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<p><strong>“Technology is neither a panacea nor sacred; it’s all about how it’s applied.” These are the words of Marcel Fortuin, director of the startup Assetworx and of GSWRX, the innovation center at De Gasfabriek, which helps companies develop new business models and propositions. With digital technology as the common thread, but with the question at the forefront.</strong></p><p><img src="https://cms.aihub-oost.nl/uploads/Ur_Vs_V_Xv7_Ew4ecu_H6_C7_G_Woo_Jza6a_FB_Umx1_DECNN_Mq_8531cbc50f.jpeg" alt="UrVsVXv7Ew4ecuH6C7GWooJza6aFBUmx1DECNNMq.jpeg" srcset="https://cms.aihub-oost.nl/uploads/thumbnail_Ur_Vs_V_Xv7_Ew4ecu_H6_C7_G_Woo_Jza6a_FB_Umx1_DECNN_Mq_8531cbc50f.jpeg 234w,https://cms.aihub-oost.nl/uploads/small_Ur_Vs_V_Xv7_Ew4ecu_H6_C7_G_Woo_Jza6a_FB_Umx1_DECNN_Mq_8531cbc50f.jpeg 500w,https://cms.aihub-oost.nl/uploads/medium_Ur_Vs_V_Xv7_Ew4ecu_H6_C7_G_Woo_Jza6a_FB_Umx1_DECNN_Mq_8531cbc50f.jpeg 750w,https://cms.aihub-oost.nl/uploads/large_Ur_Vs_V_Xv7_Ew4ecu_H6_C7_G_Woo_Jza6a_FB_Umx1_DECNN_Mq_8531cbc50f.jpeg 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="3680" height="2456"></p><h2>Disruptive business models</h2><p>In 2015, the De Gasfabriek Business Innovation Campus was established on the grounds of the former gasworks in Deventer, housing the GSWRX innovation center. The goal: to inform companies and organizations about the exponential development of digital technology and to help these companies develop new, disruptive business models. Together with participants in the Codidact talent program, the center also works on validating these new business models in the market. The goal is to further develop these models or launch a startup—whether independently or in collaboration with the client—such as Nefit Bosch, Nouryon, GD Gezondheidsdienst voor Dieren, the Province of Overijssel, the Municipality of Deventer, and Shell.</p><h2>Road Maintenance</h2><p>One of the startups that emerged from this initiative is Assetworx. The Province of Overijssel commissioned the project to better predict and more intelligently plan road maintenance. Assetworx Director Marcel Fortuin: “The request was to do this using existing data sources and a multi-agent solution, consisting of multiple intelligent software modules, each with a certain degree of autonomy. This ultimately led to the development of the transparent, data-driven software tool Predictive Road Maintenance (PRM).”</p><p>Currently, maintenance plans are largely based on the knowledge and experience of road authorities. “Essential data, such as that from specialized road inspections, is often locked away. As a result, many road authorities find themselves dependent on market players.”</p><p>In other words: digital technology is not yet being used to its full potential in this sector. “That is exactly what we want to change with Assetworx. As part of a startup-in-residence program, we’ve spent the past few years developing a completely new approach to maintenance planning, centered on data transparency and accessibility. Based on objective data, machine learning models help road authorities optimize their road maintenance planning. There’s a lot of enthusiasm from the market; this also allows us to take an important step forward toward a circular infrastructure sector.”</p><p>Assetworx is now also working on collecting and analyzing images itself, to identify areas where the road surface is deteriorating more quickly. Marcel: </p><blockquote><p>Instead of checking the road surface everywhere once a year with expensive cameras, we’re looking at how we can collect data very regularly using commodity hardware. </p></blockquote><p>For example, with cameras in garbage trucks. And perhaps soon in self-driving cars. That way, you can spot road surface deterioration much faster and repair it in a timely manner, thereby extending its lifespan.”</p><h2>Happy chickens</h2><p>That’s how technology makes new things possible. “But it starts with the process of figuring out what new things are actually needed. Look at some supermarket certification labels, which indicate how many square meters of living space a chicken has, for example. They link that to how well the chicken is doing, but should we reason that way? Wouldn’t it be better to determine whether a chicken is happy and thus look at actual animal welfare?”</p><p>Assetworx asked experts to evaluate videos of chickens: do they exhibit natural behavior or not? “Using machine learning, we’ve trained a model that’s getting better and better at assessing behavior. The next step is to apply this in large chicken coops and remove the chickens that exhibit unnatural behavior. Often, that behavior is a sign that the chicken is sick.”</p><h2>Putting the question first</h2><p>What Marcel wants to make clear with these examples: put the question first. “And not: ‘We can do this and that with AI—where are we going to apply it?’ Our experience is that far too few organizations are aware of the enormous technological developments currently taking place. Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have already collected so much data that they can use it to continually develop new initiatives. For example, Google is becoming active in the travel industry, Amazon and Apple in healthcare, and Facebook has plans for a digital currency. In this context, technology sometimes seems like an end in itself, without us being able to grasp the full scope.”</p><p>“If we truly want to make progress in this area and spark young talent’s interest in technology and the region, we’ll need to showcase concrete examples. That’s why we must develop challenges that stakeholders can collaborate on. This will make the added value of technology tangibly visible, and at the same time, we’ll be taking steps toward becoming an attractive region.”</p>

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<p>“Technology is neither a panacea nor sacred; it’s all about how it’s applied.” These are the words of Marcel Fortuin, director of the startup Assetworx and of GSWRX, the innovation center at De Gasfabriek, which helps companies develop new business models and propositions. With digital technology as the common thread, but always putting the customer’s needs first.</p>