Canvas | Community | The Beacon

Agoria paves the way for all technologically inspired companies in Belgium that strive for progress based on the development and application of innovations. More than 1,900 strong technology companies are members of Agoria. In a society in which technology contributes towards improving the quality of life, you can count on Agoria to connect everyone who is inspired by technology, increase the success of companies and plan for a sustainable future.

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Headquartered in Leuven (Belgium) and with research sites across Belgium, in the Netherlands, Taiwan and the USA, an rep offices in China and Japan, imec leverages its state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure and its team of about 4,000 expert scientists, to drive open innovation across the globe. They unite world-industry leaders, Flanders-based and international companies, start-ups, and academia and knowledge centers, for R&D in nano-electronics and digital technologies, including advanced semiconductor scaling, silicon photonics, smart health, smart energy, smart mobility and smart cities solutions, artificial intelligence, beyond-5G and sensing technologies and more.

Next to its R&D offering, imec also leverages its expertise and large international industry network to support smaller organizations that have limited in-house R&D resources as well as larger companies with their innovation process from initial idea to fully functioning product, from the design of a product or chip, to prototyping, testing and optimizing, and manufacturing.

Finally, imec supports tech start-ups and scale-ups with a tailored offering. The imec.istart program is a business acceleration program that provides tech entrepreneurs with specialized coaching, facilities and overall support to help them grow their businesses, while the imec.scale-ups program focuses on larger innovative tech scale-ups looking to conquer the European market.

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Commissioned by the Flemish government, Lantis is building connections that make the city and region flourish. Lantis is responsible for the realisation of the Oosterweel connection, which will increase prosperity and improve the quality of life. Lantis is contributing to this by promoting mobility, including the construction of numerous bicycle connections and multimodal junctions on the city outskirts of Antwerp.

Lantis strives for operational excellence in order to carry out projects as efficiently as possible and deliver quality. Thanks to intensive cooperation with the surrounding area, the organisation works transparently and with a focus on results. Innovation and transformation ensure future-oriented projects with a lasting impact on the dynamics of the region. This is the Lantis way of successfully realising large projects in an urban environment.

Lantis stands for Liveable Antwerp through Innovation and Cooperation and is a public limited company. The day-to-day management is in the hands of the management committee led by managing director Luc Hellemans. David Van Herreweghe chairs the board of directors.

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As Europe’s second-largest port and largest integrated chemical cluster, the Port of Antwerp Bruges is a major lifeline for the Belgian economy: annually around 238 million tonnes of international maritime freight are handled. The Port of Antwerp Bruges accounts, directly and indirectly, for a total of around 143.000 jobs and more than €20 billion added value.

Innovation and digitisation enable our mission to be ‘a home port for a sustainable future’ as we aim to flexibly respond to a rapidly evolving maritime market. By supporting The Beacon, we want to ensure that our port platform finds relevant points of contact and vice versa. Furthermore, we want to facilitate the exchange effect created through the ecosystem being built around The Beacon.

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The city of Antwerp welcomes businesses, researchers, citizens and city officials to experiment with smart technologies that aim to make urban life more enjoyable and sustainable. Antwerp is a living lab where solutions are tested and co-created with its inhabitants. The city is home to highly innovative businesses and with 171 nationalities that live in Antwerp, it is above all a very diverse, and international city. The Ecosystem in Antwerp is developing rapidly, over the past years the amount of start-ups and scaleups in Antwerp doubled.

Innovative companies are the driving force behind the Antwerp knowledge economy. Their growth is crucial for our future. The City of Antwerp therefore strongly believes in the power of digital networking and is developing an ecosystem for digital innovation in which large and small businesses, startups, scaleups, researchers and capital providers with an interest in the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence can meet each other. Thanks to the cross-pollination that occurs in The Beacon, innovative products are developed that are relevant to Antwerp’s ‘smart city’ ambitions and to our financial stakeholders: industry and logistics.

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The University of Antwerp is a research university where pioneering, innovative research is conducted at an international level. Research and education are closely linked, with 20,000 students and 6000 staff spread across our nine faculties. As a driving force in the Antwerp innovation ecosystem, innovation is a constant focus.

The Beacon is the university’s pioneering pre-incubation structure for the domain of Metropolitanism, Smart City, Mobility & Logistics. It houses the IDLab research group and the Design Sciences Hub.

