To get straight to the point: What do you say at parties, when people ask what you do for a living?
Annemieke: "I am the manager of science, innovation and research at nursing and healthcare institution De Wever. Jeroen is strategic advisor at care institution Thebe. In addition to our individual work, we are joint initiators of the innovation centre for healthcare and welfare at Thebe and De Wever. We try to implement technological projects that can advance healthcare via MindLabs' Startup Kitchen. Always keeping in mind the client's own direction. As participants in the healthcare sector, we have of course been working on this for years. But in taking this route, we are looking for start-ups that can help us with innovations."
Jeroen: "There are a lot of issues in healthcare and nursing. Employee shortages, for example. And other innovation questions. We have been actively working on these via our innovation centre. Thebe was approached by MindLabs at the time. And we wanted to do this jointly with De Wever. Because there's a lot of knowledge there as well. And there's a lot of work to be done."

How many others are telling the same story? How many people are there in the innovation centre?
Annemieke: "We have put together a core group of 8 people; 4 people from Thebe, 4 people from De Wever. The backgrounds within that core group are very broad; from HR to a home care manager. This was deliberate. Because this enables us to think very broadly about what we need, how we can best meet the needs in practice and how we can learn and develop most efficiently." 

How long have you been working at the innovation centre?
Annemieke: "We signed the contract on 5 March 2020. But before that, of course, we had already made a good start. At that time, we had already established the main lines of cooperation; the topics, and that sort of thing." 

And what is the ultimate goal?
Annemieke: "We want to increase the ability of healthcare workers to adapt to technology and innovation. And we are, for example, looking for ways to raise awareness of the issues for ageing people through one channel. The question of whether a client has already taken their medication, for example; Medido has a solution in the form of a dispenser. But a medicine watch can also work well. There are so many possibilities. So figuring out the right option for a specific person takes time. So we would like to go a bit more in the direction of bol.com. Because sometimes you need just that one reference from someone to know what suits you. Then you can offer the right solution option to the target group at a very early stage. 

And why is the Startup Kitchen such an asset for you?
Annemieke: "As an example, there is a platform developer working in the Startup Kitchen. And someone who is working on 'learning'. This is extremely interesting if you want to develop adaptive capacity in employees. The Startup Kitchen has many participants who can be of great value to us."  
How has contact with other participants helped you? 
Annemieke: "In the Startup Kitchen you can spar with each other and come up with new ideas. Because everyone has his or her own field of expertise. Through new insights, things start to incubate within you. You know what you need and what someone else can do. It's a continuous process that takes place in the Startup Kitchen." 

What do you expect to get out of the collaborations in the future?
Jeroen: "We very much hope for an even closer cooperation with the college and university, so that we can take many more steps in the field of Artificial Intelligence. I also think it's good that we can show schools and students how interesting it is to work in our field." 
What are you cooking up at the moment? 
Jeroen: "We want to do more with the data we have in our organisations. For example, we are discussing with Fontys ICT the possibilities for predicting behaviour on the basis of our data patterns." 

And what recipe are you going to stun the market with?
Annemieke: "That's precisely the whole point of our innovation centre. If I knew already, I would have started a start-up myself. But it's important that we can continue to provide healthcare for everyone in the right way. Through robotisation where necessary, because having robots is better than having no one at all. But preferably with people, where possible. We are working towards this together" 
Jeroen: "In time, we will actively start offering things. Challenges, for example. Schools can then sign up for them. These include innovations to organise healthcare more efficiently or to predict the demand for healthcare. This will also make it possible to tap into subsidies. Because then you will be active in the fields of education, business services and healthcare. With our innovation centre, there are just an enormous amount of possibilities..." 

Want to know more? Then watch the video below. Or for more information, visit www.thebe.nl and www.dewever.nl .