: his career took a new turn.
Reflecting on his career, Yves points to several memorable “firsts”: The first open door day, the first Entrepreneurs’ Day, and the first graduation ceremony held at Leuven’s City Theatre, all of which took place during his initial academic year (1986-87). However, for Yves, the real standout is the internationalization of Group T. Following a brief visit by a delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Education to Leuven, the then-director received an invitation to join Prince Filip’s trade mission to China. This trip laid the groundwork for connections with Chinese universities, ultimately transforming Group T into the international campus it is today, with over 80 nationalities.
Another major highlight in his career was the launch of the international study trips for students, which began in 1989. “At the time, people joked that the T in Group T stood for Travel”, Yves recalls. “But these trips gave students invaluable opportunities to broaden their horizons.” It began with study trips to the United States, where groups of 250 students visited major cities, universities, and companies. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the trips expanded to Russia, and from 2000 onward, largescale trips to China became a tradition-briefly interrupted by the pandemic but thankfully resumed this year.
Yves’ face lights up when discussing the creation of the Solar Team. In 2003,
student Rafael Janssens had the chance to travel with TU Delft’s Nuna Solar Team to Australia and asked Group T to sponsor his plane tickets. “Internally, there was no green light, but we secretly funded his trip from the marketing budget in exchange for him wearing a Group T cap during the race”, Yves says with a smile. Rafael returned full of enthusiasm and succeeded in forming Group T’s own Solar Team. In 2005, they entered their first race and finished seventh. The rest is history. Since then, they’ve become world champions twice and European champions as well. Currently, there are eight other student teams active.”
Another milestone was the opening of the new building on Andreas Vesaliusstraat in
late 1995. The concept was designed around a continuous spiral hallway that connects classrooms, auditoriums, labs, and offices, facilitating easy communication throughout the space. Once again, communication took centre stage. For the grand opening, renowned Belgian composer Piet Swerts was commissioned to write the Vesalius Overture-an event so unique that KU Leuven is now replicating it for its 600th anniversary, though with a different composer.
Fulfillment & Motivation
Naturally, when speaking to someone who has devoted nearly 40 years to passionately promoting Campus Group T, the question of where Yves finds his
fulfillment and motivation arises. Yves explains: “I find that fulfillment every day; it’s not just in isolated moments. Working with colleagues is essential. Martine Groffils, with whom I worked from 1986 to 2017, played a significant role. She managed the practical matters, which allowed me to focus on developing ideas further.” Yves also mentions Director De Graeve of the former Group T University College. “He was a visionary who set high standards. It was expected that you would come up with new ideas and make progress, such as increasing enrollments. Any decline meant it was over. It’s different now. No one is held accountable for decreasing numbers, even though these are concerning developments.”
Yves also found great satisfaction in the two major curriculum reforms that he was closely involved with. The first dates back to 2004 during the Group T University College era, and the second was the program reform within the Faculty of Engineering Technology 16 years later. He is still proud of his vision text, “Engineer: from the Most Attractive Profession to the Most Attractive Study,” published In 2019.
In 2016, the faculty magazine ConnectING was launched, and Yves was appointed as Editor-in-Chief. Writing has been a great source of inspiration for Yves: “Everyone likes to share their story, but few enjoy writing. Listening to stories and sharing them with others energizes me. The interviews are always educational,
those of and about entrepreneurial engineers.
Throughout his career, Yves has witnessed the evolving role of the engineer. When he began, engineers were primarily seen as technicians, and Group T was almost the only institution that offered a broader education, integrating skills like communication and entrepreneurship.
The development of the Engineering Experiences has played a significant role in this evolution. These experiences developed into a methodology where students learn to independently seek out solutions, fostering entrepreneurial engineers. “We must not forget that we
technology, students need to focus on the ‘how’ as much as the ‘what’ to seize opportunities. That’s exactly what the Engineering Experiences facilitate”, Yves explains.
For Yves, the ideal is the T-Engineer, where the T represents both depth and breadth. He cites the Solar Team as an example: “Look at the innovations within the Solar Team; the technical aspects are optimized, which adds depth. At the same time, they address climate issues, science communication, and raise public awareness about green energy. That represents the broadening aspect.” His advice to (future) engineers is: “Model yourself on the T and work collaboratively. You may go faster alone, but you’ll get further together.”
After his retirement, Yves will remain involved with Group T Campus and De Nayer Campus, where he has been managing communications on an interim basis since last year. His initial focus will be on ensuring continuity. As Yves says, “Your success depends on the success of your successor.” Additionally, he will remain involved with alumni activities as a member of the steering committees on both campuses and as a board member of Alumni Ingenieurs KU Leuven. On top of that he will keep contributing editorial content for the magazine ConnectING.
In his spare time, Yves writes for the Heemkundige Kring of Gooik, his place of upbringing. He has written articles on various topics, including his fellow townsman Monsignor Jan-Baptist Abbeloos, the ‘rebellious’ rector of KU Leuven (1887-1898). Perhaps a book about him is on the horizon? Yves is also intrigued by the Leuven ‘Gilde van Ambachten en Neringen,’ the predecessor of the Group T University College, as a captivating subject. With a bit of luck, we’ll continue to be able to read much more from Yves in the future.
Hettie de Kruijf
On 27 August 2024, Prof Luc Sels, Rector of KU Leuven, and Prof Freddy Boey, President of the City University of Hong Kong (City UHK) signed an agreement in Leuven for more intensive cooperation in the fields of science, engineering and technology. For the Faculty of Engineering Technology and Group T Campus in particular, this agreement gives new impetus to the internationalisation of engineering education.
Compared to the 600-year-old KU Leuven, City UHK is a very young institution. Founded in 1984 under the name Polytechnic of Hong Kong, it started with 480 full-time and 600 part-time students. After the completion of the new campus in 1990, the student population increased dramatically to 8,000 full-timers and 3,000 part-timers. Four years later, the Polytechnic was officially granted university status and changed its name to City University of Hong Kong. The brand-new university launched 4 undergraduate and 6 master’s programmes. Currently, City UHK has 10 colleges and schools offering 150 programmes in business,
science, engineering, social sciences, law and veterinary medicine.
Innovative and international City UHK profiles itself as a dynamic university that is fully committed to quality and innovation. It also plays on these strengths with initiatives such as the City U Heroes, which are outstanding students, alumni and faculty who serve as examples and role models of academic excellence. Their testimonials also show how they put their knowledge and skills at the service of society. In the tunnel connecting the campus to the Festival Wall, which is used by thousands of people every day, the photos and stories of the heroes are displayed on large posters.
In the QS World University Ranking, City UHK is ranked 62nd, just ahead of KU Leuven. This places City UHK among the top ten best universities in China. The university owes its high ranking in part to its high international faculty and student ratios. With more than 400 exchange partners in 45 countries, City UHK ranks among the most International Universities in the world. Almost 80% of undergraduate students spend part of their study time abroad. For KU Leuven, which is also making every effort to become a truly international university, City UHK is an excellent sparring partner.
Yves Persoons
”
Providing assistance in processing learning material, stimulating motivation and wellbeing, creating interaction and social cohesion, fostering a sense of belonging to a group, ... Robbe Hollevoet, chairman of the StiII Faculty Student Council doesn’t stop talking about the many benefits of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL). He successfully introduced this form of collaborative learning at Group T Campus.
People, who are not professional teachers, help and support the learning of others in an interactive, purposeful and systematic way,’ is the definition of PAL in the professional literature. “In practice, it comes down to this”, Robbe explains. “A group of first-year students is guided in their learning process by senior students. The former are called the ‘tutees’, the latter are called the ‘tutors’. They meet at regular intervals to compare notes, do exercises together, exchange study tips, and so on. The tutor moderates the conversation and facilitates the tutees’ thinking and searching process. Thus, the tutor is by no means intended to teach as a substitute professor or lecturer himself during a Pal session.”
PAL is an initiative of the KU Leuven Learning Lab, the learning network that brings together the faculties’ teaching expertise. Experts from the Learning Lab are responsible for training and mentoring PAL tutors.
Engagement runs like a thread through Robbe’s studies at Group T Campus. As a second-year bachelor, he was already
active in the student association Industria. There, he quickly made a career in the presidium, first as responsible for the Leisure Department, then as treasurer. During the past academic year, he ensured the smooth integration of the Student Council into Industria and became the first head of Industria-Education. Robbe’s talent did not go unnoticed outside the campus either. It earned him the chairmanship of StiII, the overarching Student Council of the Faculty of Engineering Technology. An experienced competitive swimmer, he was also part of the KU Leuven Swimming Team.
Robbe is fascinated by the student city of Leuven. “Students still realise too little how many opportunities the city and the university offer to broaden your horizons and make fascinating contacts outside your familiar circle of fellow students”, he believes. “In few places do you find so much cultural variety and young talent together. Unfortunately, many only come to this conclusion once they have left Leuven and the university.”
Double win
In record time, Robbe and a team of five staff managed to organise a PAL offering
for the seven main courses in the first undergraduate year. They recruited 30 tutors who set up three to four sessions for each course during the academic year. A maximum of 20 students could register for a session. Once full, additional sessions were set up.
“For freshmen, PAL means a welcome addition and support”, Robbe continues. “But the tutors also learn a lot from it. For them, the sessions mean a refresher of the learning content, but the gain is mainly in the area of professional competences, i.e. the ‘soft skills’. I am thinking, for instance, of conversation and communication skills, team building, coaching but also working together with professors and campus staff. Besides, it looks good on your CV.”
Robbe graduated in July 2024 with a master’s degree in Biochemical Engineering Technology. His successor at IndustriaEducation can fortunately build on Robbe’s pioneering work. A crew of student representatives is ready to vouch for continuity.
At the faculty’s other campuses, interest in PAL has been generated. At KU Leuven-Brugge, lecturers have already taken the initiative to motivate students to become tutors. Even though Robbe has graduated, he does not completely disappear from the scene. After all, he joined the new Solar Team that has started designing a new solar car for the World Solar Challenge in Australia in August 2025. There, the team must defend its world title. Robbe is in charge of Marketing and PR, a position that suits him down to the ground. As for PAL, he does not have to teach the team much. The ancients of the previous teams remain closely involved in the construction of each new solar car.
“After 20 years, PAL is in the DNA of every new team”, says Robbe. “We have already won two world titles with it.”
In less than a year, the Innoptus Solar Team has won all the major titles. After the second consecutive world title in October 2023 in the Bridgestone Solar Challenge in Australia, the Leuven team triumphed in September 2024 in the Sasol Solar Challenge in South Africa and extended its European title at the iLumen European Solar Challenge. No team in the world has ever done that before.
On Friday 20 September 2024, the KU Leuven team stood on the podium in Cape Town after a gruelling journey through South Africa. The Sasol Solar Challenge is widely regarded as the most extreme solar car race in the world. Large differences in altitude,
changing weather conditions and hectic traffic make the competition extra difficult. At eight days, it is also the longest in the world. The challenge for the 14 teams was to cover as much distance as possible in that time. “It was the second time we participated”, says Thomas Declercq,
Head of Business Relations. “In 2022, we finished second. We spent a year preparing for the second chance this year. Our solar car Infinite was specially adapted to the conditions, for example with battery cooling when climbing mountains. The team itself also practiced intensively on
procedures such as quick tyre and pilot changes, stops and technical checks. And of course on the busy traffic on the South African roads.”
Already in the qualifying rounds it became clear that the competition would once again be a duel of the Low Countries with the teams from Twente and Delft from the Netherlands on one side and the Belgians from Leuven on the other. The other teams were barely involved in the battle for victory. “The first four days were a real neck-and-neck race”, says pilot Louis Claeys. “The Dutch and Belgians played leapfrog with each other. We also had to deal with technical problems.”
On the fifth day, the Belgians strike. They ride 703 kilometers and smash the daily record. They conquer the leading posi-
tion and do not relinquish it. They arrive in Cape Town with a comfortable lead of 80 km on the team from Twente. “We have already been world and European champions and have already set a world record. Only this trophy was still missing”, says team leader Dries De Saegher proudly.
On Saturday 21 September, one day after the end of the competition in South Africa, the starting shot was given for the iLumen Solar Challenge (iESC), the biennial 24hour race on the circuit of Zolder (Belgium). The new Solar Team of KU Leuven competed with the BluePoint Atlas solar car against 20 other teams from all over Europe. The circuit in Zolder is not unknown territory for the Leuven students. They have already won two European titles there.
“The iESC is the only 24-hour endurance race for solar cars in the world”, says Wout Rubbrecht, leader of the new Solar Team. “The solar cars face the typical Belgian weather and also drive during the night. To recharge their batteries, the solar cars can make a maximum of three stops. This makes the race a real game of strategy. How fast can you drive during the night without recharging your battery?”
During the 2024 edition, the BluePiont Atlas drove from start to finish in the lead. During the 24 hours, the car completed 339 laps of 4 km, good for a record. Two German teams from Aachen finished second and third with 317 and 307 laps respectively. The team from Twente, the formidable opponent in South Africadrove 251 laps and took sixth place.
