ESI symposium 2025
Date: October 7, 2025 - 09h00-18h00
Venue: Parktheater, Eindhoven (NL)
Costs registration: free
Theme: Accelerate the innovation of engineering
Accelerate the innovation of engineering
We would like to invite you to the ESI Symposium 2025.
The symposium will bring together engineering professionals, industry leaders, and researchers to explore how cutting-edge innovations in systems engineering can reshape the future of technology and society.
The symposium will focus on fostering collaboration, sharing best practices, and driving advancements that elevate engineering to meet the challenges of the modern world.
ACCELERATE THE INNOVATION OF ENGINEERING
Building on insights from the Draghi report, "The Future of European Competitiveness" this year’s ESI symposium highlights the critical role of higher productivity in securing Europe’s competitive edge. Europe’s engineering sector plays a pivotal role in addressing the global demand for sustainable, efficient, and transformative technologies.
By focusing on enhancing research, bridging knowledge gaps, and streamlining collaboration, this event aims to inspire the next wave of engineering breakthroughs.
Join us as we explore this vital theme through various subtopics and insights. We will examine how generative AI and model-based techniques can be utilized to tackle these challenges. This theme builds on our previous focus on managing complexity in cyber-physical systems, which remains an ongoing challenge.
Program
08.30 Walk-in and registration
09.30 Welcome and opening: Masoud Dorosti and Jacco Wesselius, TNO-ESI
10.00 Academic keynote: Gerrit Muller, TNO-ESI
10.40 Innovation/poster market + break
11.10 Parallel sessions
P1 Future-fit organizations
P2 The quest for engineering productivity: a synthesis-based approach
12.30 Innovation/poster market + lunch break
- mentoring session: finding your path in applied research (1)
14.00 Parallel sessions
P3 Intelligent diagnostics: Boosting equipment effectiveness
P4 Understanding and evolving systems with Generative AI
15.20 Innovation/poster market + break
- mentoring session: finding your path in applied research (2)
16.00 Industrial keynote: Wei Li, ASML
16.40 Wrap-up and closing: Masoud Dorosti and Jacco Wesselius, TNO-ESI
17.00 Drinks and networking
18.00 End
Gerrit Muller, TNO-ESI
Professor Systems Engineering University of South-Eastern Norway (USN)
INCOSE Fellow
Academic keynote
A vision on the future of Systems Engineering, what capabilities will we need?
The world around us is changing fast, technology keeps evolving much, and the solutions that we develop are increasingly a result of many interacting socio-technical systems. As a consequence, (systems) engineers need another competence profile, other methodologies, while organizations need new capabilities and better infrastructure.
In this presentation, we will look at the trends and the consequences for the high-tech industry, which we illustrate with examples from the offshore industry in Norway. Then we discuss the consequences for research and education, how can we help the high-tech industry to develop the systems engineering capabilities that fit the future?
Wei Li , ASML
Vice President Development and Engineering Software at ASML
Industrial keynote
Unlocking next wave of accelerated innovation by AI
As AI reshapes the global technology landscape, its influence on engineering innovation is profound and accelerating. At ASML, we stand at the crossroads of this transformation—both as a key contributor to AI innovation through our leading-edge lithography systems and as an explorer in applying AI to enhance our own engineering practices. In this keynote, I will discuss the dual role ASML plays in the AI revolution: driving the semiconductor advancements that empower AI, and embedding AI within our development and engineering workflows to elevate productivity, precision, and creativity. As we look ahead, we must rethink engineering—not as a static discipline, but as an evolving, intelligent ecosystem.
P1 Future-fit organizations
The current trends in the high-tech industry present significant challenges and opportunities for organizations. It is crucial to understand and address these changes by developing effective strategies and best practices to thrive in this new era. Adopting an approach where technology and human skills complement each other can lead to more sustainable, resilient, and human-centric industrial practices, ultimately delivering better value for customers and stakeholders.
Moderator: Joana Teixeira, TNO-ESI
Paul Hilkens, Vice President Research & Development, Canon Production Printing
Sezen Acur, TNO-ESI - Research Fellow
Marloes van de Wal, Vanderlande - Managing Director Innovation Strategy and Transformation
Radhika Vijaykumar Nedungadi, Vanderlande - Manager Platform Integration and Quality assurance
Sapfo Tsoutsou, Eindhoven University of Technology - Project Manager for NXTGEN Systems Engineering
P2 The quest for engineering productivity: a synthesis-based approach
The high-tech industry is challenged to increase productivity due to increasing complexity of its systems and a shortage of skilled engineers. Logic, code and configuration synthesis from increasingly high-level descriptions is a key promise of model-based engineering and enables automation in many areas, including logic synthesis and implementation of supervisory controllers and synthesis and deployment of product variants.
This track will explore recent advancements in synthesis-based engineering and showcase its productivity benefits using examples from various domains.
Moderator: Ben Pronk, TNO-ESI
Hans Schurer, Thales Nederland BV - Study manager R&T, Technical directorate & Innovation
Benny Akesson, TNO-ESI, University of Amsterdam - Senior Research Fellow
Jeroen Kouwer, Thales Nederland - Software Architect
Dennis Hendriks, TNO-ESI, Radboud University - Research Fellow
Prabhat Kumar Sharma, VDL-ETG T&D - Mechatronics Design Engineer
Lars Moormann, Rijkswaterstaat - Consultant Industrial Automation
P3 Intelligent diagnostics: Boosting equipment effectiveness
High-tech manufacturers are seeking ways to improve the servicing of their systems. This need is driven by the goal of ensuring overall equipment effectiveness, managing the ever-increasing complexity of systems, and addressing the challenge of scaling service organizations. Intelligent diagnostics leverages system knowledge, real-time data, and AI techniques to assist in designing diagnosable systems and to provide digital tools that support human decision-making.
Moderator: Marco Vicari, TNO-ESI
Mauro Barbieri, Philips Innovation & Strategy -Principal Architect Services
Jimmy van Schoubroeck, ASML Research, Senior Mechatronics Researcher and
Thomas Nägele, TNO-ESI - Research FellowEelco Schillings, Canon Production Printing - Department Manager – Technology Development and
Leonardo Barbini, TNO-ESI - Research Fellow
P4 Understanding and evolving systems with Generative AI
Development and use of high-tech systems generate large volumes of data—code, documentation, logs, operational data, and quality records—crucial for system and software maintenance and evolution. However, its complexity makes it challenging for engineers to interpret and use effectively. This track explores how generative AI, combined with traditional techniques, can help analyze diverse data sources, provide actionable insights, improve efficiency, and make maintenance and development more manageable.
Moderator: Rosilde Corvino, TNO-ESI
Gernot Eggen, Philips Ultrasound - Software Leader
Alok Lele, ASML - Project Manager for Twinscan Software Research and Innovation
Lina Ochoa Venegas, Eindhoven University of Technology - Assistant Professor
Dennis Dams, TNO- ESI - Senior Research Fellow
Ivo Canjels - Philips Image Guided Therapy - Software Architect
Finding your path in applied research
Are you starting to think about what’s next after your studies or current role? Have you wondered how to turn your research interests into real-world impact — or what a career in applied research might look like?
This mentoring program offers two parts to help you explore applied research from different angles:
Part 1 – Explore & Learn: Presentations introducing ways of working in applied research, with applied researchers sharing their career stories.
Part 2 – Talk & Connect: Small group coffee chat with a mentor. This is your opportunity to connect with people who have been where you are — and who have walked the path of applied research through various roles, from theory to prototyping, from research outcomes to real-world integration, and everything in between.