The IO+ Week: Getting bored takes you mountain-high

Sometimes the best idea starts with nothing at all. No meeting, no deadline, no urgent message, no quick scroll through the phone. Just a window, the sound of rain, a quiet room, and a brain that is finally allowed to wander. In her column this week, IO+ editor-in-chief Elcke Vels makes a plea for boredom. Not the empty, grey kind of boredom we try to escape from, but the fertile kind: the silence in which thoughts begin to connect, plans take shape, and creativity gets room to breathe. In a world where every minute of waiting is immediately filled by a screen, that may be more radical than it sounds.

Elcke’s own proof? A random quiet moment on the couch, resisting the urge to grab her phone, led to a decision that took her all the way to the Madrid Marathon. Another one up the Matterhorn. That is what boredom can do: it can move you from stillness to action, from restlessness to ambition. It might even get you mountain-high.

Watt Matters

And speaking of big ambitions: Watt Matters in AI returns on 16 and 17 November 2026 at the Conference Center on High Tech Campus Eindhoven. IO+’s conference on energy-efficient artificial intelligence brings together researchers, chip designers, engineers, policymakers and industry leaders to tackle one of the defining questions of the AI era: how do we make AI grow without letting its energy demand run out of control? Early-bird tickets are available for only a couple more weeks via wattmattersinai.eu. You can also subscribe to the Watt Matters in AI newsletter.

Now, for some other highlights from the past week.

The real university crisis is still ahead

Dutch universities may be able to absorb today’s budget cuts, but the more serious threat lies elsewhere: demographic decline. With 33,000 fewer university students expected by 2034, the Netherlands risks losing not just income for institutions, but also talent, research capacity and innovative strength in sectors that already face serious shortages.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/universities-can-absorb-the-cuts-the-real-blow-will-come-later

From TU/e lab to real-world impact

The first TU/e Tech Transfer Challenge has crowned Polaris as its winner. The real-time guidance system for carotid ultrasound shows exactly why university labs matter: hidden inside academic research are technologies that can become companies, improve healthcare and save lives.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/tues-tech-transfer-challenge-crowns-its-first-winner

© IO+

Power from the ditch

Hydropower usually brings to mind dams and large infrastructure, but Emrgy takes a different approach. Its modular turbines turn existing canals and waterways into steady sources of green electricity, offering a scalable complement to wind and solar without major changes to the landscape.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/power-from-the-ditch-modular-hydropower

Solar has won. Now the grid must catch up

At TU Delft’s solar labs, the future of photovoltaics is already visible: smarter panels, better materials, circular design and integration with batteries. The biggest barrier is no longer whether solar works, but whether our grids, storage systems and policies can keep pace with its success.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/the-solar-era-is-already-here-now-comes-the-hard-part

Brainport HealthTech enters its next phase

A new snapshot of Brainport’s health ecosystem shows 47 active medtech and healthtech startups and scaleups, together raising more than €600 million. The region’s challenge now is to turn individual successes into a mature ecosystem that helps companies move from lab to clinic, from prototype to certified product, and from first funding to international scale.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/brainports-health-ecosystem-moves-from-startup-success-to-scale

Europe wants technological sovereignty

With a new package targeting chips, cloud, AI, open source and energy infrastructure, the European Commission is trying to reduce Europe’s dependence on non-European technology suppliers. The ambition is clear: digital sovereignty will require industrial capacity, open ecosystems, resilient infrastructure and enough energy to power it all.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/eu-launches-plan-to-slash-reliance-on-non-european-tech-suppliers

Brabant takes a step toward molten salt nuclear energy

European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has given the symbolic go-ahead for a molten salt reactor test site in Brabant. The PROMOSA project, involving Thorizon, VDL Groep, DEMCON and the province, aims to test crucial components for a new generation of compact reactors that could provide stable, low-carbon energy and industrial heat.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/eu-commissioner-gives-go-ahead-for-brabants-molten-salt-reactor

ASML spin-off raises €20 million

Eindhoven-based Invisix has raised €20 million to develop chip inspection technology using soft X-rays, reconstruction algorithms and machine learning. With modern chips becoming ever smaller and more complex, the ASML spin-off wants to detect defects that current optical measurement methods can no longer see.

https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/asml-spin-off-raises-20-million-for-chip-inspection

A Daily Podcast

Or do you prefer to listen? A new episode of our daily podcast is ready for you every weekday at 6:30 AM. In it, our AI colleagues Oliver and Shelby discuss the two most interesting stories of the day. That makes IO+ Daily the perfect way to start your morning with optimistic news from the world of innovation and technology. See you tomorrow.

Our Other Newsletters

Thank you for reading this newsletter. But there’s more. Subscribing is easy — via the options on the IO+ homepage or simply by clicking one of the newsletters below:

• IO+ Daily (1,200 subscribers)
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• Elcke’s Saturday Data Dive (monthly, 20,550 subscribers)
• Elcke en Mauro’s BIO+ Bites (monthly, 29,300 subscribers)
• Bart’s Saturday CHIPS (monthly, 16,300 subscribers)

Enjoy your Sunday, and don’t forget: a new episode of IO+ Daily will be waiting for you tomorrow morning at 6:30. Be prepared before you hop on your bike! 🚲

Enjoy your week!