Eindhoven Engine plays a significant role within this milieu in order to accelerate innovation and deliver cutting-edge technological solutions. Female tech heroes from different cultural backgrounds add more diversity to the prevalent tech world within this community.
Even though the Netherlands still has much to achieve in terms of inclusivity and diversity within the tech sector, things are slowly changing and improving. Here, what we want to focus on is female inclusivity in high-tech research within the Eindhoven Engine community and the initiation of the female tech heroes era to inspire and make more women enthusiastic about the tech industry. Making the public more aware and creating diversity through inclusivity within Eindhoven Engine are significant objectives in this process.
Eindhoven Engine community
Until April 2022, Eindhoven Engine had 19 projects within the main topics of High Tech, Health Tech, Mobility, Energy and Smart Cities. These projects included 164 members, including the administration team and office team students. Within these projects, the female figure amounts to 23%. Given that only 14% of the entire tech system in the Netherlands are women, Eindhoven Engine is already demonstrating a progressive step which can definitively be expanded in due course. At the end of April, one project finalized its research at Eindhoven Engine.
“The first step is creating diversity through inclusivity and making an impact on these crossover innovations.”
Since OpenCall 2022, seven innovation projects have joined the Engine, bringing the total number of projects up to 25. These projects are WECARE, Smart Heat Shed, PowerLift, DynaPopeX, Direct Air Capture 2.0, COLLidE and AUXSTENT. The diversified nature of the projects is designed in a way to range across the spectrum of cutting-edge technology.
The WECARE project focuses on making an impact on people with dementia. Smart Heat Shed addresses the rapid energy transition. PowerLift wishes to make an impact on the electric aviation industry. Poor air quality and its impacts are being addressed by the DynaPopeX project. In the same direction, the Direct Air Capture 2.0 project aims to capture CO2 directly from ambient air and use it for net-carbon-zero solutions. The CoLLidE project aims for the market introduction of reusable food packaging. AUXSTENT’s objective is unlocking the mechanical limitations of synthetic heart stents.
As the first step in creating diversity through inclusivity and making an impact on these crossover innovations, Eindhoven Engine invites female tech heroes to apply and explore these new ventures.
Dr. ir. Shalika Walker
Postdoctoral Researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology and Eindhoven Engine
(Brains4Buildings project)
Project Leader at Kropman Installatietechniek