Hat trick
The European title is an important boost for the new Solar Team. “From now on, we only have one goal in mind: the hat trick or the third consecutive world title in Australia in 2025”, confirms Wout. “We already know that this challenge will not take place in October but at the end of August. That means that there is significantly less time to build a new solar car.” In addition, the competition rules have also been tightened. The solar panel may have been expanded from 4 to 6m², the battery capacity is greatly reduced to only 3 kWh, which is about a third less than before. “So we will not only have to be significantly faster, but also more creative and strategic”, conclude PR managers Mathilde Blanc and Kevin Vandeputte.
Yves Persoons www.solarteam.be
This summer, the COMET, Belgium’s first self-driving electric racing car, made its debut at the European Formula Student competitions in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Germany. The student team from KU Leuven and Thomas More University College can be proud of its product and its performance. In each of the competitions, it held up well against ironclad competitors. In the Czech Republic, the Belgians even managed to cash in a crash in a Special Award.
On 7 May 2024, students from the Formula Electric Belgium team presented their latest creation at Autoworld: the first Belgian racing car capable of fully autonomous driving at competition level. “By using advanced sensors and a new steering system, the COMET is capable of covering a course full of obstacles completely autonomously”, says Business Relations Manager Rob Ulenaers. “The car includes numerous other improvements over its non-autonomous predecessors, such as a new chassis, a new front wing and a completely new in-wheel design for weight savings in the drive system.”
From 13 to 18 July, the new car appeared at the start of Formula Student Netherlands at the Assen circuit. The team participated in five of the seven tests and finished in 16th place out of 32 competitors thanks to good results in Engineering Design, Cost & Manufacturing and Acceleration & Efficiency.
Resilient
Two weeks later - from 5 to 9 August - the Formula Student Czech Competition took place at the Autodrome in Most. “During the Driverless Emergency Brake Test, things threatened to go thoroughly wrong for a while,” Rob continues. “In this test, we had to be able to prove that the remote-controlled emergency brake works.
Due to a mistake by the organisers, the cones marking out the course were not set up properly. As a result, our algorithm sent the car the wrong way straight into the fence.”
However, the team did not let its guard down and repaired the damage the same evening to pass the test flawlessly the next morning. This extraordinary performance impressed. For their resilience and
efficiency, the competition jury awarded the Belgian team with a Special Award.
In the self-driving cars group, the COMET eventually achieved a well-deserved sixth place out of 12 participants with an eye-catching 4th place in the Trackdrive section. In the regular electric vehicle competition, the team also finished just in the middle (24th out of 47 participants) with positive outliers in Acceleration (11th place), Cost & Manufacturing (16de place) and Engineering (18th place).
Milestone
The tournament in Germany is the largest and most important Formula Student Competition and is therefore often considered the unofficial world championship. From 12 to 17 August, 80 electric racing
cars competed against each other on the Hockenheim circuit. “The three static events did not cause us any problems at any point”, says Rob. “In the Business Plan Presentation we finished 53rd and the Cost & Manufacturing event yielded a 31st place. We scored the best results in the Engineering Design Report with an 18th place in the overall and a 13th in the driverless section.”
After the problems during the track drive in the Czech Republic, the Belgian team drove out a driverless event in Germany for the first time. “The autocross ran almost perfectly,” Rob told us proudly. “The car sent itself to a nice 8th place. That was a real milestone for the team. In the Driverless trackdrive, we finished tenth. This made us 16th out of 32 competitors
in the whole driverless competition. In the electric vehicle competition, we achieved a 42nd place out of 80. When you consider that we were competing against the best teams in the world in Germany, we are quite happy with these results.”
With the competition in Hockenheim, the Formula Electric Belgium team concludes a successful working year and racing season. In Leuven, a new team is already ready to take up the torch. The successors are determined to ensure a decisive breakthrough in 2025.
Yves Persoons
https://formulaelectric.be
Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This is evidenced by the brilliant achievement of the Dutch-Belgian team BioBuddy. Five students from different universities and disciplines and with different backgrounds won the European Seeds for the Future Programme by Chinese ICT and telecoms giant Huawei on 5 July 2024 in Rome. The only Belgian in the team and in the entire European programme was Tiësto ‘T Jolle, master’s student in Electronics & ICT Engineering Technology from Group T Campus. He tells his story.
During the first week of July, Huawei brought together 145 top students from universities in 23 European countries in Rome. There, they participated in workshops and panel discussions provided by industry experts and academia representatives. Students had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of innovation, digitalisation and sustainability, improve their entrepreneurial skills and familiarise themselves with intercultural communication.
“This whole offering actually served to support the Tech4Good Competition,” explains Tiësto. “The assignment was to address a real problem related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals using technology. Specifically, we were expected to pitch a concept of a new company with an explicit Tech4Good focus at the end of the week.”
Tiësto describes his participation in the programme as the result of a “spontaneous response” to a brief announcement on the campus intranet in the month of May. “At the time I sent in my motivation letter, I did not have too high expectations. That changed when I received notification of being selected on 7 June and was expected in Rome at the end of the month. In preparation, I did have to take a number of online classes on 5G and cloud computing, among others, each followed by a test.”
Shortly before leaving for Rome, Tiësto learns that he is the only Belgian to be added to a four-member Dutch team. As it turns out, his new teammates have very little in common apart from the fact that they are studying at a Dutch university. “It’s hard to think of anything more heterogeneous,” confirms Tiësto. “Joris is studying Creative Technology at the University of Twente and is from Germany. Friso already has a degree in International Business and will complete his second bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Groningen next year. Aryan is a Computer Science student at VU Amsterdam from India. And Sascha studied Law at Tilburg University and Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis & Management at TU Delft. She just returned from an Erasmus year in Lisbon and next year she is taking an executive year. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that we shared more than expected such as the passion to expand our horizons and have an impact on the world.”
After a few brainstorming sessions, team members find each other around the problem of methane emissions in agriculture and livestock. They also agree on a name and a theme. BioBuddy wants to investigate how AI can be used to optimise biogas production. After two days, however, doubt strikes. Does this topic have enough impact? Can we not raise the bar? Isn’t the
emphasis too much on improving what already exists? The critical self-reflection that follows bears fruit. The team changed track and decided to develop its own biogas power plant for regions with a high concentration of dairy farms. “In doing so, India soon came into the picture,” continues Tiësto. “Especially since we wanted to come up with a solution that would be useful not only for the farms but also for the surrounding population. Our new concept involves collecting cow dung in India, which is then converted into energy and fertiliser. Or - in short - from Poop to Power.”
This switch threatens to put the team under time pressure but the new dynamic more than makes up for it. The diversity within BioBuddy is a decisive factor in this. “From their discipline and background, each team member brought their own ideas and skills and they soon proved to be very complementary,” says Tiësto. “Our pitch was a good example of this. I myself made the powerpoint. Joris, Aryan and Friso each rehearsed the presentation, from which we then chose the most convincing one for the first round of the trial.”
Of the 22 teams, 10 were admitted to the second round. “That took place on the same day, but in front of an extended jury of experts and with a longer question round,” says Tiësto. “Fortunately, our powerpoint still held up and we could really focus on the presentation.”
After a brief sightseeing tour of the city, the party headed to a swanky venue for the closing dinner followed by the awards ceremony. “That one was quite exciting,” notes Tiësto. “In the end, three teams were declared winners. Nordic Shine from Finland won the people’s choice award, Anaphero from Ireland and BioBuddy from the Netherlands/Belgium were crowned regional champions.” The two winners in the European competition will compete against the winners from the other continents in January 2025. This ultimate competition will take place at Huawei’s headquarters in southern China’s Shenzhen.
Until then, several more online meetings are planned with the team members and the mentor,” Tiësto says. “Sustainable agriculture is evolving globally so we need to make sure our concept endures. After the baptism of fire in Rome, we learned to appreciate our differences and make our diversity an asset. Now let’s hope we can do the same in China.”
Yves Persoons
”
“Neurotechnology gives us the tools to explore the intricate workings of the mind and mechanisms behind thought and consciousness. The combination of discovery and applications makes it such an exiting domain,” says Sofia Gonzalez Mezquita, master student in Electronics & ICT Engineering Technology at Group T Campus and recently the new Chairwoman of NeuroTech Leuven. As a global citizen, she wants to put her team on the world map.
We are a multicultural team of 20 undergraduates, masters and PhD students with different expertise where we foster values of learning, collaboration and innovation,” Sofia explains. “We provide students with opportunities to grow through hands-on experience and expert guidance. Our focus is on promoting teamwork among students, researchers and industry professionals to push the boundaries of the Neurotechnology field. We encourage creative and cutting-edge contribution across all our projects driving neurotechnology forward.”
Innovation-driven
Sofia hails from Valladolid (Spain) but spent most of her childhood abroad. “Moving has always been a part of my live, as I’ve lived in Spain, France and Japan, relocating every three years,” says Sofia. “This constant change has allowed me to adapt to diverse people, environments and cultures. I decided to move to Leuven because of its dynamic, innovation-driven environment, its strong focus on technology and its outstanding higher education programmes.”
In an international environment like Group T Campus, Sofia quickly felt at home. So it was not long before she came into contact with the young and ambitious NeuroTech team and its inspiring chairwoman. It took Rochelle Aubry no effort to convince the inquisitive Sofia to join the team. She found an excellent biotope there to share her passion with enthusiastic like-minded people. Consequently, it clicked immediately. So much so that a year later Sofia took the torch over from her illustrious predecessor.
During the past academic year, Sofia collaborated on a challenging project called ‘Mind Witcher’. This is an innovative application
that integrates neurotechnology into gaming. “The core of the project involves using electroencephalogram readings of brain signals with proper filtering and processing to translate users’ thoughts into actions in the game,” says Sofia. “For instance, EEG signals related to imaginary movements are used to perform actions like casting spells or calling a horse, while emotion classification allowed us to dynamically modify the in-game weather. This step allows users to engage with the game without any physical input, demonstrating the powerful potential of neurotechnology. The system is designed to be plug-and-play or requires minimal calibration, ensuring both high accuracy and an intuitive user experience. The goal of this project was to interact with virtual environments through thought alone, highlighting that the practical applications of neurotech go beyond gaming.
“While the project focuses on interactive entertainment, its broader implications are evident, particularly in medical cases such as Locked-In Syndrome and progressive muscle diseases.”
Most applications of neurotechnology are still in the medical sector for the treatment of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, major depression and brain injury. Sofia’s predecessor Rochelle saw it more broadly than health care and wanted to include biochemical and biotechnological aspects. She stressed the potential to elevate human experiences and functioning in many other ways such as enhancing human learning ability, boosting physical performances and enabling efficiencies like brain-controlled devices. “I am excited to continue Rochelle’s vision,” Sofia confirmed. “My aim is to take this field even further at the academic level.”
Furthermore, Sofia wants to boost international exposure and cooperation. “Last year, we partnered with a student group,
Serpentine, at the University of Eindhoven that focuses on AI research and applications. Together, we explored the world of Data Science, which plays a major role in areas like brain-computer interface where understanding data is essential. By sharing knowledge and collaborating on projects with teams abroad, we can unlock new opportunities and advance applications that have a real impact on individuals and society at large,” Sofia concludes, emphasizing her commitment to growing these col-
laborations with other universities and institutions, fostering a global network to drive innovation even further.
Yves Persoons
www.ntxl.org
Tom Machiels and Kobe Smeers, who graduated as engineers from the Diepenbeek campus in 2023, worked on a challenging and groundbreaking project for their master’s thesis: the development of a production line for the recycling of Li-ion batteries. The goal was to give discarded bicycle batteries a second life in the form of rechargeable block batteries, a sustainable alternative to the disposable batteries commonly used in road signage. This innovative project not only earned them their degree but also a participation in the Future Proof Award, a competition by the Flemish Government that rewards theses contributing to a sustainable future.
The world is facing an increasing problem of electronic waste production. Disposable batteries, such as those used in construction site signal lights, contribute significantly to this issue. “On every construction site, you see dozens of signal lights”, says Tom. “The batteries are often replaced before they’re even fully drained, simply because there’s no room for risk if the lights go out.” This leads to enormous amounts of waste.
The innovative solution from start-up Reacct offers a response to this problem. By recycling old bicycle batteries into rechargeable block batteries, they’ve developed a way to drastically reduce waste. “A rechargeable block battery not only lasts twice as long as a traditional dis-
posable battery, but it can also be recharged multiple times, extending its lifespan up to five years”, explains Kobe. “This means that one of our block batteries can replace the work of as many as 40 disposable batteries.”
Kobe and Tom’s role involved developing a production line for these batteries, which presented several challenges. The production had to occur at a social enterprise that employs individuals with limited access to the job market. This required a linear and straightforward process that could be executed safely, simply, and efficiently. “The combination of automation and manual labor was crucial”, says Tom. “We adhered to the Poka Yoke principle, which virtually
eliminates errors in the process. Each step was visually supported, ensuring that even individuals with less technical background could carry out the tasks.”
