News in Brief

The company Ephicas, founded by brothers Gandert and Hjalmar van Raemdonck (TU Delft PhD candidate and alumnus, respectively), was nominated for the AEAE’s Fast Start Award and are the only Dutch finalists in competition. Ephicas designs aerodynamic side-skirts for juggernaut trailers, which reduce air resistance and thus fuel consumption. The amount of fuel saved varies from 5 to 15 percent, resulting in an annual reduction of 10 to 30 tons of CO2 emissions per juggernaut. The winners of AEAE’s six prizes will be announced during a gala dinner in Stockholm on 2 December. The Fast Start Award will be presented to the entrepreneurs that have launched the business with the best chance of commercial success and impact on society. The business must be based on an idea developed at a university.

,Sandwich

‘Independent’ and ‘ingenious’ were just two of the compliments bestowed on TU Delft’s Henk den Besten by the Unilever Research Prize’s jury. A Unilever Research Prize is awarded to one student from each of Holland’s 13 universities and is worth 2,500 euro. Den Besten, TU Delft’s winner, won based on his graduation project, which studied the use of materials in rescue boats.

,No Vista

People who have laptops running Windows Vista cannot access the entire new TU Delft website. “In any case they’re completely denied access to webprint.tudelft.nl, the site where you print lecture notes,” said Menno van der Kamp, of the student party Oras, during a recent meeting with the TU Executive Board. It’s possible that financial issues are the reason for the compatibility problems. “It’s strange, to say the least, that TU Delft doesn’t support Vista,” Van der Kamp adds. The Executive Board will investigate the matter.

,Deficit

The coming year will be a difficult one for TU Delft, as the university faces a 15 million euro budget deficit. For the second consecutive year the TU expects to receive less funding from the Dutch government, and there is still no definitive answer regarding the ‘BaMa-problem’, as Executive Board secretary Hans Krul calls it, in reference to what TU Delft says are the Ministry of Education’s past miscalculations regarding the amount of funds Dutch universities were supposed to receive for implementing the Bachelor-Master (BaMa) structure. The discussions about this thorny issue are being led by the VSNU, the organization that represents all Dutch universities, but so far no agreement has been reached. Krul hopes that the TU will eventually receive the necessary funding. But how much? “We hope for 15 million,” he says. In the meantime, the university must operate as if the funding will not be allocated. Are cost-cutting measures coming? Not definitely, Krul says: “But each faculty must look at how it will deal with the deficit. This could also be through increasing their revenues.”

,Gold

Gold for the TU Delft team in the ‘international Genetically Engineered Machine’ (iGEM) competition. The TU Delft team’s research, which involved developing the DNA for a thermometer bacteria, met the highest criteria of the competition. The iGEM competition featured 15 other student teams. The TU team was also won the prize for having the best wiki, the website featuring information about their research. 

,Borrow-a-bike

Many countries have borrow-a-bike systems in place, including student cities in Germany and Denmark. And now Delft could be next, according to student party Stip, which is calling for a trial period for the innovative borrow-a-bike system called Bicyclette Movement Individual (Bimi). TU Delft researchers are currently studying the credibility of this system, which uses gps to help track a bike’s location. With the Bimi system, borrowers use the Internet to locate and reserve the closest available bike.

,Feedback

If you’d like to comment on anything appearing on the English Page or on a university-related matter, or if you have a question or suggestion for us, send your emails to d.mcmullin@tudelft.nl. We welcome all feedback from our readers. Letters intended for publication should include your name and be no longer than 350 words. This edition of Delta is also available online at www.delta.tudelft.nl, where you can also access the English Page archive.

Juggernaut

The Yes!Delft techno-starter company Ephicas is a finalist in the Academic Enterprise Awards Europe (AEAE), the first-ever European prize for entrepreneurial researchers. The company Ephicas, founded by brothers Gandert and Hjalmar van Raemdonck (TU Delft PhD candidate and alumnus, respectively), was nominated for the AEAE’s Fast Start Award and are the only Dutch finalists in competition. Ephicas designs aerodynamic side-skirts for juggernaut trailers, which reduce air resistance and thus fuel consumption. The amount of fuel saved varies from 5 to 15 percent, resulting in an annual reduction of 10 to 30 tons of CO2 emissions per juggernaut. The winners of AEAE’s six prizes will be announced during a gala dinner in Stockholm on 2 December. The Fast Start Award will be presented to the entrepreneurs that have launched the business with the best chance of commercial success and impact on society. The business must be based on an idea developed at a university.

Sandwich

‘Independent’ and ‘ingenious’ were just two of the compliments bestowed on TU Delft’s Henk den Besten by the Unilever Research Prize’s jury. A Unilever Research Prize is awarded to one student from each of Holland’s 13 universities and is worth 2,500 euro. Den Besten, TU Delft’s winner, won based on his graduation project, which studied the use of materials in rescue boats.

No Vista

People who have laptops running Windows Vista cannot access the entire new TU Delft website. “In any case they’re completely denied access to webprint.tudelft.nl, the site where you print lecture notes,” said Menno van der Kamp, of the student party Oras, during a recent meeting with the TU Executive Board. It’s possible that financial issues are the reason for the compatibility problems. “It’s strange, to say the least, that TU Delft doesn’t support Vista,” Van der Kamp adds. The Executive Board will investigate the matter.

Deficit

The coming year will be a difficult one for TU Delft, as the university faces a 15 million euro budget deficit. For the second consecutive year the TU expects to receive less funding from the Dutch government, and there is still no definitive answer regarding the ‘BaMa-problem’, as Executive Board secretary Hans Krul calls it, in reference to what TU Delft says are the Ministry of Education’s past miscalculations regarding the amount of funds Dutch universities were supposed to receive for implementing the Bachelor-Master (BaMa) structure. The discussions about this thorny issue are being led by the VSNU, the organization that represents all Dutch universities, but so far no agreement has been reached. Krul hopes that the TU will eventually receive the necessary funding. But how much? “We hope for 15 million,” he says. In the meantime, the university must operate as if the funding will not be allocated. Are cost-cutting measures coming? Not definitely, Krul says: “But each faculty must look at how it will deal with the deficit. This could also be through increasing their revenues.”

Gold

Gold for the TU Delft team in the ‘international Genetically Engineered Machine’ (iGEM) competition. The TU Delft team’s research, which involved developing the DNA for a thermometer bacteria, met the highest criteria of the competition. The iGEM competition featured 15 other student teams. The TU team was also won the prize for having the best wiki, the website featuring information about their research. 

Borrow-a-bike

Many countries have borrow-a-bike systems in place, including student cities in Germany and Denmark. And now Delft could be next, according to student party Stip, which is calling for a trial period for the innovative borrow-a-bike system called Bicyclette Movement Individual (Bimi). TU Delft researchers are currently studying the credibility of this system, which uses gps to help track a bike’s location. With the Bimi system, borrowers use the Internet to locate and reserve the closest available bike.

Feedback

If you’d like to comment on anything appearing on the English Page or on a university-related matter, or if you have a question or suggestion for us, send your emails to d.mcmullin@tudelft.nl. We welcome all feedback from our readers. Letters intended for publication should include your name and be no longer than 350 words. This edition of Delta is also available online at www.delta.tudelft.nl, where you can also access the English Page archive.