Philips : 'Innovatie is vooral een kwestie van doorzettingsvermogen en empathie'

"One of the projects I worked on, was developing a solution for osteo arthritis. Patients often suffer from pain which makes them walk more slowly, but it is important that they keep their joints moving. So, we asked ourselves: how can we relief the pain that they feel? We ended up developing an electrode patch that patients can stick to their knee, which interrupts the pain signal before it gets to the brain.
With all these projects, I was coming closer to my passion of solving real problems that people have in life, with technology. And I learned that it's not always the technology that is the biggest hurdle in developing a solution.
You also must think early in the innovation how it is going to be used in actual practice, what is its benefit to the user, how you can test it, who will pay for it. Looking at a solution from this perspective, with a helicopter view, connecting the dots, that to me is the most rewarding job you can have."