The software for the production line, including the control of an automated spot-welding process, was developed by the two master’s students themselves using LabVIEW. “Automating the welding process was a significant advancement”, adds Kobe. “It enabled us to ensure the quality and consistency of the block batteries while prioritizing safety.”
In addition to the welding process, they also created methods for adding rivets and electrical safety components and optimized the existing testing software. This
blend of technical innovation and social engagement made their project unique within the field of engineering technology.
In addition to the clear environmental benefits, collaborating with a social enterprise added a valuable social dimension to the project. “We didn’t just want to develop a sustainable battery; we also aimed to create job opportunities for individuals facing barriers to employment”, says Tom. “By designing a simple, visually supported production process, these employees can easily take on crucial roles in assembling the batteries.”
From an ecological perspective, the REBLOCC block battery exemplifies how
recycling and material reuse can contribute to a circular economy. “A rechargeable block battery replaces at least 16.2 kilograms of disposable batteries”, explains Kobe. “This leads to a 98% reduction in waste, which is a significant advancement in the fight against a throwaway society.”
The financial benefits are equally compelling: the higher initial cost of rechargeable batteries is recouped in under two years, resulting in a 66% cost savings over the battery’s entire lifespan.
By participating in the Future Proof Award, Tom and Kobe have shown that their work extends beyond the confines of academia. “We hope our project can serve as an in-
spiration for other companies”, says Tom. “By investing in sustainable solutions, we can effectively tackle the environmental challenges we face today. ”Kobe concludes, “The world is moving towards a circular economy. We have demonstrated that engineers play a crucial role in this transition.”
Veerle Moons
How can chemicals and plastics become sustainable, climate-friendly and part of the circular economy? Renewable energy and decarbonisation alone will not suffice, because organic chemistry remains based on carbon. According to Lise Appels, Professor of (Bio)Chemical Conversion Processes at the De Nayer Campus, the solution must be sought in renewable carbon, the key to Green Chemistry.
First, some history. In 2022, a groundbreaking paper was published, entitled ‘Renewable Carbon as a Guiding Principle for Sustainable Carbon Cycles’. The article contained the core ideas of what has become known as the ‘Renewable Carbon Concept’. “Fossil carbon should eventually be completely replaced by renewable carbon from alternative sources such as biomass, CO2 and recycling”, Lise explains. “This challenge touches on the essence of the problem of climate change and global warming: the emissions from the combustion of fossil resources. Industry is therefore encouraged to replace fossil resources with renewable carbon. For the chemical and materials industry, this means the biggest transformation since the first industrial revolution.”
Lise Appels graduated in 2006 as a Bioengineer at the University of Antwerp. As a specialist in Environmental Technology, she was immediately able to start working at the De Nayer Campus in a research project on the disinfection of cooling water circuits. This was the prelude to her doctoral work at the Faculty of Engineering Science of KU Leuven on the anaerobic digestion of sew-
age sludge to biogas consisting of methane and CO2. After two years of postdoc, Lise became an assistant professor at the De Nayer Campus in 2013. Since 2023, she has been a full professor and head of the Education and Research Unit Chemical Engineering Technology. Lise teaches, among other things, Environmental Technology, Industrial (Organic and Inorganic) Chemistry and Green Chemistry. She also leads the research group Chemical and Biochemical Reactor Technology and Safety ( CREaS De Nayer). This group is active in the field of resource recovery and the production of renewable chemicals and energy carriers from waste, side streams and biomass. This involves advanced (photocatalytic) wastewater treatment, optimization and design of mixed culture microbial processes and the production of renewable chemicals by thermal, chemical and biochemical conversion technologies.
Lise’s own research follows two main lines. The first line is the biological valorisation of organic waste streams such as polluted wastewater, manure and sewage sludge. “Mixed cultures are very robust and versatile. Via the alteration of process conditions, in combination with the use of advanced
structural materials, we optimize our processes towards the recovery of renewable energy carriers such as biogas (CH2) and H2 and renewable chemicals such as carboxylic acids ammonia.”
Antibacterial components
In her second line of research, Lise and her colleague Professor Raf Dewil work with more solid forms of biomass. Her team develops innovative microwave and ultrasound-based processes for converting them into high-value chemicals. A good example of this is the EXACT project that Lise set up with Geert Potters, head of research at the Antwerp Maritime Academy. “During the PhD of Nick Sweygers, we developed an innovative extraction process based on ultrasound and microwaves which we patented later on. This process is the basis for the EXACT-project, where we extract antibacterial components from brown seaweeds”, Lise explains. “These components can be used to make the coatings of ships less toxic to the environment.”
It goes like this. The hull of a ship that is under water must be protected against corrosion and the growth of sponges and shellfish that slow down the ship’s speed.
The coatings used for this contain substances that are harmful to marine life. By using protective coatings with natural antibacterial components, no more toxic substances are released into the water that could ultimately end up in our food.
“Our patented process allows us to extract specific components with a very high degree of purity”, says Lise. “Brown seaweed is abundant in the North Sea. We can use a large part of the biomass for extraction. What remains can be for example digested to generate a form of renewable green energy. This leaves hardly any waste. In this way, we kill two birds with one stone: valuable extraction and renewable energy. And we are one step closer to Green Chemistry.”
Yves Persoons
At first glance, mathematics and romanticism seem incompatible. The romantics, the standard view goes, place feeling above cold reason. Mathematicians do just the opposite. They prefer an abstract, detached world ruled by sterile logic. Nigel Vinckier, lecturer in Mathematics at Group T Campus, cannot agree with this dichotomy. According to him, it is not only outdated, it is also not interesting in getting engineering students excited about the basic science that is indispensable in their studies and later profession.
According to Nigel, views on mathematics cannot be fully explained by internal developments within the discipline itself. Cultural factors also come into play. “Mathematics of the 18th century was more closely connected to the natural sciences, rooted in material reality. Physical examples could be invoked in mathematical proofs if necessary,” says Nigel. “That changed dramatically in the 19th century. Mathematicians then created a more abstract world that we know as pure mathematics. At least in the self-image of certain mathematicians, their discipline became a ‘l’art pour l’art’ and they were paradoxically driven by romantic ideals such as beauty and a yearning for the sublime.”
Romanticism, moreover, offered room for an escape from reality and provided the matching model of the visionary, tragic genius such as Evariste Galois and Bernhard Riemann (both died young), Alan Turing (suicide) or John Nash (schizophrenia). “Even we now understand that the role of the ‘solitary genius’ must not be overstated, the myth continues to resonate”, Nigel continues. “The cult around the recently deceased theoretical physicist Stephan Hawkings is a good example. All this shows that mathematics and romantism have more in common than you might think. This is perhaps most true of the image of the practitioner. You could call the view we have on (pure) mathematics a child of 19th century romantism. With it good and its bad sides: an abstract and abstracted world, an ideal for a pure discipline with values of beauty and rigour, but also elitist, male and overstressing the importance of the individual. Even if we bear in mind that this is a (self-)image of mathematicians, rather than how science actually evolved, we can learn something from it.”
Teaching
Nigel graduated with a master’s degree in Mathematics from Ghent University in
2014. He then took a postgraduate course in ‘Logic and Philosophy of Science and Mathematics’, before moving to VUB in Brussels to do a PhD with Prof. em. Jean-Paul Van Bendegem on ‘Philosophy and Mathematics’. As a PhD student, Nigel also practiced a limited teaching assignment that he particularly liked. To such an extent that in 2018, he decided to abandon research in favour of teaching and started working at Group T Campus in Leuven as a lecturer in the Teaching and Research Unit ElectronicsICT. Currently, Nigel teaches mathematics and programming courses in the first and second phase of the bachelor. In parallel with his teaching assignment, Nigel is pursuing another master’s degree in Computer Science as a working student.
“Teaching is my true calling and engineering students are my favourite audience”, says Nigel. “Even though their attitude towards mathematics is usually ambivalent. They obviously know they can’t do without maths but that doesn’t mean they necessarily like it. Some regard mathematics as a ‘necessary evil’. My job is to arouse and fuel intrinsic motivation for the subject.”
One obstacle Nigel often encounters is utility thinking. “Some engineering students tend to regard anything that is not immediately useful as less relevant or even redundant. While there are plenty of examples of discoveries that only prove their usefulness much later. Take finite geometry, for example. It was developed in the 19th century and is now indispensable for writing error correcting codes for CDs.”
“Besides, knowledge doesn’t always have to be useful to captivate”, Nigel continues. “In the neoliberal zeitgeist, what doesn’t show its immediate concrete application is met with hostility. Just look how the cultural sector and liberal arts have to fight for their survival.
Yet no one wants to live in a society without art, literature and beauty. In this context, the question ‘why is this useful’ is not innocent. It is a question about justification. But sometimes we cannot see the application yet, or it seems too vague to put one’s finger on it. A path towards usefulness can consist of steps that seemed useless in themselves. Society has to grant a discipline or intellectual activity the freedom to develop itself liberated from the burden of immediate applicability. So the conclusion can be: it’s important because is useless! Or at least: it may have a practical purpose, but that’s not my personal reason to pursue it. Not unlike sex, for that matter.”
In any case, the intrinsic motivation that Nigel promotes is at odds with utility thinking. “Intrinsic motivation is a feeling that comes from within and is independent of external interests or pressures. The goal is to create intrinsic reward mechanisms and progressive challenges to give students a positive sense of achievement while doing difficult things. This starts by creating a positive mindset. A key tool for this is humour. I try to spice up lessons with banter and jokes. I also try to make students curious. Certainly don’t shy away from difficult topics. It just increases intrinsic motivation because overcoming it brings satisfaction. The more satisfying, the more students will also love the subject, even if it is theoretical and abstract. Once you have tasted the romantic side of mathematics, the taste never leaves you.”
Yves Persoons
Athletes, dancers, people with heavy work or who are overweight, the elderly, accident victims ... all have increased chances of joint pain caused by damaged cartilage. Since our body cannot repair this damage itself and there is a shortage of donor tissue, Hannah Agten, postdoc in the Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering Team at Group T Campus, set out to find replacement tissue. In her PhD, she studied lab-grown cartilage tissue.
Creaky cars run the longest, says the proverb. The same cannot be said of creaking joints. On the contrary, there is a special tissue at the ends of our bones that is precisely to prevent direct contact in the joints. “This tissue is not called cartilage by chance”, Hannah explains. “You can compare it to a cushion that prevents friction and pressure so that you can move painlessly and make physical efforts. Joint cartilage that is damaged needs to be treated because the pain does not go away by itself.”
Three methods are currently used. The first uses cells from the patient’s bone marrow to make new cartilage tissue. “This seems an obvious choice, but in practice these cells produce an inferior, fibrous substance. Moreover, it increases the risk of osteoarthritis, which amounts to even further deterioration of the joint”, says Hannah.
A second option is transplantation of cartilage tissue from the patient or from a donor. “However, when taking tissue from the patient, you create a new lesion. With donor tissue, there are large differences in quality and the risk of rejection is real. For severe defects, a prosthesis can provide relief. This is the third option. Unfortunately, the lifespan of prostheses is limited, making them less suitable for younger patients.”
Tissue from the lab
The alternative is to make your own tissue in the lab. “This technique is called tissue
engineering”, Hannah continues. “This uses cartilage cells and a water-like gel (hydrogel) that resembles cartilage tissue. This gel is based on gelatine, which is a derivative of the body’s own protein collagen that healthy joints are mainly composed of. When you place those cells in an environment that resembles natural tissue, they are stimulated to produce new healthy cartilage. This method does not have the disadvantages of donor tissue or prostheses and is therefore promising for healing joint injuries.”
How do you make tissue in the lab? “The basic ingredient are functional cartilage cells. Taking these from the patient’s body is not an ideal solution. If you take too many, you create an additional cartilage defect. If you take too few, the cells will ‘dedifferentiate’ and ‘forget’ what they are supposed to serve for. A possible alternative is to use stem cells from the bone marrow that are stimulated to become cartilage cells. For the patient, this means a painful procedure. Moreover, this method offers no certainty about the quality of the newly formed cartilage”, Hannah said.
To overcome all these obstacles, Hannah uses a new technique: that of ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’ (iPSC). “These are body cells (from a donor) that are first ‘reset’ into stem cells and then reprogrammed into cartilage cells. You can
multiply the body cells at will after resetting so that you obtain a sufficiently large quantity. These cells produce high-quality cartilage and cause significantly fewer rejections than donor tissue. It is an efficient and effective way to regenerate cartilage tissue.”
In her research, Hannah has experimented with different amounts of iPSC cartilage cells. She succeeded in selecting an optimal quantity to produce cartilage tissue in the lab. But is this product from the lab also usable in practice? “I tested that in rats”, Hannah replies. “The tests showed that cartilage formed with both fresh cells that were only recently in the gel and cells in gel that had already formed tissue in the lab for three weeks. Finally, in 1 of 4 animals with incurable cartilage lesions, we managed to grow new cartilage based on the hydrogel.”
This immediately led to the question: why did no healing process occur in the three other rats? It turned out that this had everything to do with the size of the implants, which was not fully matched to small defects in the animals’ knees. To solve this problem, Hannah turned her light to bioprinting technology. This allows you to use the cells in the gel as biological ink to 3D-print implants in any desired shape. Tests showed that the printed cartilage had the same quality as what had been grown in the lab.
“The next step is to try out the printed cartilage implants in real joint injuries,” says Hannah. “It is already clear that 3D bioprinting technology can provide a real breakthrough in the field of tissue engineering. It will even be possible to make patient-specific implants based on MRI scans in the foreseeable future. With this, the way is open to tailor our cell-gel implants even better to the patient and boost the chances of cure to 100%. What was incurable until recently will soon be completely curable.”
To be continued
Currently, Hannah is conducting follow-up research with a company to further improve the hydrogel with a view to 3D bioprinting. “Intensive collaboration between the academic and corporate worlds can accelerate the process towards effective clinical treatment of cartilage defects”, Hannah believes. “The number of people we can relieve from joint pain this way is uncountable. Tissue engineering is a profession with a future.”
‘We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve’. Since Bill Gates made this statement in 2013, minds have evolved. Feedback is no longer seen as merely passing on information, but rather as an essential part of a learning process. Moreover, it is not enough to receive feedback, you also have to learn to use it and actively seek it in yourself. Kurt Coppens, Technology Expert in Mathematics & Communication Skills at De Nayer Campus, conducted research on feedback literacy in engineering education.
The term ‘feedback’ does not come from learning psychology but rather from electronics. The word first appeared in 1920 and refers to the return of a fraction of an output signal to the input of an earlier stage. In the 1950s, it appeared in dictionaries as ‘information about the results of a process’ that allows a system to regulate its own activity. For example, a thermostat controls central heating by transmitting the temperature of the environment to the heating system and adapting to it accordingly. Such control systems also exist in living organisms and, by extension, in contexts where they interact with each other. “In education, feedback has evolved from a one-way movement to a learning-centred process that encourages learners to actively engage with the information fed back, Kurt says. “However, giving feedback is not the end of the matter. It comes down to creating a learning environment that encourages learners’ engagement in feedback processes. The skills involved in this come under the heading of feedback literacy.”
Kurt graduated in 2008 as an engineer in Plastics Processing at the then BrugesOstend University College, now KU Leuven-Brugge. He followed the first year at Campus De Nayer but his interest in materials science brought him to Ostend where a new specialisation in Plastics Processing had started. After his studies, Kurt first worked as a Process Engineer and Application Design Engineer at SaintGobain Performance Plastics in Kontich near Antwerp, a company specialising in precision sealing for the space, aviation, energy and life sciences industries.
In 2012, Kurt returned to De Nayer campus as a scientific collaborator in the Additive Manufacturing research group. In parallel, he follows a teacher training programme because teaching also appeals to him. In no time, he became assistant, giving seminars and practice sessions and supervising laboratory work. In 2020, he joined the ETHER research group founded by Professor Greet Langie -then vice-dean of Education at the Faculty of Engineering Technology. “The dynamism of the young team was contagious but also the focus on non-technical competences convinced me to delve into research on education”, Kurt continues. “Moreover, an interesting opportunity immediately presented itself: the KU Leuven Innovative Digital Learning Project on ‘Continuous Feedback’. This research opened the way to a PhD.”
New concept
Feedback literacy is a fairly new area of research in education science. Kurt is therefore one of the first researchers to survey this competence among engineering students. He studied its evolution from the moment students start the programme until they obtain their bachelor’s degree.
“Because we are dealing with a new concept, there are no standardised instruments to measure the development of feedback literacy yet”, Kurt says. “Consequently, I combined different methods, both quantitative via questionnaires and qualitative based on reflection logs, focus group discussions and interviews. By the way, this mix revealed a curious discrepancy. While in the quantitative research we hardly saw any change
in feedback literacy, the qualitative results did indicate a positive evolution. This underscores the importance of using qualitative instruments to validate findings derived from quantitative instruments.”
Kurt further investigated how students reflect on their feedback experience and how that translates to their feedback literacy. He found that while students are aware of the importance of feedback, they are therefore not always willing to act on it. Therefore, Kurt recommends making feedback processes much more explicit in engineering education. “Students who were introduced to the concept of feedback literacy more often referred to feedback on their lab reports as important experiences contributing to their learning. When those students were involved in peer feedback activities, they also recognized the value of the feedback from their peers in their reflective writing, which is an important step in identifying the multitude of possible feedback opportunities.”
Finally, Kurt took a closer look at the link between feedback literacy and reflection itself. In the reflective logs, he found that students with higher reflective ability also scored better in feedback literacy. Another key finding of the study is that mixedmethod study approaches (quantitative and qualitative) are preferable to further explore the potential of a new feedback literacy scales and methods.
Yves Persoons
During the Cybersec Europe trade fair in Brussels on 31 May 2024, the Belgian Computabe Awards were presented. In the category Project of the Year in Health Market, the first prize went to ‘Mobile Surgical Collaboration and Assistance from Anywhere (MSCAA), an initiative of Barco, Orange Belgium and KU Leuven. Viktor Vörös, research engineer at Barco and member of the Robot-Assisted Surgery Group (Group T Campus) explains.
As technology continues to penetrate the medical world, more and more complex devices are making their way into operating theatres. These not only create new possibilities for procedures and treatments but also require a steep learning curve for surgeons, resulting in a shortage of experts in the field.
“That’s exactly where the challenge lies”, says Viktor. “Experts cannot be in multiple operating rooms or hospitals at once. A solution is needed to exploit their knowledge at multiple locations.”
Therefore, the MSCAA project aims to enable surgeons in operating rooms to call on expertise available externally. “Hospitals are increasingly experiencing the need to have remote experts assist the team in the operating theatre,” Viktor
continues. “While mobile surgical collaboration is an important step forward, it also creates a new challenge: the availability of reliable technology.”
Barco, a Belgian company specializing in medical display technology and solutions for digital operating rooms, was already able to provide a crucial part of the solution: the Nexxis Live platform that allows experts outside the hospital to communicate in real time with surgeons in the operating theatre.
“Nexxis Live is designed to work on a high-quality, high-resolution display connected to a computer that has a reliable network connection”, Viktor continues. “However, experts are not always active on a fixed workstation. They are often only accessible via tablet or smartphone. Another limitation is the quality of the network. Nowadays 4G networks cannot always guarantee the connectivity or safety required to stream clinical procedures.”
Orange Belgium took care of the 5G connectivity. “5G is the cutting-edge technology that can lead to a more mobile version of Nexxis Live”, explains Viktor. “It provides the necessary bandwidth needed by the remote expert to have a razor-sharp image of the operation. After all, all details and colour differences can be clinically relevant. This is why Nexxis Live transmits the images in high quality to the remote computers. Conversely, the expert can also communicate in real time with the surgery team and highlight specific places in the image. For a seamless collaboration, the delay between capturing and displaying the image should therefore be minimal.”
An additional benefit of 5G is better privacy protection. “Using 5G, images can be sent over a secure connection from the hospital to the remote expert. Once the expert launches the app, a specific slice of the available bandwidth is allocated to ensure that all communication is over a stable and private connection.”
The MSCAA project puts another ambitious goal in reach: controlling robots to
perform (parts of) surgical procedures. “The next step is that an expert can also perform the surgery remotely by controlling a surgical robot over 5G”, says Viktor. “At the Robot-Assisted Surgery group, we have been developing robotic devises for various surgical domains. Our input in the project is therefore mainly situated in providing a robotic setup connected to the 5G network to evaluate the possibilities with remote robotic surgery via experiments.”
In the Robot-Assisted Surgery group and in collaboration with Barco, Viktor has been taking part in thesis development of a new visualization technology that can be used in healthcare, including minimally invasive surgery and image-guided therapy. “Advances in high-resolution 3D endoscopy and 3D reconstruction of CT scans have brought about a sharp increase in 3D content”, says Viktor. “However, when 3D data is displayed on 2D screens, essential depth information is lost. Aurosteoscopic visualisation or ASV is a promising solution. Thanks to a built-in eye-tracking system and lenticular lens technology, 3D content can be displayed directly to the user’s viewpoint while the user can perceive this 3D content without wearing special glasses. This visualization method can potentially reduce the mental load of surgeons and improve ergonomics.”
In his PhD work, Viktor investigated the clinical requirements of ASV developed tools to verify the performance of the technology and validated its potential benefit via user studies. ”I hope my findings can help bridge the gap in the state-of-art and bring ASV to the medical market”, Viktor concludes. “The next steps include further studies to demonstrate the added value, and eventually its commercialization either as a standalone display or integrated into other medical devices.”
Yves Persoons
The BioTeC+ research team, headed by Professor Jan Van Impe at KU Leuven, Ghent Campus, proudly presents FooDSIM (Food Digestion Simulator), an in vitro simulator of human digestion. This unique technology is designed to provide a detailed and biologically/ physiologically accurate reproduction of the complex human digestive process. With FooDSIM, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of how our bodies process food, absorb nutrients, and interact with microorganisms naturally present in the digestive tract or introduced through food consumption.
BioTeC+’s research program focuses primarily on the optimization and control of microbial/(bio) chemical conversion processes using advanced mathematical models and techniques, combined with a profound knowledge of (micro)biology and (bio) chemistry to comprehend and manage these processes. The team applies their research across various domains, including food safety, predictive microbiology, waste processing, and the development of associated innovative technologies.
The team explores both the positive and negative aspects of microbiology. Positive microbiology examines the beneficial contributions of microorganisms in food production (e.g. fermentation) and the genetic modification of organisms for useful purposes. Negative microbiology focuses on combating pathogenic bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella, which pose threats to food safety. This is where FooDSIM comes into play: it allows for flexible study of both the body’s native
microbial population essential for a healthy metabolism, as well as invading foodborne pathogens.
One of FooDSIM’s most remarkable features is its ability to realistically and reproducibly simulate human digestion. Traditional in vitro digestion models are often static, with all digestive stages occurring in a single container. FooDSIM, however, offers a dynamic approach in which different digestive stages take place in a series of consecutive computer-controlled reactors equipped with numerous pumps and sensors.
In the human body, digestion begins in the stomach, where food is broken down and mixed with gastric juices. FooDSIM uses standardized food that is gradually added to the first reactor vessel, mimicking the time it takes a person to consume food and for the stomach to gradually release juices. Additionally, it replicates the slow change in pH levels within the stomach.
Next, the food moves to the first part of the small intestine, namely the duodenum and jejunum, where further breakdown and nutrient absorption occur. The primary goal here is to break down macromolecules. Fats, carbohydrates, and proteins in the food are broken down into fatty acids, sugars, and amino acids so they can be absorbed by the body. This absorption is simulated using a filter with hollow fiber membranes, the same type used in kidney dialysis.
The remaining undigested food then reaches the final segment of the small intestine, the ileum, where the number of gut bacteria begins to increase. Finally, the food moves to the large intestine, where it is fermented by about 10 to 100 trillion gut bacteria. Typically, we consume three meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our large intestine is partially emptied every 24 hours. FooDSIM accurately reproduces all these phases and measures the presence of various substances, including shortchain fatty acids, which are crucial for our health.
One of FooDSIM’s key applications lies in studying gut microbiota, particularly the beneficial bacteria in our bodies. Potentially harmful microorganisms in our food usually don’t cause issues in the stomach, they become active later in the digestive system. Our body possesses beneficial gut bacteria that support our digestive system. Since BioTeC+ also researches food safety, they examine how these good gut bacteria interact with pathogens such as Salmonella Typhimurium and Listeria Monocytogenes.
The team also investigates the effects of dietary changes on healthy gut microbiota, as a variety of bacteria is essential for a healthy body. A monotonous or limited diet can lead to the loss of certain bacteria, potentially causing health problems. FooDSIM is a valuable research tool for this: researchers adjust the stomach robot’s diet to study its impact on infections. They assess whether diet-related natural gut microbiota can combat these pathogens or if antibiotics are necessary. This helps us understand how antibiotics work and develop new antibiotic strategies, which is also part of BioTeC+’s research.
The major advantage of FooDSIM is that its dynamic system ensures researchers obtain reliable and reproducible results. They have full control over the process and know exactly what happens at each stage. This marks a significant advancement in understanding complex digestive processes and the implications of these insights on public health.
