IRO Innovation Seminar

On Thursday october 15, Dutch Oil & Gas Association IRO and the TU Delft Offshore Technology faculty have organized the IRO Innovation Seminar. During this seminar, 4 preselected companies were allowed to present their innovations and aimed for the IRO Innovation price.

The nominees were:

• KCI with the "Multipurpose Platform", presented by Pascal Ferier
• Siemens with "Gas2wire based on ‘combined cycle generator-set (5-550MV)’", by Bob Okhuijsen
• Electromach with a presentation on explosionproof safety color CCTV camera, by Jos Abbing
• Spirit IT with an industrial computer for measurement of oil and gas fluids, by Harry Kok

Voting audience

About 130 particicpants of the seminar were asked to vote for a winner at the conclusion of the presentations. Spirit IT was the convincing winner.

Prof.ir. Kees Willemse, professor Offshore Technology at the Technical University of Delft, demonstrated in his introductionary speech the importance of innovation and the large role the TU plays in innovative reseach. ‘The TU Delft is a nursery for the industry’, according to Kees Willemse.

Student presentations

Besides the presentations of the four nominees, three (ex-)students of the TU Delft gave their presentation. Berend-Jan Kleute, student Offshore Engineering, gave a presentation on OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) as innovative source of energy. Ir. Reinder Jorritsma gave an interesting presentation on ‘wave energy conversion’ where both horizontal and vertical waves are converted into movements which are in turn converted in energy.

Ir. Niels Diepeveen, PhD student, gave a presentation on hydraulic windturbines for offshore applications.

Moderator and illusionist Dan LeFay coordinated the presentations with a great sense of humor and offered the participants fascinating entertainment with illusions and 'mindgames'. Especially narrow-minded participants had an eye-opening experience with his refreshing lectures and funny surprises.

TNO Voucher

Hans de Boer, Managing Director of IRO, awarded during the networking reception the price to the winner, CEO of Spirit IT, Harry Kok. The IRO Innovation price existed of several parts. IRO offered a for the event specially designed plaquette; a real trophee.

Hugo Vos, Business Unit Manager Oil & Gas at TNO Industry & Technology offered a voucher for an ‘Introduction of the TNO Challenge’. TNO offered the award winning company a week of utilizing TNO's expertise to brainstorm on an innovative idea. Hugo Vos describes the TNO Challenge as ‘a high-pressure cooker to push a certain innovation forward, over a dead end, in order to help out both on technical as well as on organisational point of view.

At the reception and during the networking event, participants were able to visit the information booths of participating companies at the initial offering of their innovation.

Altogether the IRO organized a successul and animated IRO Innovation seminar. This IRO Innovation seminar is organized every two years. For more information plase contact organiser Ruud Liem, Business Development Manager, liem@iro.nl or tel. 079-3411981.

To retrieve more information, click [here] for a .pdf version of the news.