The Netherlands might not be present at the World Cup in Russia but students at Eindhoven University of Technology have taken the world RoboCup title after beating a Portuguese team 1-0 at the final in Montreal.

It is the fourth time the Eindhoven team, known as Tech United, have taken the title. They lost the final last year to a team from China.

The Eindhoven University is partnering with various companies to 3D print a community of five houses. The concrete structures will be fully habitable, and will be available to residents next year.

3D printed structures are being erected across the world, but a heavy portion of this concrete additive manufacturing innovation seems to be centered in the Netherlands. Last year, the Eindhoven University of Technology and the UK-based construction company BAM began 3D printing a functional bicycle bridge in the city.

Brainport Eindhoven has set up the Cyber Weerbaarheid Centrum (CWCB) to help businesses protect themselves from digital espionage and sabotage. It will target especially SMEs working in high-tech industries around the Eindhoven business cluster, and they will be invited to join a collective system for guarding against hacking.

Drilling out a hole in the skull base requires great precision and often takes many hours, a demanding procedure for a surgeon. Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have developed a surgical robot to take over this task. With sub-millimeter precision, the robot can automatically and safely mill a cavity of the desired shape and dimensions. Jordan Bos received his PhD on 16 April for the robot he designed and built. The robot is expected to perform its first surgery within five years.

Each year, surgeons trepanate more than 100,000 people worldwide, for example to treat infections or cancer, or to place a cochlear implant. This is a delicate task, because they come across quite a few structures that they must avoid, such as motor and sensory nerves, and structures of the inner ear. In addition, bone filings and blood impede the view through the microscope during the procedure. The surgeon must therefore work with extreme concentration, often for hours, in an uncomfortable posture.

The Netherlands Trade and Investment Office (NTIO) has for decades devoted itself to boosting bilateral ties between Taiwanese and Dutch institutions in various fields, from agriculture to renewable energy. NTIO Representative Guy Wittich discussed how the Netherlands is moving toward a circular economy and strengthening its relations with Taiwan in an interview with ‘Taipei Times’ staff reporter Kuo Chia-erh in Taipei on Jan. 17

Taipei Times (TT): How is the Netherlands turning circular economy from a nice idea into reality?

The Dutch municipality of Eindhoven and the Fontys school for higher education have signed a deal to work together in Eindhoven as a 'Smart Society'. The university college will think about issues in administrative, social and economic fields, such as the use of data science. Fontys will develop a learning cycle around these themes and let students conduct their graduation projects at the municipality of Eindhoven. The contract is for three years. Other parties will also be welcome.

For a week this past October, the population of Eindhoven, Netherlands, more than doubled as nearly 300,000 visitors flocked to the mid-size city for the 15th annual Dutch Design Week. But the quiet manufacturing town—home to the legendary Design Academy Eindhoven and a burgeoning class of emerging and established talents—hasn't always been a place to write home about.

"Eindhoven was a sad city that no one wanted to stay in," remembers designer Piet Hein Eek, who went against the grain and set up shop there after graduating from Design Academy in 1990.

This year’s Dutch Design Week in the city of Eindhoven was called Stretch, and it encouraged its participants to stretch their design practices to the edges of what is possible, open themselves up to new perspectives, and collaborate with others. It certainly delivered on the theme with 110 venues and over 600 exhibitions, tours, and presentations celebrating both established designers and emerging talent (the Design Academy Eindhoven’s graduate show alone filled three huge floors with almost 200 works). The focus was on ideas, solutions, innovations, and some very clever collaborations between historic brands and young designers.

A town called Gemert in the Netherlands just became home to the first 3D-printed cycling bridge ever. It took its creators at Eindhoven University three months and 800 layers to complete the 26-foot-long bridge, but now it's open and ready to support hundreds of cyclists a day. The researchers had to develop a new 3D printing technique that uses steel reinforcement cables to create pre-stressed concrete. Once they were done laying out all its layers, they tested the bridge by placing a five-ton weight on top of it. Their efforts paid off: while they'll surely improve the method even more, they believe they're now capable of using the technique to build even bigger structures.

Eindhoven in the South of the Netherlands, is to roll out 25 interactive kiosks to help residents, visitors, business and local government engage with the city.

It will be the first deployment of Citybeacon’s smart city platforms in collaboration with Zytronic Displays, a provider of durable projected capacitive technology touch sensors, and OCP Solutions, a developer of public outdoor communication products.