Tine Desodt
https://cit.kuleuven.be/biotec
There’s no way around it: shiny new electric vehicles seem to be popping up everywhere. Even more so, from 2029 onwards, the only new vehicles up for sale in Belgium will be completely electric. To accommodate this shift, a large network of charging stations is necessary. Determining the location of these charging stations turns out to be a multifaceted problem. Bryan Coulier -- PhD student with the research group Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics (NUMA) at KU Leuven, Ghent campus -- distinguishes his research by considering both the electrical constraints of the underlying low-voltage grid as well as geographical factors.
Alarge portion of the vehicles will be electric in the foreseeable future,” Bryan states. “However, impulsively placing the necessary charging infrastructure for this fleet of electric vehicles at manually chosen locations is not the best strategy. Several aspects need to be considered simultaneously. Firstly, we have to take into account the geography of the city: this entails that all electric vehicle owners should have access to a public charging station within a 250-meter radius from their home. At the same time we have to consider the existing electrical grid in order to avoid unnecessary investments in expansions of the grid by for example building additional medium-voltage cabins. This is the focus of my research. I am also analysing which sections within the electric grid require reinforcement in order to maintain optimal performance and meet energy demand effectively.”
Bottlenecks
“When positioning charging infrastructure, we have to consider the existing underlying low-voltage grid. This grid has a tree structure which branches out into several subnetworks. If the capacity of a cable near the medium-voltage cabin is too low, this can cause power shortages further down the grid. This bottleneck needs to be addressed first before reinforcing any other connections downstream,” Coulier continues.
“We also have to avoid large voltage drops throughout the grid,” he clarifies. “You can compare this to situations during hot summer months, when Fluvius temporarily shuts down some solar panels in order to avoid simultaneous injection of large amounts of energy into the electrical grid and possibly causing overvoltage.”
Looking over the fence
“The Netherlands is facing these issues already: grid operators often have to turn off public charging stations during peak hours to avoid grid congestion. This is the result of a naive rollout of charging infrastructure combined with an unsustainable plan,” Coulier notes.
“In Flanders, charging stations are being installed impulsively based on each new request from electrical vehicle owners, but this strategy is not sustainable if all road transport is to become greener, unless significant investments are made in the electrical grid,” he warns.
Opting for the future
“We developed an optimization algorithm to handle these problems. Our decision support software can help governments to deploy charging infrastructure in a structural and future-proof way. ”
Moreover, using this software leads to significantly lower investment costs compared to the current approach. A very conservative estimate shows that we save at least 60% on the investment costs necessary to manage a fully electrified automotive sector. These additional costs can be avoided by applying a forward-thinking and structured deployment of charging infrastructure from the start. Without such an approach, we will inevitably face the same problems as the Netherlands,” Bryan concludes.
Hanne De Coene and Tine Desodt
https://numa.cs.kuleuven
Conventional concrete consists of four elements: cement, water, sand and bricks. Only cement, the crucial binding agent of concrete, makes concrete production enormously polluting. In recent decades, there has been much research on geopolymers as an ecological alternative to Portland cement. Jasper Vitse, PhD student at KU Leuven-Bruges Campus, is investigating how these geopolymers can be better optimized.
Jasper bases his research on two ecological challenges for the construction industry. On the one hand, the construction industry is struggling with very high CO2 emissions, especially from cement production. “Cement is the core of your concrete, but for every ton of cement produced, nearly a ton of CO2 is released. So that is a big problem”, Jasper explains. Additionally, more and more countries are also introducing CO2 taxes to ensure that less of the polluting cement is used. “Therefore, the cost price for cement becomes very high for companies, but of course they cannot immediately abandon the material. Hence, there is a significant demand from the industry for a more environmentally friendly binder for concrete”, Jasper adds.
On the other hand, a lot of construction and demolition waste is generated on construction sites. “That waste often ends up in a landfill without being reused. In Europe, fortunately, we are now seeing a shift towards recycling those materials”, Jasper says.
To produce cement, limestone is mined from limestone rocks. “That limestone is then burned at 1350 to 1500 °C, decomposing calcium carbonate into calcium oxide and CO2”, Jasper explains. “Not only during that combustion is CO2 released, but there are also additional emissions due to the high temperatures that must be achieved.” To limit those CO 2 emissions, Jasper is studying whether geopolymers can offer a viable alternative to cement in conventional concrete production. While the production of conventional cement requires very high temperatures, geopolymers can be formed at room temperature. “A geopolymer is an inorganic polymeric cementitious binder. It consists of an aluminosilicate precursor, a granular material rich in alumina and silica. Waste products from industry, such as blast-furnace slag from the steel industry and fly ash from coal combustion, are often used as precursors. Additionally, you have the alkaline activator, often sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate, which is added to it. This creates a chemical poly-
condensation reaction, and you get a geopolymer”, Jasper continues.
“Using by-products from industrial processes, such as fly ash and blast-furnace slag, for geopolymers is already a step in the right direction,” Jasper believes. “Otherwise, precious raw materials have to be mined and thermally treated again, putting us in the same situation as the high-temperature treatment of limestone for cement production. Moreover, the industrial by-products have already been heated to very high temperatures, making them amorphous and reactive, and thus suitable as precursors”, Jasper explains. However, these by-products are also at risk of running out at some point. “Blast-furnace slag, for example, is already being used to partially replace cement. Moreover, steel production is increasingly occurring electrically instead of with fossil fuels, which means there are fewer by-products left anyway”.
Therefore, Jasper is investigating whether certain materials within con-
struction and demolition waste are sufficiently reactive to serve as precursors. In this way, he addresses two issues at once. “Besides replacing cement with a more environmentally friendly alternative, I am also looking for a new use for construction and demolition waste”, Jasper explains. When buildings are demolished, the various materials are sorted. “That allows us to finely grind a concrete wall or a traditional brick into powder less than 125 micrometers in size. The finer the powder, the more reactive”, Jasper says.
That concrete or masonry powder can be activated and partially replace blast-furnace slag as a precursor.
“Concrete or masonry powder by itself is not reactive enough as a precursor. Therefore, we still need some industrial by-products. I am investigating the right proportions to achieve good workability and strength properties of the synthesized geopolymers”, concludes Jasper.
The mass production of conventional silicon chips relies on a successful business model with large ‘semiconductor fabrication plants’ or ‘foundries’. New research by KU Leuven and imec shows that this ‘foundry’ model can also be applied to the field of flexible, thin-film electronics. Adopting this approach would give innovation in the field a huge boost.
Silicon semiconductors have become the ‘oil’ of the computer age, which was also demonstrated recently by the chip shortage crisis. However, one of the disadvantages of conventional silicon chips is that they’re not mechanically flexible. On the other hand you have the field of flexible electronics, which is driven by an alternative semiconductor technology: the thin-film transistor, or TFT. The applications in which TFTs can be used are legion: from wearable healthcare patches and neuroprobes over digital microfluidics and robotic interfaces to bendable displays and Internet of Things (IoT) electronics.
TFT technology has well evolved, but unlike with conventional semiconductor technology the potential to use it in vari-
ous applications has barely been exploited. In fact, TFTs are currently mainly mass-produced with the purpose of integrating them in displays of smartphones, laptops and smart TVs – where they are used to control pixels individually. This limits the freedom of chip designers who dream of using TFTs in flexible microchips and to come up with innovative, TFT-based applications. “This field can benefit hugely from a foundry business model similar to that of the conventional chip industry”, says Kris Myny, professor at the KU Leuven’s Emerging technologies, Systems and Security unit in Diepenbeek, and also a guest professor at imec.
Foundry business model
At the heart of the worldwide microchip
market is the so-called foundry model. In this business model, large ‘semiconductor fabrication plants’ or ‘foundries’ (like TSMC from Taiwan) focus on the mass production of chips on silicon wafers. These are then used by the foundries’ clients – the companies that design and order the chips – to integrate them in specific applications. Thanks to this business model, the latter companies have access to complex semiconductor manufacturing to design the chips they need.
Kris Myny’s group has now shown that such a business model is also viable in the field of thin-film electronics. They designed a specific TFT-based microprocessor and let it be produced in two foundries, after which they tested it in their lab, with success. The same chip
was produced in two versions, based on two separate TFT technologies (using different substrates) that are both mainstream. Their research paper is published in Nature.
Multi-project approach
The microprocessor Kris Myny and his colleagues built is the iconic MOS 6502. Today this chip is a ‘museum piece’, but in the 70s it was the driver of the first Apple, Commodore and Nintendo computers. The group developed the 6502 chip on a wafer (using amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide) and on a plate (using low-temperature polycrystalline silicon). In both cases the chips were manufactured on the substrate together with other chips, or ‘projects’. This ‘multi-project’ approach enables foundries to
produce different chips on-demand from designers on single substrates.
The chip Kris and his group made is less than 30 micrometer thick, less than a human hair. That makes it ideal for, for example, medical applications like wearable patches. Such ultra-thin wearables can be used to make electrocardiograms or electromyograms, to study the condition of respectively the heart and muscles. They would feel just like a sticker, while patches with a silicon-based chip always feel knobbly.
Although the performance of the 6502 microprocessor is not comparable with modern ones, this research demonstrates that also flexible chips can be designed and produced in a multi-project approach,
analogue to the way this happens in the conventional chip industry. Kris concludes: “We will not compete with silicon-based chips, we want to stimulate and accelerate innovation based on flexible, thin-film electronics.”
On 17 September, around 80 professionals gathered at KU Leuven-Bruges Campus for the symposium on Machine Vision for Quality Control. The symposium marked the conclusion of the VLAIO TETRA project “Machine Vision 4 Quality Control” where researchers from KU Leuven Bruges Campus and Vives University of Applied Sciences in Kortrijk worked for two years to transfer their practical knowledge of machine vision to companies in the manufacturing industry. Project coordinator Matthias De Ryck reflects on the project and the final symposium.
Machine vision is essentially the technology for capturing and analyzing digital images to extract useful information that can be applied in industrial applications, such as defect detection, product measurement, or counting,” begins dr. De Ryck. “While computer vision focuses on developing high-performance vision algorithms, machine vision is centered on the practical application of these algorithms to solve industrial problems and the selection of the right hardware and software for optimal results,” Matthias explains.
The TETRA project specifically focused on using machine vision for quality control, addressing the needs of the manufacturing industry. “In the manufacturing industry, products must meet specific, often strict, quality standards. Currently, many companies still rely on manual visual quality inspections. These manual checks are often subjective and inconsistent. Additionally, products may move at high speeds, making it difficult to
detect errors,” says Matthias. Despite these manual inspections, many products of insufficient quality still reach the customer, leading to additional costs and damage to the company’s reputation.
Machine vision techniques that assess quality through camera images can make these inspections faster, more consistent, and more dependable. Thanks to extensive innovative research, machine vision technology has already advanced significantly. “However, we often see that its practical application is lacking in the industry. This is partly due to a lack of internal knowledge or resources, or because the current market offerings do not fully address the complexity of the challenges faced by the industry.”
Through the TETRA project, the researchers bridged this knowledge gap by working on six industrial use cases over two years. The results were shared with a wide audience of companies through
workshops, masterclasses, and interim project updates. “We provided companies with the necessary knowledge, inspiration, and tools so they could start integrating machine vision into their applications. The final symposium also contributed to this,” says Matthias.
“Of the six use cases, the biggest challenge was measuring the fat percentage in donuts after frying, as variations in fat content are simply not visible to the naked eye or to a standard camera. For this use case, we turned to emerging hyperspectral technology. A regular RGB camera collects information in three color bands (red, green, and blue), just as the human eyes do. These cameras can only detect how much red, green, and blue is reflected by an object. A hyperspectral camera, however, can divide the light spectrum into many more bands and measure the intensity of the incoming light in each of these bands. This allows the camera to detect how much of a specific wavelength is reflected by the object.
Matthias De Ryck © Tom Talloen
Depending on the (liquid) substances present, the reflected wavelength varies. In this way, we were able to detect fat,” Matthias explains. To calibrate the camera, the researchers collaborated with a professional baker who made dough balls with known fat percentages. The researchers analyzed which part of the spectrum changed as the fat percentage increased in the measurements taken by the hyperspectral camera. “This changing part of the spectrum provided us with information about the fat content in the donut. By mapping this correlation, we were able to predict the fat content of other dough balls based on the hyperspectral image,” says Matthias.
At the final symposium on 17 September, Professor Lien Smeesters (B-PHOT, Brussels Photonics) gave a keynote on the potential of spectrometry and hyperspectral cameras in food and manufacturing industries. Additionally, the project results and developed use cases were presented. “During the symposium,
we introduced participants to the market offerings in the field of machine vision through, among other things, a mini expo where various technology providers and system integrators displayed their products, demo materials, and successful use cases. Participants also had the opportunity to test the demonstrators we developed during the project, giving them hands-on experience with the practical implementation of machine vision,” says Mathhias.
