Robots, wired experiments and futuristic theater. It can’t be crazy enough at the Tech event Innufuture in Emmen. About 3500 visitors are now coming to it.
“It’s fantastic that we reach so many people,” says organizer Linda Meijer. The first sketches for the event were made in 2019. “We couldn’t dream of this that it would be such a success.”
Yet the ambition is not in the numbers. The aim of the event is to let schools, visitors and entrepreneurs from the local tech industry come into contact with each other. The only local parties that are still missing are the companies with care technology, such as hospitals. “A lot of tech and innovation is done within the care technology and we would like to show that.”
Most workshops are done by companies and schools. But also hobbyists show what they have in the house. For example, Krijn Schaap built a robot that he drives around with a remote control. “The children in particular think it’s fantastic. That’s why we try to be far at a distance when we serve it. Then they think it’s real and you get nice interaction.”
Schaap built the robot itself designed by Star Wars. “In daily life I work behind the computer. Then I am a lot behind a screen and it takes a long time before you see something. Here you can make something that you can also just touch with your hands. That just makes it a lot of fun. “
A little further, visitor Jula plays the game Mario in a very special way. Instead of with a mouse, the cables now stick in mucus and pieces of clay. “If you are going to press the mucus a bit, Mario will jump,” she explains.
According to her, it feels a bit dirty, yet she likes it more than with a normal computer mouse. “Because you do something else again,” she says.
Take a look at Innofuture in this video: