my god and that’s not even all I’m also
chemist the toxicologist take up phone
calls I’m a science officer but you
guess what I just gave it up last year
stop to it the reason is I’m going to
take you to the story is I want to
innovate I want to connect people I want
to connect disciplined and with that
there’s energy coming in this energy I
tend to describe as a nuclear fusion
because that’s what happens in my brain
when I connect different things and
different people the energy gives me the
inspiration to move ahead now let me
take you back to where it starts our
society is now let’s boost our economy
is boosting because consumer thrust is
increasing unemployment rate are
decreasing and nevertheless we feel like
large organization say we need new
people we need a nawet of people but how
do we get enough to people it means you
have to have an innovative organization
and how do you keep up with an
innovative organization and that seems
to be such a difficult question why do
you want this so the vision is yeah do I
need to be competitive to might the
other companies can I only be innovative
if I am part of that ecosystem the
campus or whatever or is it simply my
profile as a company that if I am
innovative I can hire innovative people
and maybe I become innovative so what
they do large corporates they send out
their managers they send out people and
tell everybody else we are the most
innovative and maybe that becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy and then you
can hire
the people and you may get an overdue
that’s not reality innovation is a
struggle and a battle at the same time
it’s horrible it’s horrible to be an
innovative process because all your
certainties are gone and we think we can
not innovate because we are limited so
we we even organize TEDx meetings we
have hubs we have trainings we have boot
camps or phone calls come again
innovation means you have to get out of
your comfort zone so what’s your comfort
zone you already came here fine which is
still nice in your suit sweet innovation
only is happening when you are in the
middle of it you have to be part of it
get out of that comfort zone and the
result I can tell you as happened to me
is unexpected it’s like a nuclear fusion
there’s an enormous energy release its
uncontrollable and it’s unmanageable and
let me take that last word unmanageable
because managers and we have lots of
them I don’t know how many you here are
I can’t see you guys but we have so many
managers and they grow well on stability
and control now you can see the paradox
between innovation stability and control
so managing innovation doesn’t work not
as we think it should be done managers
want to keep their people in control if
you’re a free thinker like me you want
to move ahead do something stupid they
will say hey you have to perform better
more into the lines where we set and
they put you on a personal efficacy
course or something that’s what happens
now let me tell you a bit about my
explosions because if that energy has to
stay inside
and you’re in academia in my case it
didn’t work out so more explosions the
biggest explosion occurred when I met
nanotechnology is something that made me
realize that we have physics biology we
have mathematics chemistry it’s
basically all the same thing the only
thing that we are doing at schools
academia is organized these disciplines
in such a way that you can handle it
nice rich in hormones the same science
and in that science field you can talk
to each other but don’t try to cross
talk with other scientific fields these
are three people that manage to get out
of the pigeon hole niels bohr Max Planck
and Einstein most of you or not they
knew or they supposed that it nude as
you suppose they’re that materials and
energy are the same thing so material
can transfer into energy and the other
way run depending on speed and awe and
want to take you to a couple of examples
in nanotechnology and I hope you’ll also
get inspired by the idea that materials
can change properties although we are
talking about the same material so gold
suddenly becomes another goal but it’s
still gold first example here is the
sugar lump the sugar lump here if I
divide that up it has sides of about one
square centimeter total surface of the
sugar lump here on the outside is six
square centimeters as you can see here I
if I divide that up into little pieces
then I go to 60 square centimeters if I
make the pieces even smaller then I end
up with a sugar lump of
graham which has an internal or external
surface area of about sixty million
square centimeters so that simple same
mars of one gram suddenly has another
month what does that mean well the
surface connects to the environment so
in chemistry people know this large
surface is very useful in reactivity of
a compound so for catalyst in chemistry
this is this is beautiful next example
this is almost like high school
chemistry sorry for that it tells you a
compound tio2 titanium dioxide it’s a
compound which is used in you probably
had it this morning it’s in toothpaste
it’s white it’s a powder and if it’s
empower you can see it on the electron
microscope like this does a micrometer
particles if you go down the size of
nanometers like thousandfold smaller
there comes a moment when the structure
of the particle can no longer
accommodate titanium and oxygen in the
same ratio as titanium dioxide so the
physical boundaries determine the
chemistry you see we are crossing
disciplined and you end up with a
compound that may actually be like this
this is just an example which means it
has a reactive surface because it has no
longer at optimal structure and due to
the small physical size this in earth
compound totally inert changes into
something reactive beautiful picture
quantum dot quantum dots are simply
nanoparticles as you can see between
four and ten nanometers so it’s the same
material but depending on the size gives
you a different color and this energy
scholar they also have many different
properties that are amazing optical
they are used now in many diagnostic and
quantum chemistry applications you can
also turn the world around you could say
okay we have this nice particles they
can do a lot of things to have new
properties but often if you look at
nature very carefully you see that
compounds are basically built on their
own so these are examples where
nanoparticles build their own wall and
here where proteins find their own
structure into a new cell wall they just
know where to go like you were finding
now let me take you the example of which
was the inspiration for my own business
nano for imaging looking at a rusty bike
I knew scrape off the rust you get this
red powder you can make that red powder
small again it becomes magnetic which
you see here so it becomes if you put it
in fluid and water it’s black because
it’s the light cannot go through you put
a magnet there and chose like a high
heeled magnetic fluid now we use that
because this is magnetic so if you think
it on the other way around you can use
that to disturb a magnetic field now
here you’re looking at an MRI movie in
which the black dots you see moving here
are basically caused by the iron oxide
nanoparticles which are embedded into
medical instrument so here you can see
the black dots going into the right
renal kidney of a patient and with this
method we can actually use the MRI which
is usually used as a very expensive
photo machine we can use this MRI to do
real-time interventions in people and
the advantage of MRI is that it has no
radiation that you can see the tissue
around it you don’t need any contrast
agent but it takes a transfer to go to
that new procedure more examples the
last example from medical applications
which I was also involved
that you can these nanoparticles they
are so small that they actually escaped
the normal defense system they’re almost
as small as a virus or even smaller so
they can actually get away from the
immune system and if you put something
in it there then you can actually fool
the immune system and treat cancer in
this case liver cancer much more
effectively as you would give the site
aesthetic dark alarm so a lot of
promises there back to the explosions
because why I’m here why am I telling
you this why am I am i teaching you guys
not a technology oh sorry you know I can
inspire you the reason is that I think
nanotechnology deserves better because
what I see happening is that
nanotechnology will now be embedded
nicely in the academic discipline I
think nanotechnology deserves better
nanotechnology deserves development for
the development by in academia in
business by free-thinking scientists
free thinkers as I call large
organizations like universities business
have major problems with free thinkers
this is very hard to embed and if you
embed them to a too long time this
happened so you have the explosion and
with the explosion usually people will
leave as I did from academia the other
side of the coin is that the people that
remain they say okay no explosions for
me I’ll stay here so you have an
imploded organization and now no I said
okay is my next job good are you want to
make a plea for larger organizations
companies academia Netherlands use your
free thinkers in the innovative process
which is all over the organization use
them let them go let them fly because if
you won’t do let them fly your
innovation will die that’s my message thank you very much