Matthias and his fellow researchers are already looking ahead to the next step. “With the implementation of machine vision, more production errors are detected during quality inspections, but ideally, you want to prevent these errors in the first place. To avoid these errors, you first need to understand how they occur. This involves detecting the errors, linking them to the process parameters in place at the time, and identifying which parameters cause the quality deviations. By analyzing
this data, we can find correlations and, for example, support operators in adjusting the process parameters more effectively to prevent quality reduction.” An application for a follow-up project (COOCK+ project) on this topic has already been submitted. “If the follow-up project is approved, it will likely start in January 2025. Professor Mathias Verbeke, who was also involved in the TETRA project on machine vision, will lead the project from KU Leuven,” concludes Matthias.
Pauline Van Springel www.iiw.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/m-group www.mv4qc.be
Group T Campus is not only associated with solar cars, self-driving electric race cars and enterprising student teams. For numerous young people, the campus now also conjures up images of supernovas, galaxies and exoplanets. During the past 15 years, they took part in the Summer School of Astronomy on campus and fell under the spell of the cosmos.
From 26 to 29 August 2024, 30 students from the last and penultimate year of secondary education were guests at Group T Campus. They preferred to spend their holidays at the university rather than at home or elsewhere to learn as much as they could about the cosmos and all that is and moves in it. They were offered a well-filled programme of lectures, practicals, evening lectures and even a star quiz by the Society for Astronomy.
Forum
The Society for Astronomy, Meteorology, Geophysics and Related Sciences (abbreviated in Dutch as VVS) is a name with fame in Flanders and beyond its borders. Founded in 1944 by a group of amateur astronomers, the society has grown into the pre-eminent astronomical forum in Flanders. The general public knows VVS mainly as the organiser of the Sterrenkijkdagen (Stargazing Days) and the publication of the annual Sky Calendar. When special phenomena occur, such as lunar or solar eclipses or the appearance of a comet, VVS is always on hand to give explanations and make observations at the public observatories.
Wide-branched
“For more than 70 years, we have been bringing together amateur astronomers to observe the moon and planets, photograph nebulae and admire bursting stars,” says chairman Frank Tamsin enthusiastically. “Everyone interested in astronomy and space exploration will find something to their liking: observers of starry skies, eclipse hunters, telescope enthusiasts, would-be spacemen and computer freaks.”
“Our beating heart are the working groups,” continues the chairman. “We count 16 of them on a wide variety of phenomena and areas of study. From Deepsky, spectroscopy and meteorology to eclipses, artificial moons and meteors. The working groups serve their members. Several of our working groups enjoy worldwide renown as an authority in their field.”
Also noteworthy is the firm regional anchoring in Flanders. “With 22 national branches, VVS is never far away,” says the chairman. “Locally, we organise lectures, training evenings and excursions. Often the sections are linked to a people’s
© Julie Feyaerts
observatory. UGent even has its own section in the Faculty of Applied Sciences.”
The supply of new members is ensured by a well-run youth work. “In August 1971, a separate association was set up for young people. This connects everyone in Flanders who is under 21 and interested in astronomy, space or science. The youth association supports local youth sections, organises competitions and publishes its own scientific youth magazine. You could safely call our youth work a breeding ground for future astronomical talent,” Frank Tamsin explains.
The high mass of youth work is the annual Summer School of Astronomy at Group T Campus. “The Summer School is not a holiday course like the others,” notes Frank Tamsin. “We deliberately put on knowledge transfer coupled with practical exercises. Moreover, we set the bar high. We work exclusively with university professors and, of course, in-house experts.
Each lesson or practical is taught by a specialist in the subject matter.”
The lectures cover topics such as the classification of stars, structure and evolution of single stars, binary stars, variable stars, massive stars, supernovae and galaxies. Cosmology is also covered, in particular the origin and evolution of the universe. During the practicals, the youngsters perform spectral analyses of stars, determine the parameters of a spectroscopic binary star, measure the distance to a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, calculate the mass of the black hole at the centre of our Galaxy and investigate the relationship between the brightness of a star and the period with which its light changes.
The Summer School participants stayed in Leuven for three days and nights. This meant that activities were planned not only during the day but also in the evening. This year the programme included two
evening lectures on gravitational waves and meteorites. The 2024 edition concluded with a quiz night, about astronomy of course.
The success of the Summer School is not only a boost for the society, it also proves that there is a need for it. “In primary and secondary education, there is very little focus on astronomy,” concludes Frank Tamsin. “Even in the STEM subjects or STEM orientations, it is rare to look beyond what is happening on our planet. While the Earth is just a tiny speck in an expanding universe that, thanks to the work of cosmologists and astronomers, is giving up more and more of its secrets. Young people who are fascinated by this deserve our support and encouragement.”
Yves Persoons
Music or mathematics? At eighteen, Bert Geerinckx hesitated between a musical or a scientific career. In the end, it became neither. His choice to study engineering led him into business where he quickly progressed into technical commercial management positions with the cherry on the cake: CEO of the international Reynaers Group, market leader in Belgium with Reynaers Aluminium and among the top five worldwide.
At the end of 2009, Bert receives a call from Martine Reijnaers. The leading lady of the Duffel-based family owned company is looking for an experienced general manager for the fast-growing business in Belgium and Luxembourg. Bert doesn’t have to think long about it. “An offer from a captain of industry with such a name and fame is not something you just put aside.” Bert bites the bullet and embarks on a path of success. Two years later, he is already Vice President. And another four years on, he also becomes Chief Sales Officer for Western Europe, Africa and Canada. Foreign markets now already account for 75% of the company’s sales. When in 2023 the external CEO leaves after barely two years, the Board of Directors knows who to call on to take over the torch.
Bert graduated in 1990 as an engineer in Civil Engineering Technology from the then De Nayer college, now KU Leuven-De Nayer Campus. He carried out his master’s thesis at the Belgian Building Research Institute, nowadays called BuildWise. There, he can immediately start working as a researcher after his studies. To upgrade his knowledge of IT, he is pursuing a master’s degree in Scientific Computer Applications at Hasselt University after working hours.
After four years of research work, Bert feels the time has come to gain industrial experience. This brings him to Gyproc Benelux, a manufacturer of building materials. “I started there in a technical position. As the company became more customer-oriented, I evolved towards marketing”, Bert says. “That meant I needed to broaden my competences.”
At the Antwerp School of Management, he follows an Executive MBA programme, evolving from specialist to generalist.
When Gyproc changes hands in 2002, Bert moves to Strabag Belgium, a large construction and engineering company in Antwerp. He becomes Business Development Manager there. “They were looking for a marketer who also spoke and understood the language of the engineers and could also go off the beaten track”, says Bert. However, he doesn’t stay on for long because less than two years later he is contacted by a former fellow student from the MBA programme with a very attractive proposal from Rockwool Technical Insulation in Roermond (Netherlands). “The position of Director Group Marketing & Business Development really suited me”, Bert continues. “Moreover, there were interesting career opportunities.” Indeed, after three years, he is promoted to Managing Director Europe of Rockfaon, a subsidiary of Rockwool specialising in acoustic insulation. In this job, Bert can spread his wings on the international scene. It would serve him quite well at Reynaers.
In autumn 2009 when it looks like Bert’s position will move to Copenhagen, the call comes from Martine Reijnaers. In January
2010, he starts to work in Duffel. “Our brand name is immediately associated by many people with windows and doors, but our range also includes the profiles for certain walls, sliding doors and verandas”, Bert explains. “We also have smarthome solutions on offer, including components compatible with most plug-and-play hardware and software on the market.”
Incidentally, there is another misunderstanding that Bert wants to clear up. “We do not make finished elements ourselves. We produce profiles at standard lengths with the desired colour and finishing and all accessories necessary to build out joinery. Assembly, mounting and installation are done by independent craftsmen and SMEs. In Belgium, we have a network of more than 200 partners and installers who do the job at end-users’ premises.”
“Given the crucial role of local craftsmen, they can count on proper training, guidance and support from the company. For example, they all use one and the same software for preparing quotes and invoices to controlling the CNC machines for assembly and finishing.”
In addition to customer satisfaction, Reynaers is also strongly committed to innovation, R&D and engineering. “Tomorrow’s windows and doors will not be the same as today’s”, says Bert “They will, for example, have to perform better thermally, be more resistant to extreme weather conditions and meet higher acoustic requirements. We have our own test centre in the company -the largest in Belgium- to try out innovative designs and ideas.”
Like most companies, Reynaers holds sustainability in high regard. “On an operational level, we have already achieved a lot in this area”, says Bert. “With the Reynaers ACT, we go even further than the internationally set targets. By far the biggest challenge is raw materials. Aluminium offers the advantage that it can be fully recycled. As the demand for aluminium far exceeds the supply of recycled material we strive to purchase primary aluminium, produced with low carbon energy as well.”
The Reynaers Group achieves a turnover of 756 million euros in 2022, has branches in 45 countries, employs 2,700 people worldwide and serves over 7,000 partners and installers. In Belgium, the company has 900 employees: 500 in Duffel and another 400 in two painting plants elsewhere. In 2025, Reynaers will turn 60. “We will of course celebrate that anniversary extensively”, the CEO announces. “With our employees, partners and suppliers, we are still one big family. Together for Better!”
Yves Persoons www.reynaers.com
Engineers are often stereotyped as methodical, logical, science focused and typically seen in rational industrial environments. However, at Group T Campus, we know that the engineering profession is home to a diverse range of individuals, including those who defy these conventional expectations. Time for a chat with Veroniek de Mulder, an atypical engineer. Her career path proves what an engineer is capable of when he/she is prepared to leave the beaten track.
Executive management of companies, restructuring of organisations implementing IT transformation and digitalisation, private-public cooperation in industrial and infrastructural development, contract negotiation and conflict management … these are just a few examples of the rich palette of expertise she has acquired. However, she herself does not find her record so atypical. “Actually, almost everything is in line with the engineering training I took at Group T Campus.”
Management and communication
Veroniek graduated in 1998 as an engineer in Chemical Engineering Technology from the then Group T University College in Leuven. “Although there were two other engineering colleges closer to home, I deliberately chose Leuven”, she says. “Scientific and technical subjects you get everywhere but for courses on marketing and financial management and communication skills, you had to go to Leuven at that time. The international dimension was also clearly present then. It gave me the chance to go on a study trip to Russia and with Erasmus to Loughborough
University in the UK. The students also turned out to be more articulate and enterprising, relations with professors were more informal, in short, Group T was ahead of its time in many areas. We were challenged to search for that creative spark that allows to think outside the box. In my later career, I would find motivation in challenging the status quo, explore unconventional solutions, and embrace a spirit of innovation. I believe that an engineering education should enhance that can-do mindset.”
After completing her studies, Veroniek went to work as a sales engineer at Henkel Belgium. Her customers include the steel giant Sidmar (now Arcelor Mital) in Ghent and major players in the automotive industry. Soon, the ambitious engineer advances to account manager and key account manager and her radius of action expands from Flanders to the whole of Europe. Eager to learn, Veroniek takes sales training and commercial courses and obtains a postgraduate degree in Business Administration at KU Leuven. During her four years at Henkel, she not only sees her salary double but also
emerges as the engineer who wants to push her boundaries, and that both in the positions she holds and the sectors in which she operates.
Infrastructure and logistics
In 2006, Veroniek decides to join one of the Flemish Governments major independent public companies. She paves the way up to the position of Commercial Director at ‘Waterwegen en Zeekanaal’ (now Vlaamse Waterweg), the agency mainly responsible for inland waterway transport, infrastructure and waterbound industrial development. “Actually, I was mainly concerned with building a strong team to roll out a commercial strategy on the valorisation of industrial sites along the waterway”, Veroniek continues. “Gradually, this led me into the logistics and real estate sector and eventually, a privately held logistics company asked me to lead their business as a CEO.”
Along the way, Veroniek continues to work tirelessly on her personal development. In 2013, she obtains a postgraduate degree in Conflict Management and Mediation at Ghent University and in 2017
a bachelor’s degree in Law at KU Leuven. And when during the COVID epidemic activities are at a lower ebb, she follows an Executive Programme on Negotiation and Dispute Solution at Harvard Business School via distance learning. “Managing a private company with 250 staff on 5 different locations, showed me the benefits of being a so called atypical engineer. While engineering is often -wrongly- perceived as a solitary pursuit, part of leading an organization in all aspects means building relationships and understanding the needs of others. My engineering background allowed me not to be afraid to take calculated risks and learn from their failures.”
At the Guberna Institute for Directors and the Vlerick Business School, Veroniek continues her dedication to life long learning by studying corporate governance and director effectiveness to prepare for next steps as board member in several organisations. In 2022, she decides to jump forward and to continue full force in roles as independent board member and strategic advisor.
No matter how busy Veroniek is, she continues to make time for social engagement in the nonprofit sector. For instance, she was a volunteer commercial judge in Ghent for five years. And since 2017, she has had a seat on the Board of Directors of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra where she was recently appointed as chairman a.i. of the board. She is also mentoring one of the students in the Women Engineers’ Mentoring Programme at Group T Campus. For Veroniek, this is not merely a matter of idealism. “I feel it is my duty to give something back to the society that has invested a lot in me.” Again, she does not tread the beaten path. No sponsorship or charity but investment of precious time in well chosen goals. Even a generalist is allowed to be selective at times.
