Innovation Day
November 4th 2026
Meet our Speakers
drs. Corina Prent
Managing Director of RUG Ventures, the early-stage investment company of the University of Groningen, which she has led since 2018. Trained as a chemist, she built her career as an intrapreneur in deep tech and high tech at large international companies, where she introduced a range of new innovative products. Having worked on both the research side and the industry side, she knows how big the step from lab to market can be for researchers.
At RUG Ventures, she invests in, guides, and coaches researchers from the University of Groningen and UMCG who want to turn their research into a company with real societal impact.
Prof. dr. ir. Jacquelien Scherpen
Rector Magnificus and member of the Board of the University of Groningen since September 2023. She studied Applied Mathematics at the University of Twente and then worked at Delft University of Technology for almost 13 years. In 2006, she was appointed Professor of Discrete Technology and Production Automation at the Faculty of Science and Engineering in Groningen. She served as scientific director of the Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG) from 2013 to 2019, as director of the Groningen Engineering Center, and as Director of Engineering at the faculty.
Her research is recognised nationally and internationally as innovative: in 2023 she received the Prince Friso Engineering Award, was named Engineer of the Year, and became a Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering.
Prof. dr. ir. Koert van Ittersum
Professor of Marketing and Consumer Well-being at the University of Groningen and cofounder of Balto. After obtaining his PhD at Wageningen University, he spent more than a decade in the United States at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the Georgia Institute of Technology, before returning to Groningen in 2013.
As a behavioural scientist, he shows how marketing can contribute to the well-being of consumers, with a focus on healthier and more sustainable diets. His work has appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the British Medical Journal. Together with Guido de Rooij, anaesthesiologist and trauma helicopter physician at UMCG, he founded the startup Balto: a digital platform that gives patients real-time, personalised support in following their treatment, in close collaboration with GPs and pharmacists.
Dr. Hamed Sadeghian
DeepTech entrepreneur and technology leader in the semiconductor industry. In 2016, he founded Nearfield Instruments, where he serves as CEO and CTO. Under his leadership, the company grew from a pioneering startup into a global semiconductor equipment scaleup with more than 450 employees in seven countries and a valuation of over $1.6 billion, backed by investors such as Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority, Walden Catalyst and Temasek. Its advanced precision metrology systems are deployed as inline process control solutions by leading semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.
Earlier in his career, he founded Jahesh Poulad Co., which he successfully exited in 2006, and served as Director of NOMI at TNO. He holds a PhD cum laude from Delft University of Technology and an MBA from Vlerick Business School. He is a Fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering, inventor of more than 100 patents, and was named Leading Tech Entrepreneur of the Year 2025.
Jornt de Boer
Business Developer and Trainer at Founded, the startup ecosystem organisation of the Northern Netherlands, where he works together with Innokite, the incubator programme for knowledge-intensive startups.
His focus is data-driven support of founders: defining clear milestones and helping teams reach the next one.
Dr. Maciej Grajewski
Cofounder of SG Papertronics, a Groningen DeepTech startup that grew out of research at the University of Groningen. He received his PhD from the University of Groningen in 2018 and has a background in biotechnology and microfluidics. His work centres on universal real-time monitoring systems for diagnostic and environmental purposes, with a specific focus on paper-based devices.
SG Papertronics was started by two PhD researchers who met during a VentureLab weekend, and aims to make wet-lab testing accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises through a compact device and custom test pods that can be tailored to any industry. The company raised its first investment from RUG Ventures and NOM.
Hannah Feringa
COO and CCO of Circolide, a Groningen DeepTech startup founded in 2024 that uses light and green energy to turn biomass residues into sustainable chemical building blocks called butenolides. These biobased monomers are designed as an alternative to fossil-based acrylates in products such as coatings, plastics and cosmetics, without compromising on performance. The technology originates from the research group of Nobel laureate Ben Feringa at the University of Groningen.
At Circolide, Hannah focuses on aligning scientific innovation with real customer needs and existing value chains. Together with AkzoNobel and the University of Groningen, Circolide secured around €750,000 in JTF funding to scale up its biobased monomers for high-performance coatings. To date, the company has raised over €1 million, with Future Tech Ventures among its investors.
Prof. dr. Hedderik van Rijn
Chair of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience at the University of Groningen and the founder and director of MemoryLab. Using formal modelling, he studies how people learn, remember and keep track of time, with the ambition to bring lab science into the real world. This led to the university spinoff MemoryLab: an adaptive learning system based on computational memory theories that continuously estimates each learner’s personal rate of forgetting.
In collaboration with publishers and knowledge institutes, it helps more than two million students learn facts more efficiently, increasing motivation and reducing exam anxiety. With Precision Cognition Labs, he is developing medical applications, such as accessible memory tests. His research has been funded by, among others, the European Research Council and the Dutch Research Council, and he is editor-in-chief of the journal Timing & Time Perception.
