DIH-HERO Brokerage event on 30.-31.10.19
DIH-HERO, the Digital Innovation Hub Healthcare Robotics project funded by the European Commission, has opened its doors for the first brokerage event on October 30th and 31st 2019 and the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronic is participating as core partner. The purpose of this get-together was to increase cross-national collaboration, in order to accelerate innovation of robotics in healthcare. Building a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hubs, DIH-HERO offers several opportunities for the players in the European healthcare market, such as different services or the engagement in the DIH-HERO Technology Demonstrator and Technology Transfer Experiment calls.
SMEs, friends and networking partners met at the University Twente (NL) to discuss the opportunities of innovations to market within the healthcare domains and potential partnerships for the open and upcoming calls. The diverse programme of these two days was focused on up-to-date topics in healthcare robotics. Presentations by the operational project coordinator informed about the complete project and about the open calls which are dedicated to support SMEs and slightly larger companies in developing innovative technologies for the market. Keynotes of Dennis McWilliams of Santé Ventures, Cyrill von Tiesenhausen of KUKA and Amir Szold of Hernia Solutions were as entertaining as informative and presented risks and needs of realizing a vision and inventing new products. With presentations about the five domains in healthcare robotics the great variety of healthcare was pointed out.
Partners of the network and companies took the opportunity to present themselves in pitches and announced possibilities to cooperate. In speed dates possible common interests and networking opportunities were considered. Lab tours at the Technical Medical Centre led by Stefano Stramigioli and gave a comprehensive insight into research methods. Furthermore 16 Innovation Hubs and their partners introduced themselves in an exhibition where individual questions could be discussed.
One of these hubs was the MIRO Innovation lab of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) located at our institute. The MIRO Innovation Lab is a modern research platform and a cooperation network in medical robotics. Based on the third generation of the medical lightweight robot arm MIRO, this innovation lab provides technology analysis, optimization and redevelopment also consulting, concept and feasibility studies, networking and trainings.