Yves Persoons www.dimples.be
Making a career does not mean changing jobs or employees every so often. You can also grow and develop your talents within the same organisation. Living proof of this is Carolin Spirinckx, alumna of Group T Campus and Project Manager at VITO, the largest multidisciplinary research institute in Flanders. A portrait of a passionate engineer.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Carbon Footprint (CF), Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), Sustainability and Circularity Assessment and other hot topics in environmental technologies have no secrets for Carolin. In her almost thirty-year career at VITO she has built up a comprehensive knowledge and experience in sustainable technologies. Carolin has been involved in an almost uncountable number of projects in which widely different products have been analysed with both government and industry as partners. Carolin’s job and developments at VITO are so intertwined that she was awarded the title of VITO Ambassador in 2020. “I’m a part of the ambassadors community because we are proud of what VITO realises and are ready to help boost VITO’s visibility, reputation and impact”, says the Project Manager.
Carolin graduated in 1993 as a chemical engineer at the then Group T university college in Leuven, now KU Leuven-Group T Campus. “I was looking for an engineering study where you didn’t become a nerd and where there was a focus on environmental issues”, she says. “At Group T, I found both. A study that focused not only on technology but also on management and communication. And a brand new
specialisation in Environmental Technology. It was a choice that gave my further professional life a decisive turn. To this day, I remain grateful to the university college, not only because of the training but also for the vision of engineering I received. A vision that states that technology is not an end in itself but should be a tool that makes this world a better and sustainable place. And that the engineers who know and master this tool therefore bear a great responsibility. I have pretty much made this vision my personal mission. In that respect, you could also call me a Group T Campus ambassador.”
Carolin finds the job of a lifetime at VITO in Mol, a leading independent research institute in the field of clean tech and sustainable development in three main areas: climate adaptation ant mitigation, sustainable resource economy and sustainable living environment. Carolin starts as a Project Engineer/Researcher. There, she is immediately engaged in life cycle assessment (LCA) at that time a new research area with guidelines and standards still to be developed. “My first assignment was to investigate the production and use of biodiesel. A complete LCA was prepared, starting from the cultivation of rapeseed in the field to its use as motor fuel.”
Over the next few years, Carolin sees LCA changing rapidly. “Originally mainly energy aspects were investigated but that quickly evolved into a global analysis of the full environmental impact of a product or technology. This led to new concepts such as the environmental index of a product and the environmental balance sheet that gives a complete picture of the total environmental impact, from cradle to grave.”
“LCA was obviously not an end in itself”, Carolin continues. “It also contained concrete improvement options on the basis of which companies could optimise their products thanks to the identification of weaknesses in terms of, for example, energy consumption, choice of materials, emissions, amount of waste, etc. The ul-
timate goal was to encourage preventive eco-design where new products and technologies are developed in function of environmental friendliness, reuse, etc.”
Over the course of her career, Carolin sees the public becoming more and more environmentally conscious, environmental laws and standards tightening and the market for green products growing. The European Green Deal represents an important milestone in this development. But Carolin’s job at VITO is also evolving. In 2010, she becomes Project Manager within the Smart Energy and Built Environment unit. When one year later KU Leuven, VITO, imec and Hasselt University establish the research centre EnergyVille,
interesting perspectives open up again. Indeed, this new partnership will focus specifically on energy transition. “The complementarity of the research partners enables EnergyVille to integrate the entire value chain of the energy system”, says Carolin. For her, this means broadening the radius of action, including internationally.
Even though we are almost 30 years on, Carolin still radiates as much enthusiasm as ever. “How could it be otherwise?”, she wonders. “Our work is more socially relevant than ever. We have just launched Europe’s first pilot line here to extract biomolecules from waste. We will open a new research complex in 2025. Flemish
government funding has been increased substantially. And -last but not least- we have had a female CEO since last year, Inge Neven, who wants to make VITO twice as big by 2030. What more could you wish for?”
Yves Persoons
www.vito.be
The digital transition hinges on high quality data. At Belgian startup Timeseer. AI, a chemical engineer plays a key role in developing a digital quality & observability platform with AI functionality to improve data quality. A portrait of Sébastien Verhelst, Director Customer Success and founder of the Advisory Board.
Leading high-performing teams in innovative organisations, my goal is to champion customer experiences, contributing to a better environment and elevate the quality of life.” Sébastien Verhelst sets the bar high. Over the past ten years, he has developed into a versatile professional with a passion for innovation and entrepreneurship that far exceeds his field of study. In parallel, his obsession with correct data also grew. “In the past, companies have often been very sloppy with their data”, Sébastien explains. “In the chemical industry, there is a tradition of structurally capturing data and keeping a data history but in the other sectors this is much less or not the case. There, employees currently spend 70% of their time organizing and cleaning up data. This job is a manual, labour-intensive, repetitive and expensive task. The negative impact of unreliable data has never been as significant as today.”
Sébastien graduated in 2011 as a chemical engineering student at the then Lessius University College, now KU Leuven-De Nayer Campus. His master’s thesis dealt with the design of an installation for the ecologically neutralisation of alkine wastewater through CO2 injection at Messer Belgium, which specialises in industrial gases. “The way the company was committed to innovation and developing a professional relationship with customers impressed me”, Sébastien says. “It ignited in me an interest in the management aspects of technical projects.”
After completing his engineering studies, he immediately enrolled at the Antwerp Management School for a Master of Global Management. It will give his career a decisive turn. In the jobs he subsequently holds, we see customers increasingly coming to the fore.
With two master’s degrees in his pocket, Sébastien spent the next few years working as an Improvement Project Engineer at Axalta Coating Systems and running the family wine business Qualivino. In 2018, he dives into the world of data at SAS Institute, leader in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. There, he becomes first Customer Advisor for Western Europe and then Manufacturing Advisory Lead, a position he combines with a seat on EMEA’s Manufacturing Board. “At SAS, I was able to perfectly combine my engineering knowledge with cutting-edge digital technologies,” says Sébastien. “This allowed me to easily bridge traditional engineering practices with emerging AI and data-driven approaches to improve manufacturing processes, supply chain and product quality.”
Because he speaks the engineer’s language with clients, Sébastien quickly becomes the consultant of top companies in the (petro)chemical and pharmaceutical sectors but also in other sectors such as energy, metals and environmental and water management. The projects entrusted to him are particularly diverse. They range from applying machine learning techniques to reduce waste production to intelligent performance analytics and predictive maintenance on air-cooled condensers in an energy company.
In 2022, Sébastien will become Customer Advisory Manager at Belgian pioneering startup Timeseer.AI, a time series data quality & observability operations software company. The goal of its software is to automate the overall data orchestration throughout an organisation to deliver
high-quality, on-demand sensor data to organisational customers. “The software has the ability to detect, prioritize and investigate data downtime before it hits operations,” explains Sébastien. “It is crucial to get a grip on unreliable data before it impacts the operations. At Timeseer.AI, we make the following comparison: it only costs $1 to detect data downtime where it would have cost $10 to fix the problem and it would balloon to $100 of financial impact when it hits you operationally.”
After a year, Sébastien is promoted to Director Customer Success. In this role, he puts a lot of effort into community building. For instance, he leads an Advisory Board of 20 thought leaders and visionaries on the strategic positioning of the company. He also organises a quarterly Trusted Advisory Community forum for innovative idea exchange.
The enterprising engineer himself also continues to work on his own development. In 2019, he attended a Smart Manufacturing Programme at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2021 and 2022, he participated in the Digital Transformation Management Programme at Vlerick Business School. With Sébastien Verhelst, De Nayer Campus -and by extension the Faculty of Engineering Technology- can unpack with an alumnus who is moving outside the predestined paths and building a promising career. In many ways, he is a role model for current and future engineering students.
Yves Persoons
www.timeseer.ai
Oko, an app that helps blind and visually impaired people to cross intersections, has become the first Belgian app to win an Apple Design Award. The award-winning application was developed by young Antwerp-based company AYES. We spoke to co-founder Willem van de Mierop, alumnus of Group T Campus, about his pioneering work and the equally prestigious award.
The Design Awards were presented on 14 June 2024 at the WWDC conference at the futuristic Apple Park in San Francisco. For Willem, who lives and works in New York, it was a weekday domestic jaunt back and forth. “The United States is currently our largest and fastest-growing market,” confirmed Willem. “We already helped our users cross more than 3 million streets safely. “This achievement did not go unnoticed by Apple either. From over 2 million apps in the Apple Store, the jury selected Oko as the winner of the Apple Design Award 2024 in the Inclusivity category.
Willem graduated from Group T Campus in 2019 as a master in Electromechanical Engineering Technology with Intelligent Mobility as an option. During his studies, he already became fascinated by Object Oriented Programming and AI. To such an extent that he pursued another Masters in AI at the City University of London. Fully in line with this, he started working at Robovision, a company specializing in AI-based computer vision, in July 2020. Less than a year later, Willem shifts gears and embarks on an entrepreneurial journey. Together with two childhood friends -also engineers- he founded AYES.
Why this turnaround? Willem explains: “I come from an entrepreneurial family. During my studies, I was already running my own business, i.e. designing and selling jumpers. Not exactly high tech but useful for my entrepreneurial skills. But other factors came into play. One was the story of Bram, a friend of ours who is visually impaired. He told us about some of his challenges while crossing an intersection safely. Accessible pedestrian signals guide visually impaired people through traffic today, by utilizing sound to indicate the green and red signal. But only 15% of traffic lights are equipped with these devices. Bram’s story triggered us as engineers to find a solution. Thus AYES, which stands for Artificial Eyes, was born.”
The trio launched the Oko app. “Our app indicates when visually impaired people can safely cross the street”, explains Willem. “The smartphone’s camera films the environment, our AI software processes the images immediately and locally on the device,
detecting the traffic lights. The app informs people in real time whether the lights are red or green through vibrations and sounds.”
“We built an algorithm by training it with hundreds of thousands of images of traffic lights in all possible weather conditions at thousands of different locations to make the app ‘understand’ what a traffic light looks like in all conditions. On top of that, the app also learns from itself, making it increasingly performant. For those concerned about privacy, I can say that no personal data is stored from the user unless they themselves ask for it.”
The new app caught on immediately. In the App Store, it immediately received a score of 4.6 out of 5. Initially, Oko only worked in the Benelux, but after a short time the team expanded the app to the US, Canada, Spain and Japan. To properly monitor the market there, Willem moved to New York. His partners continue to run the business in Antwerp. The young entrepreneurs already have their eye on a global expansion.
Expanding functionalities is also high on the agenda. “Oko is becoming a Waze-like tool for people with a disability to navigate outdoors. Recently we launched a new version with routing implemented and automatic AI detections all integrated into one application. We are now adding more accessibility information about the venues, accessible routing, community reporting and much more to facilitate everyone with a mobility disability to go out and explore new venues.”
The numbers of potential users already capture the imagination. “In Belgium alone, 210,000 people are blind or visually impaired. Globally, 300 million people have a severe visual impairment, furthermore, 1.4 billion people live with a mobility disability”, says Willem. “Recently, McKinsey & Company and the Perkings School for the Blind calculated that the so-called Disability Tech will become a $40 billion industry by 2030. The name of their white paper is not coincidentally called ‘the Rise of Inclusive Innovation’.“
Yves Persoons www.ayes.ai
The strategic policy plan of our Faculty specifies that we aim to provide an international experience for all of our students during their study. This definitely applies to Kasper Michiels, master student in Electromechanical Engineering Technology at Group T Campus. Unlike most students, Kasper’s international ambitions are focused far off the beaten track of exchanges to Southern European universities.
Kasper gathered international and intercultural experience first in an exchange to Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, followed by a Humasol project in Senegal. This academic year he participates in a European Erasmus Mundus programme. “I’m very grateful for the opportunities that Group T Campus and the Faculty have offered for exchange both in the bachelor and in the master”, Kasper explains.
The exchange to Yildiz Technical University opened up a new world. The University attracts students from all over the Asian and Arab world, not only Europeans. “The educational practice in the university is completely different from the one at KU Leuven, so I had to work very hard,” says Kasper. “The traditional classroom teaching with compulsory attendance and often no powerpoint presentations around, resulted in many hours of processing time of the classes.”
“Hospitality is very strong in Yildiz, exchange students are really received in a very friendly way both by professors and students. I lived together with Turkish students in one appartement and this was a great experience. The course package that I took luckily was balanced
enough so that I could continue my studies at Group T Campus without any difficulties.”
Upon arriving in Leuven after his exchange, Kasper received information about Humasol and the renewable energy projects they implement in the global South. He was immediately enthusiastic: “This was really at the core of my field of interest: working on an electrical power project in an international context.”
