Province’s visit during
‘Rondje Brabant’

On the 3rd of September, were expecting a visit from the king’s commissary of Noord-Brabant and the representatives of the provincial government during their yearly ‘Rondje Brabant’. Hence, we gave a warm welcome to Wim van de Donk, Christophe van der Maat, Marianne van der Sloot, Anne-Marie Spierings, Rik Grashoff, Erik van Merrienboer, Martijn van Gruijthuijsen, Renze Bergsma, Marcel van Bijnen, Michèle Vlug, Marc Glaudemans, Jochem Meulesteen, Jeroen Smarius, Silvia Derks, José Voets, Tom Siebeling, Natasja Wijnen, Anja van Hout, Thea Neijs and Machteld van der Ploeg.

After the plenary provincial board was welcomed in with coffee, tea and chocolates, Jalila was happy to tell them all about BioArt’s current projects and collaborations by which BioArt contributes to the province’s innovative, sustainable and educational landscapes; parties such as Waterschap de Dommel, the Eurpean Space Agency and educational institutes such as Fontys, HaS and the Internatonal School Eindhoven.

Additionally, we wanted to inspire the attendees by talking about non-invasive ways to use nature for innovative projects, since facilitating such inventions is one of BioArt’s main goals and necessary if we want to work towards a circular economy. As an example, we introduced the attendees to the tree-antenna technique, which allows for the broadcasting of radio signals by using sap flow in trees. Anne-Marie Spierings had the honor to broadcast a message to a radiostation located in Best. However, after she introduced herself and the plenary provincial board, the connection got disrupted. Perhaps the receiver got a tiny bit intimidated and hung up. Curious about this technique? you can watch a fragment of the Dutch television show Klokhuis from January 2018 below (source).

Afterwards, the guests were given a tour around the remaining area of our historical military bunker complex and our containing self-regulating energy facilities consisting of solar panels, sustainable water waste system and our underwater battery pack which we use to store energy, based on an old-Russian patent on submarines.

As a thankyou, all BioArt employees were granted a recycled gift bag containing locally produced honey and a bottle of chardonnay from Oosterhout’s vineyard. After praising BioArt’s arcievements and perseverance, we said goodbye to Wim van de Donk and his colleagues. It was an honor to welcome our province’s board to BioArt and we hope to have inspired them by showing that in a tech-driven city such as Eindhoven, technology, nature and the creative industry can be combined to create promising sustainable innovations.