Insights & stories

Autonomous driving just got a step away from science fiction and closer to our daily life thanks to recent approval by the KBA (German Federal Motor Transport Authority) of the highly automated parking system developed by Mercedes-Benz and Bosch.

Many companies and organisations lack a genuine innovation culture. With Dragons’ Den, BDO Belgium is not falling into this trap, as witnessed by this new internal innovation trajectory.

C-energy, part of Cordeel Group, has taken a shareholding in MEAM, a Belgian company with national and international activities in the field of industrial microwave technology.

Recticel is one of the partners of Living Tomorrow. We see our partnership with Living Tomorrow as an extension of our innovation strategy. Together with all other partners and the architects and contractors of this project, we want to further develop certain sustainable insulation concepts. The aim of these projects is to achieve lower CO₂ emissions or increase productivity on the construction site, for example when measuring a roof via drones.

Looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, the improvement of the network and capabilities of XR terminals will push XR technology into an era of full immersion. XR or ‘extended reality’ is an umbrella term for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). What real life applications can we expect, roughly in a decade from now?

Soon – possibly sooner than we think - our online orders will be delivered to our homes by a self-driving or even flying and, moreover, non-polluting robot. In fact, two American companies using such robots have already received the licences required to roll out autonomous deliveries in the coming months in Silicon Valley. “So it’s just a matter of time before we see them flying and driving around here as well”, anticipates Joachim De Vos.

Imagine a teleconference, with holograms instead of a checkerboard of faces. Or digital communication including smell, hearing and touch, in addition to sight and sound. Pure science fiction? Not really. It is what researchers think possible by 2030, through 6G. Today, we are surrounded by digital technologies that make our lives easier. Tomorrow, the immersive experience of 6G will blur the boundaries between the digital and physical world.

At the Future Forward Talk Joachim De Vos sits down with a key figure from one of our partner companies. He had a conversation with Marleen Porto-Carrero, managing partner of Farys, the Intermunicipal Company of Flanders for water distribution.

Artificial intelligence or “AI” for short: these two letters symbolize a world of technological possibilities that seemed inconceivable only a few years ago. AI is no longer just a secret code among techies. It has quite literally taken up residence in our living rooms through connected home appliances, as well as in our offices, where intelligent systems in smartphones and e-mail boxes serve as our virtual assistants.

Building the home of the future also means looking into the future of the construction industry. Frederik Vaes (UAU Collectiv) and Bart Thijs, two architects behind our new ‘Living Tomorrow’ campus, see several important developments. “The soaring prices of energy and building materials and the importance of sustainability are forcing us to look beyond the latest gadgets and attractive design”, they say.