“By request of Humasol’s partners, we tackled two initiatives: building a solar-powered cold room to extend the shelf life of vegetables and fruits and setting up a biodigester to convert organic waste into biogas for cooking. My task in the project was mainly the design and the realisation of the electrical circuit needed to convert solar energy and power the cooling installation.”
“The preparation of the project was very time-intensive with many international meetings, but this has been very rewarding. Moreover, the language of communication with the Senegalese partners was French, which was also an added value.”
Kasper does not doubt: “Going on an international exchange is something that I would recommend to all students, I wouldn’t want to miss these unique opportunities. Going on an exchange is one of the best decisions in my life. The main benefit is that you get a completely new perspective on your study and life in an unknown context. Independence, self-reliance, self-confidence are soft skills that grow automatically if you study and live abroad. The new people and new cultural experiences only add to the experience.”
Erasmus Mundus
After the Humasol project, Kasper has been accepted as an Erasmus Mundus student in the European Master in Dynamics of Renewables-based Power Systems, of which he is very proud. “One thousand applications were submitted for 24 grants, so I was surprised to be chosen.” From September on he is studying in Nantes, and from there a trajectory in Barcelona, Berlin, and Bucharest will follow.
All through these 3 international study endeavours Kasper has been able to count on the support of the Group T Campus International Office. “I am quite happy to notice that international exchange in our Faculty is quite inclusive, you don’t need to be a top student to be able to participate in an exchange,” Kasper concludes. “These international experiences have shaped me into becoming a better engineer.”
Hilde
Lauwereys
Together with Universidade da Coruña in Spain and Politecnico di Milano in Italy, KU Leuven, Ghent Campus is joining forces for a new European project focused on sustainable energy solutions in higher education in Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. They aim to promote energy savings and the production of green energy in these Eastern European countries. The project, known as the “European Energy Efficiency towards Mutually Reinforcing Partnership with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine,” or simply the “3E-Partnership,” aims to enhance knowledge and infrastructure by sharing European expertise.
The project focuses on two key aspects of energy management: increasing the production of green energy and improving energy efficiency,” notes Geert De Lepeleer, head of the Internationalization Office at KU Leuven, Ghent Campus. “Our role in this project is to share our know-how and best practices with the involved non-EU universities, enabling them to enhance their capacities and contribute to a sustainable energy future. At the start of the project, we saw a spike in energy prices due to the war in Ukraine, which only underscores the importance of this collaboration.”
The initiative for the 3E-Partnership originated from a proposal by the ‘Business and Technology University’ in Georgia, with which Ghent Campus, had previously collaborated successfully on HEIn4.0, another European project. Thanks to the support of Ghent Campus and other European partners, this proposal expanded into broader cooperation with several universities in Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
Ghent Campus contributes to the 3E-Partnership through two research groups: the Electa Ghent energy research group, led by Professor Jan Cappelle, and the Building Physics and Sustainable Design research group, led by Professor Chiara Piccardo, in collaboration with PhD student Camille Steinik.
The 3E-Partnership is divided into three phases, with both theoretical knowledge transfer and practical applications at the core. “In the first phase, we organized webinars where the participating countries shared their existing measures and best practices in energy management,” explains Geert De Lepeleer. “These webinars, with more than sixty participants, including both business professionals and
students, were an important first step in the knowledge transfer.”
“In the second phase, the partners from Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan visit European universities to observe practical examples,” he continues. “This will include company visits and campus activities. In September, we welcomed the delegations to our campus in Ghent, where they toured our laboratories and visited some of our partner companies. “
The final phase focuses on one of the main objectives of the 3E-Partnership: adapting university curricula in the Eastern European countries. “These regions still have a long way to go in terms of energy efficiency and sustainable building practices,” states Geert De Lepeleer. “There is much to gain in areas such as insulation, CO2-neutral construction projects, and investments in wind and solar energy.”
The ultimate goal of this phase is to develop an innovative curriculum that will enable hundreds of students from the involved countries to acquire modern competencies, skills, and up-to-date knowledge about energy efficiency and green energy solutions.
The 3E-Partnership paves the way for better energy efficiency and sustainability in Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan –countries that have traditionally been dependent on fossil fuels.
By fostering dialogue between government, academia, and industry in these countries, and by introducing European best practices, the project contributes to the transition towards sustainable and innovative energy solutions.
Tine Desodt
“Had you told me six years ago that I would go on an Erasmus exchange and then to the mecca of space travel? I wouldn’t have believed you,” says Gus Geurts, a master’s student in electromechanics – design & production at Campus Diepenbeek. And yet, the picture fits perfectly.
As a child, Gus already looked up to his father’s job as an engineer. So, his interest in science and technology was there from a young age, as well as his fascination with aerospace. “If you can design and fly a plane… to me, that’s the most ingenious thing, both literally and figuratively. Still, I didn’t immediately choose that direction at the time but consciously
opted for electromechanical engineering: a solid broad technical foundation with hands-on applications. Specialization would come later.”
However, flying wasn’t postponed. At fifteen, he convinced his father to let him take flight lessons. They eventually did it to-
gether, and two years later, his first solo flight became a reality. This not only earned them a pilot’s license but also led to his father becoming CEO of Stemme, a company in motorized gliders in Germany.
Meanwhile, both his brother and sister are often in higher spheres too, but they prefer gliding.
“In my third year of the bachelor’s program, I was already considering pursuing an additional master’s degree in civil engineering with a focus on aerospace. Around that time, there was also a presentation about Erasmus. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought much about going on Erasmus. But when I saw Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University listed among the American universities, the pieces just fell into place.”
So, his destination last academic year was sunny Florida, where he spent one semester at the prestigious Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. There, he studied Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering through KU Leuven’s GE3 exchange program, in the shadow of the Kennedy Space Center. A month before his departure, he spent a few weeks in Congo with some fellow students on a project led by Professor Deferme, installing a solar cooker in collaboration with a local university.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University offered Gus the chance to expand his knowledge and skills in an environment known worldwide for its technological advancements, innovation, and specialization in aviation and aerospace. The university provides a wide range of courses that align closely with his engineering studies, but entirely focused on aerospace: courses on applying finite element methods, analyzing robotic arms for aviation applications, selecting the best material for a specific use, and finally, project management. All of these courses are taught by individuals with significant roles in the aerospace industry.
“The education system in America is also known for its many project-based tasks and interim evaluations. The courses and teachers were demanding but extremely enriching. I learned a lot about aviation technology and how these principles can be applied to industrial processes,” Gus explains.
Studying in the U.S. costs a lot of money. That’s why students there often start working after earning their bachelor’s degree
and skip a master’s. It’s the employer who often offers such a master’s degree as a perk. “This way, I met many interesting people who were already working in the space industry. But they were just sitting next to me in class to complete their master’s degree. So, a dream that initially seemed far off turns out to be tangible and, most of all, possible.”
Student life was a completely new experience for Gus. The Embry-Riddle campus – located in Daytona Beach – isn’t known for its big parties. It’s also a relatively small campus with 8,000 students, but they come from all over the world with one shared passion... aerospace.
“The diversity on campus was incredible. This led to a fascinating exchange of cultures and ideas. I made friends from the United States, Germany, Singapore, and South Korea. Most foreign students come here for their entire degree. The number of Erasmus students is actually quite limited; we were only about 15,” says Gus.
Outside the lecture halls, Gus had the chance to explore American culture and local life in Florida. “Daytona Beach, with its beautiful beaches and warm climate, offered plenty of recreational activities: surfing, sailing, and beach volleyball... And let’s not forget shooting, because, after all, this is America. Then there were the almost daily SpaceX launches that you could see from the campus. In short, there was always something to do,” says Gus.
“It was great to enjoy the beach and nature in my free time. Moreover, I learned a lot about American culture and lifestyle. Although Florida is well known for vacations and easy living, I also got to see another side. The people I met from Boeing, SpaceX, and NASA really live for their work. It was very inspiring to hear these people talk so passionately about their field. That’s something I would love to have too: a job that you do with so much passion.”
“My semester in Florida not only helped me become a better engineer but also gave me a broader perspective on the world. I am grateful for this opportunity and look forward to applying these experiences to my future studies and career,” Gus concludes.
Veerle Moons
Sustainable business. Many companies are already doing it but from 2025 they will also have to report on it. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires them to provide detailed information on their entire value chain, which means that data must also be collected from suppliers and other stakeholders. About the impact of this operation and the technologies that are indispensable to track and manage such amount of data, Alumni Engineers KU Leuven and Ekonomika Alumni organised a well-attended theme evening on 8 October 2024 at Group T Campus.
EU member states have agreed to reduce the union’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. By 2050, the EU should be climate neutral. CSRD is one of the measures to meet this target. Numerous companies have already started making adjustments to meet emission requirements, including the Green House Gas Protocol. That requires companies to report scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are direct emissions for which the company itself is responsible and indirect emissions in the form of purchased energy. However, a large part -if not the majority- of the emissions are located outside the boundaries of the company, which is scope 3. Examples include CO2 emissions from the end product, the degree of recycling of materials, maintenance requirements and the transport and logistics operations of delivery, service and maintenance.
In essence, it’s all about data. Digital transformation has left companies with gigantic datasets. The problem is that these data are stored in silos or separate databases, leaving management with no overview of what is where. Combine this fragmentation with the volume and it immediately becomes clear what immense challenge companies will face when they have to disclose over 350 data points from 2025 onwards. Not to mention the quality and reliability of the data.
In her key note, Els Meyvaert, founder of Web3 for Woman, gave an overview of the history and growth of Big Data and the technologies supporting them. The concept of Big Data became mainstream from 2010 as business began to focus on processing large amounts of unstructured data from multiple sources (social media, IoT devices, sensors, ...). The rise of AI and machine learning technologies in the mid 2010’s required massive amounts of data to train models and improve algorithms. This trend intensified data creation, particularly in industries like healthcare, finance and retail where large datasets are essential for predictive analytics and automation. The global shift to remote work, online education and e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic really accelerated data creation. With the 5G network, autonomous vehicles, smart cities and AI-driven systems, the rampant growth will intensify, predicts Els Meyvaert.
Of the various technologies supporting the Big Data evolution, blockchain technology offers the best prospects, Els Meyvaert believes. True traceability, exchange and verification of all valuable data regardless of whether it is human- or machine-made will be done by blockchain, with or without trusted 3rd partners who will have a different role in the value chain.
Prof Maximiliano Udenio of the Faculty of Economics and Business looked at the data challenges in supply chain sustainability from an academic point of view. He elaborated on the issue of reporting scope 3 emissions that are outside the
direct scope of the company. As a potential way forward, he suggested combining the data of direct measure of scope 1 emissions at suppliers, the focal company and customers. Thus, a more or less realistic estimation of scope 3 emissions could be done. But even then it will remain a difficult operation. After all, supply networks are very dynamic. About a quarter of the networks is refreshed every year. The study by Prof Udenio and his team also shows that there is a discrepancy between upstream and downstream emissions. While most attention is paid to upstream emissions from suppliers, in many cases emissions are highest when the product has left the company.
Peter De Meester, Executive Partner at the consulting firm Gardner, elaborated on the question: how sustainable are the technologies that can be used to improve sustainability? According to him, by 2025, 75% of the organisations will experience ongoing electricity shortages accelerating the push for sustainable IT. For many companies, sustainable IT sourcing is an additional challenge because an environmental IT sourcing strategy or culture is not always present internally. They will have to make an extra effort to promote the environmental literacy of IT staff.
During the panel discussion, not only the problems and obstacles of CSRD were discussed. Yannick Dylst, Senior Expert Sustainability at transport company H. Essers, called the EU directive an opportunity for transformation, improvement and transparency. Els Meyvaert summarised as follows: “Reliable and validated data offer benefits such as helping to protect products and consumers who can thus make sustainable choices. Open sustainability data also ensure greater brand visibility in the market, which in turn contributes to greater trust in the company.”
Yves Persoons
We make you feel at home in a globalised world. As an engineer without borders, you are committed to the major challenges of our time: climate, environment, health, mobility, poverty…
Equipped with science, technology and professional skills, you are prepared to turn the tide.
Bachelor’s programme
• BSc in Engineering Technology
- Electromechanical Engineering Technology
- Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology
- Chemical Engineering Technology
Master’s programmes
• MSc in Biochemical Engineering Technology
• MSc in Chemical Engineering Technology
• MSc in Civil Engineering Technology
• MSc in Electromechanical Engineering Technology
• MSc in Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology
• MSc in Energy Engineering Technology
• European MSc in Sustainable Food Systems Engineering, Technology and Business
• Erasmus Mundus Japan - MSc in Imaging and Light in Extended Reality
• Erasmus Mundus - European Master in Radiation and its Effects on MicroElectronics and Photonics Technologies
Advanced Master’s programmes
• Advanced MSc in Innovative Health Technology
• Advanced MSc in Welding Engineering
• Advanced MSc Artificial Intelligence in Business & Industry
• Advanced MSc in Smart Operations and Maintenance in Industry www.fet.kuleuven.be
