The province can make an important contribution to the challenges of our region. That is what Cora Smelik, deputy for the province of Flevoland and, since this spring, also a member of our Board. She focuses on circularity, the energy transition and sustainability: "The phase when we had to inspire people with fun projects is over."
70 frontrunners from the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area gathered in the A'DAM Toren during the diner pensant that we organized on 4 July, together with Rabobank and VNO-NCW. The occasion arose following a study by RaboResearch Economy, which shows that there is no question of 'broad prosperity' in this region.
“If you want to make connections in the field of technology and Artificial Intelligence and use each other's data, you have to work together,” says Jesse Aarden, initiator of the Smart Health and Vitality Lab at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. “This requires a good network, and that is what Smart Health Amsterdam offers.”
The bicycle is a sustainable solution to many of the challenges in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. It is therefore logical that the Green Deal Bicycle has a strong ambition: 100,000 extra cyclists in the region. At the last meetup before the summer we pump up the tires again.
At the United Repair Center in Amsterdam, refugees repair clothing from Patagonia and other brands. If it'd be up to this initiator and customer, more brands will soon join. Willem Swager: “You can see repair as a cost item, but it is much more interesting to see it as a unique moment to get in touch with your customer.”
Creative textile platform Makers Unite and outdoor clothing brand Patagonia to open the United Repair Center (URC) in Amsterdam on 1 July. The URC will annually carry out 300,000 high-quality clothing repairs for affiliated brands and their customers, saving 1 million kilos of textile waste. With this, the URC encourages brands to make repair and reuse part of their business and revenue model.
"AI will not take over all jobs. AI should stand for 'augmented intelligence', not 'artificial intelligence'. Humans and machines are actually a perfect match." At the 19th edition of the Medical Data + Pizza event, a prominent researcher argued that we should firmly reject the substitution paradigm when it comes to AI. And indeed, this idea - like pizza - is very much worth chewing on.
From smart clothing repair to hydrogen and from the love story of nature and technology to alliance: at the fifth edition of State of the Region we discussed the Metropolis of Tomorrow. “We are still too unaware of the unique proposition our region has.”
Many companies want to purchase more sustainably, but how and where to start? And what's the next step? We checked in with Shell, where Nadine Vincent makes the uniforms of gas station employees more sustainable. “Our most important lesson is that a lot was already possible with our current supplier.”
Sanquin has come a long way since 1998, when the Blood Supply Act authorized it to be the only organization in the Netherlands to meet the need for blood and blood products in the Netherlands. In addition to fulfilling the responsibilities of a national blood bank for decades, Sanquin has gone one step further in meeting challenges in hematology, immunology and oncology. Pioneering research, the development of blood-related products and services and the willingness to lead the way in public-private partnerships characterize the business.
