On April 16, 2026, at De Doelen (Rotterdam), 4TU.NIRICT hosted a session on the role of ICT in the Netherlands’ National Technology Strategy (NTS), chaired by Geoffrey Nelissen (TU/e) and Suzan Bayhan (University of Twente).
💡 Key highlights:
🔸 A keynote by Dr. Frits Grotenhuis (Digital Holland) on the NTS Action Agendas, with emphasis on AI, Data, and Cybersecurity and their crossovers with other strategic domains.
🔸 Job Vogels (Fontys) shared insights on how Dutch logistics SMEs can transition from intuition-based to data-driven decision-making using AI and Machine Learning.
An important aspect of the session was also the involvement of students: 10 students were sponsored by NIRICT to attend ICT.OPEN, reflecting NIRICT’s commitment to supporting and strengthening the next generation of ICT researchers. It was great to see their engagement and enthusiasm.
The session sparked valuable discussion on how ICT research and innovation can better support the ambitions of the NTS and strengthen collaboration across sectors.
🙏 We would like to thank all speakers and participants for their contributions and active participation.