The IDLab research group of the University of Antwerp and imec performs fundamental and applied research on Wireless technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. IDLab, headed by prof. Steven Latré, targets the most daunting challenges industry is facing to deliver digital transformation, connecting everything and extracting high value from data. Bringing researchers and industrial partners together at the same location facilitates knowledge transfer and enables the cross-fertilization and co-creation insights on smart cities, IoT and AI towards the industrial partners in The Beacon.

The Design Sciences Hub of the Faculty of Design Sciences is an interdisciplinary innovation and valorization lab. They offer design solutions for urban challenges and wicked problems in the triangle of urban planning, built environment, and urban health.

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ClimateCamp raises 700k€ to reduce suppliers’ ecological footprint

Belgian ClimateTech start-up ClimateCamp raises 700k€ to reduce suppliers’ ecological footprint in the food & beverages industry

Website

Aloxy raises 3.8 Million Euro to scale up their Industrial IoT solutions globally

Aloxy, a spin-off of imec and University of Antwerp, that develops plug-and-play Internet of Things technology for the chemical and energy industry, closes its next funding round. A consortium of investors, Industrya, QBIC II, Innovation Fund, imec.istart and the University of Antwerp have joined forces with the team to invest € 3.8 million in the scale up and further growth of Aloxy. In the coming year, the company will focus on growing its sales activities as well as expanding the product range and further developing the Aloxy Industrial IoT Hub platform.

With this new round, Aloxy welcomes Industrya as a new investor who led this round. Industrya is a hands-on investment fund that operates exclusively in the industry 4.0, energy and new materials sectors.

Website

Cubitec nominated for IT project of the year

Exciting news for our community members at Cubitec.

Their project for Bebat has been nominated for IT project of the year in the Enterprise sector by Computable

Bebat is a forerunner when it comes to digital transformation and Cubitec is proud to work with them on a safe future for batteries

More here

Website

Dockflow launches Europe's first End-to-End Cargo LoraWAN based temperature monitoring service

Massive news from our community members at Dockflow.

The Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest container hub, in collaboration with, Foodcareplus an integrated international logistics provider offering specialty services in the food transportation industry, Dockflow the world’s first integrated logistics enablement platform offering container visibility, and TrakAssure, a leading provider of cargo monitoring solutions based on the ever-growing global LoRaWAN IoT network, have announced a service offering cargo temperature condition monitoring service for logistics assets and cargo, providing exception alerting solutions for cargoes for both shippers and 3PLs.

The solution uses existing LoRaWAN infrastructure at the port, where TrakAssure monitors are installed at load location and data streams into Dockflow’s servers via API, allowing it to be shared with relevant stakeholders in the cold chain.

You can read all about this exciting news here

Website

Geosparc announces partnership

Great news for our community members at Geosparc.

GEOSPARC announced at the Intertraffic conference a partnership in the development of data-driven mobility management.
A Geosparc platform trusted by numerous cities and municipalities across the Benelux region will now be powered by Mobilisis parking sensors.

More here

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Aloxy secures US patent

Aloxy is happy to announce the US patent is granted for the Aloxy valve position sensor.

Great news for our community members who are working hard on expanding in the US market.

Read the full article here

Website

Skyebase wins innovation award

Great news for our community members at Skyebase.

On the M+R fair in Antwerp, Skyebase was presented the innovation award with their new wall-and coating thickness measurement drone solution

A wonderful recognition for the Skyebase Team

Click here for more

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Software AG announces the acquisition of Streamsets

Exciting news from our community members at Software AG.

They have announcement the agreement to acquire Streamsets Inc, a leader in data integration for the modern data stack.

Website

Blog 11 // Create your own shareable Tensorboard with authentication on GCP

In this blogpost ML6's ML engineer Tim De Smet explains how to create your own shareable Tensorboards with authentication on GCP in a cost-effective way. This post includes the Terraform setup so that the solution can be replicated with ease.

You can find the full blogpost here

Website

The Beacon announces new community members

After two low-profile years, The Beacon | Innovation Community has started onboarding new Community Members . Proximus is our first The Beacon Champion , startup Rollo is one of our newest residents, and powerhouses Siemens, Positive Thinking Company and Lab Box have reinforced the community!

You can find the members in our list and if you want to meet them feel free to sent victor, the community manager a message.

The February update will come very soon

The city of Antwerp presents new electric charging sations

Exciting news from the city of Antwerp.

he City of #Antwerp has presenting new electric charging stations in collaboration with TotalEnergies and community member GEOSPARC.
In order to meet the increasing demand for electric charging capacity, the city of Antwerp is stepping up its efforts. 💡

In the coming years, TotalEnergies will install and operate charging stations in the public domain. Geosparc is responsible for optimizing the use of the charging station infrastructure and will install sensors in the car parking. These register which spaces are occupied and for how long and are integrated into a smart city middleware data platform.

