We recently sat down with Maarten Buysse from INDUSAC partner Bax & Company to chat about the project and the exciting opportunities it presents for students and companies.
Read the interview for an insight into how Maarten became involved in INDUSAC, the benefits of getting involved for companies, and how the project can help students enhance their CV!
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Hi Maarten, firstly, we’d love to know a bit about your background and how you got involved in INDUSAC?
As a mechanical engineer with a passion for innovation, I work as an Innovation Consultant at Bax & Company where we are mainly focused on accelerating collaborative innovation and bringing the right solutions to market. With Bax & Company, we were one of the driving forces behind the development of this project and are still involved as a project partner.
- What is your current role within the project?
Bax & Company is involved in multiple activities within INDUSAC, with our main role related to the exploitation, replication, and long-term effects of the project. This basically means that we are aiming to maximise the impact of INDUSAC beyond the duration of the project by looking into a market uptake of the solutions developed during the project and even making policy recommendations based on learnings from across the three years.
- The project has now been running for over a year. How did it go until now?
It is a challenging project, so despite the fact that a lot of progress has been made, there are still several challenges to be addressed. Initially, the project started with the development of the Industry-Academia co-creation methodology and mechanism. Following that, a software platform was developed that can facilitate the exact type of collaboration outlined in the methodology. As a consortium, we are are still finetuning the final aspects of the platform. We already have many interesting challenges submitted, and a good number of students who are looking to collaborate, so we expect the first collaborations to start very soon!
- Why is this project important? What is the significance of Industry-Academia collaboration?
Often companies struggle to tackle challenges that are not their main priority due to capacity and time constraints. This could be related to more strategic aspects such as exploring new products, markets etc. Employees are often so busy with day-to-day tasks that they don’t have the capacity, neither the headspace to focus on these things. Having the opportunity to collaborate with a group of students can give this welcome capacity, in addition to their fresh perspective to tackle these challenges and improve the business.
- Now, let’s say I’m a student. Why should I sign up to and get involved with INDUSAC?
You will have the opportunity to work on a real-life challenge from a company together with an international group of students. All of this resulting in a valuable professional experience, a widened network and potentially even an entry towards the job market.
- Can I get paid for my work?
Yes, you can get compensated up to 1000 euros!
- And what about companies? Why should they publish challenges on the platform?
You will get bright and diverse minds from across Europe working on a challenge that you would simply not have the capacity, time or knowledge for.
- Great! What should we look out for in the coming months?
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