As we put the wraps on the decade of the 2010’s here in Osceola County, we’re asking local officials and “movers ‘n shakers” to reflect on the last year of this one and the first one of the new decade, the “Roaring ’20s”, and how we’re going to best usher it in.
Bert Gyselinckx is vice president and managing director of imec USA – a nanoelectronics design center for photonics and high-speed electronics housed at NeoCity. He’s a pioneer by birth and electrical engineer by training, leading teams in the development of disruptive technologies that include Wi-Fi systems, smart watches, health patches and brain monitors.
Here are his thoughts on the past year, hopes for the one upcoming and how he imec and NeoCity will be serving the community when we do this again in 2029.
What were imec USA’s biggest wins in 2019 at the NeoCity campus?
Besides moving in to our new Class A office space at NeoCity, we grew our pipeline of industry funded projects, and won research grants from the likes of NASA, FEMA, and others. We’re also proud of the work we have been doing to find a high-tech detection solution for the critical nonnative Burmese python problem in Florida’s Everglades.
What is imec Florida looking forward to accomplishing in 2020? What has the best chance of occurring?
Our primary goal at our NeoCity location is to create world-leading innovations in technology, and thereby continue growing a pipeline of partners, projects, and talent that contribute to the economy of Osceola County. This year we also aim to explore technology-based solutions to help address some of Florida’s water pollution issues by leveraging and customizing technology from imec’s Internet of Water project, which is currently underway near our Headquarters in Belgium.
When we look forward 10 years, what does imec Florida hope its operations will look like? What role do you think it will play in a mostly or fully built out NeoCity campus?
We hope that one day NeoCity will be an innovative environment similar in nature to imec’s City of Things, where we work together with citizens, governments and players from across the high-tech value chain to innovate, test out and produce technologies that make the world a better-functioning, more connected place.