Congrats to all parties involved - a step further to a sustainable future

Read the full Article here

Article is in Dutch

Website

Port of Antwerp select the 6th NeTWorK for drone roll-out

Congrats to our partner Port of Antwerp, they have recruited the 6th NeTWorK consortium to help in the roll-out of a large-scale drone project.

The group made up of DroneMatrix, Proximus, and SkeyDrone will support the launch of the port's 'D-Hive – Operation drone capacity for the Port of Antwerp' project.

You can find the full article here

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Seafar in The Tijd

Our Community members at Seafar got an extensive interview in The Tijd.

They talked about Seafar itself and the future plans of the company

You can check the full article here.

Website

Cubitec selected for Scale.Cities initiative

Exciting news from our community members at Cubitec.

Cubitec has beeen selected as one of the 5 Antwerp scaleups for Scale.Cities.

The SCALE.CITIES initiative aims to test, scale and prove scaleups’ solutions in the food, energy, waste, and mobility domains.

Very exciting what comes next.

You can read the full post here

Website

Verhaert acquires AFCE

Exciting news from our community members at Verhaert.
To boost their customers’ capacity to innovate, they are proud to announce the acquisition of the AfCE - Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship. With the shared vision of turning that statistic upside down, AfCE will complement Verhaert’s services by offering courses, incubation & acceleration programs, tools and services to support internal innovation.

More here

Website

NxtPort launches movie to highlight activities

NxtPort international have launched a new movie to highlight their activities for ports.

You can check it here

Website

Dockflow featured in Trends

Pauline van Ostaeyen, the co-founder of dockflow has given an in-depth interview about the journey that dockflow already has walked so far.

You can find the full interview here

Website

Port of Antwerp starts using drones to detect debris

One of the mail partners of The Beacon, The Port of Antwerp is deploying drones using an in-house developed machine vision model.

You'll find more about this exciting innovation here

Website

Cegeka aquires a stake in Solver Sweden

Exciting news from our community members at Cegeka.

Cegeka have acquired a majority stake in the data specialist Solver Sweden. This strategic partnership is part of Cegeka's strategy to respond to the ever-growing demand for data and AI partners.

Congrats to Cegeka for this milestone.

More here

Website

Aloxy expands into North America

Exciting news from our community members at Aloxy.

They are expanding into the North American market. This is another milestone on the growth path of Aloxy and strategically important to develop Their business in the US.

Congrats !

More information here

Website

ClimateCamp raises 700k€ to reduce suppliers’ ecological footprint

Aloxy raises 3.8 Million Euro to scale up their Industrial IoT solutions globally

Cubitec nominated for IT project of the year

Dockflow launches Europe's first End-to-End Cargo LoraWAN based temperature monitoring service

Geosparc announces partnership

Aloxy secures US patent

Skyebase wins innovation award

Software AG announces the acquisition of Streamsets

Blog 11 // Create your own shareable Tensorboard with authentication on GCP

The Beacon announces new community members

The city of Antwerp presents new electric charging sations

Port of Antwerp select the 6th NeTWorK for drone roll-out

Seafar in The Tijd

Cubitec selected for Scale.Cities initiative

Verhaert acquires AFCE

NxtPort launches movie to highlight activities

Dockflow featured in Trends

Port of Antwerp starts using drones to detect debris

Cegeka aquires a stake in Solver Sweden

Aloxy expands into North America

Stay informed

ClimateCamp raises 700k€ to reduce suppliers’ ecological footprint

Aloxy raises 3.8 Million Euro to scale up their Industrial IoT solutions globally

Cubitec nominated for IT project of the year

Dockflow launches Europe's first End-to-End Cargo LoraWAN based temperature monitoring service

Geosparc announces partnership

Aloxy secures US patent

Skyebase wins innovation award

Software AG announces the acquisition of Streamsets

Blog 11 // Create your own shareable Tensorboard with authentication on GCP

The Beacon announces new community members

The city of Antwerp presents new electric charging sations

Port of Antwerp select the 6th NeTWorK for drone roll-out

Seafar in The Tijd

Cubitec selected for Scale.Cities initiative

Verhaert acquires AFCE

NxtPort launches movie to highlight activities

Dockflow featured in Trends

Port of Antwerp starts using drones to detect debris

Cegeka aquires a stake in Solver Sweden

Aloxy expands into North America