iMinds insights - Flipped Knowledge Transfer Model

TECH UPDATES BASED ON INTERVIEWS WITH ACADEMIC AND INDUSTRY EXPERTS - WWW.IMINDS.BE/INSIGHTS
AS A STARTUP, YOU
CAN’T JUST WALK INTO
A UNIVERSITY AND
COMMISSION RESEARCH,
BUT IMINDS GIVES YOU
THE HEFT TO GET THAT
DONE.
“
Zhong Xu,
Lightspeed Restaurant Director
of Hospitality Product
FLIPPED
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFER
Giving digital startups access
to vital research capacity

04EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
06GIVING DIGITAL STARTUPS
ACCESS TO VITAL
RESEARCH CAPACITY
14SERVING UP THE CLOUD TO
RESTAURANTS AROUND THE
WORLD
Zhong Xu,
Lightspeed Restaurant Director
of Hospitality Product
18FINDING MARKET
OPPORTUNITY
THE ‘FLIPPED’ WAY
Bart Van der Roost,
CEO neoScores
22PHARMACEUTICAL
RESEARCH JUST GOT
A WHOLE LOT FASTER
Hans Constandt,
Ontoforce

GIVING DIGITAL STARTUPS ACCESS TO VITAL
RESEARCH CAPACITY
Research capacity is one of the biggest
gaps separating startups from the
marketplace — the knowledge and
means to turn innovative ideas into
customer-ready solutions.
While larger companies are often
plugged into the research community
or have their own in-house research
and development teams, a startup’s
innovation efforts are usually driven
by small teams of developers and
creatives, often operating without a
precisely defined roadmap. In essence,
startups lack the “R” part of the R&D
equation.
iMinds’ Flipped Knowledge Transfer
Model gives these companies access
to the academic research capacity
of Flanders’ five universities in a
way that’s tailored specifically to
their needs and dynamics. Agile and
incremental, this approach gives
startups the freedom to ‘fail fast’ and
change direction quickly — yielding
tangible results that can be applied
directly to solution development.
REVERSING
THE KNOWLEDGE FLOW
The Flipped Knowledge Transfer Model
reverses the researcher-driven flow of
traditional academic research. Instead,
discovery is motivated directly by
the business and technical innovation
challenges brought forward by digital
entrepreneurs.
While conventional contract research
also reverses the knowledge transfer
flow in this way, the Flipped model
is different because it focuses
specifically on meeting the needs
of startup companies. It is also
highly collaborative: researchers
and entrepreneurs form a team,
working together to define research
questions, write research proposals
and co-create knowledge.
Finally, the Flipped model helps solve
other challenges faced by startups
in the early stages of development,
such as obtaining access to financing.
Without being able to demonstrate
the capacity to follow through on
research requirements, startups risk
losing out on vital financial support
from funding bodies.
THENIGHT
BEFOREIMINDS
THECONFERENCE,
IGOTANE-MAILFROM
IMINDS.LESSTHAN
AMONTHLATER,
WECONFIRMEDA
PARTNERSHIPFOR
IMPLEMENTINGAN
ADAPTIVELEARNING
ALGORITHMFOR
APPNINJAS.
“
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Freek van de Griendt,
Founder & Managing
Director App Ninjas
04 | iMinds insights

THE FLIPPED MODEL APPLIED
The Flipped model was born out of
iMinds’ collaboration with Flemish
startup Ontoforce, which in 2011
was seeking to solve a specific
technical problem associated with
its semantic web search solution.
iMinds connected the company to
its Multimedia Lab (MMLab) research
group at Ghent University, which
developed the solution Ontoforce
needed. The company then bought
the intellectual property and struck
an ongoing R&D arrangement with
MMLab.
More recently, iMinds has supported
a wide range of startups, including
App Ninjas and POSIOS. In the case
of App Ninjas, iMinds connected
the company with its ITEC research
group at KU Leuven to advance the
customization engine of its e-learning
platform. For POSIOS, iMinds helped
devise a test methodology to ensure
its cloud-based point-of-sale platform
would meet the real-time demands of
the restaurant industry. While working
with iMinds, POSIOS grew from a team
of three to a global business with
23 employees and more than 700
customers — thereby becoming part
of international hospitality solution
provider Lightspeed.
THE WAY FORWARD
By connecting entrepreneurs to the
research capacity they require and
orienting the research process around
solving specific challenges associated
with targeted R&D, iMinds’ Flipped
Knowledge Transfer Model stands to
boost the economic performance of
startup companies, forge new bonds
between academia and industry,
and help governments achieve
their objectives for commercialized
innovation.
iMinds is one of a very few incubators
that has built-in research capacity.
Since its inception, iMinds has
supported more than 80 startup
projects through its iStart incubation
program. In 2011, the program was
opened up to external entrepreneurs;
currently, more than half of the iStart
incubation projects come from outside
iMinds or academia.
iMinds extends an open invitation to
all entrepreneurs and researchers to
connect with its team and discuss
opportunities to further test and
deploy the Flipped Knowledge Transfer
Model.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
about iMinds’ collaboration between
startups and researchers, please
contact Sven De Cleyn
sven.decleyn@iminds.be
iMinds insights | 05

IMINDS’ FLIPPED KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
MODEL LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD AND GETS
INNOVATIONS TO MARKET
Research capacity is one of the
biggest gaps between startups and
the marketplace — the knowledge
and means to turn innovative ideas
into customer-ready solutions.
While larger companies are often
plugged into the research community
or have their own in-house research
and development teams, startups’
innovation efforts are usually driven
by small teams of developers and
creatives, often operating without a
precisely defined roadmap. In essence,
startups lack the “R” part of the R&D
equation.
Public research organizations like
iMinds typically exist to advance their
countries’ innovation agendas by
making research capacity available
to industry, but they tend to require
companies to at least know what
kind of knowledge they need. Yet
startups, which typically operate
in ‘exploration mode’, don’t often
bring forward perfectly formulated
research hypotheses. In many cases,
finding the question is a key step in
their process.
iMinds’ Flipped Knowledge Transfer
Model meets startups where they’re at.
It gives them access to the academic
research capacity of Flanders’ five
universities through an approach
tailored to their size, needs and
dynamics. Agile and incremental,
the Flipped model gives startups the
freedom to innovate — to fail fast and
change direction quickly — yielding
tangible results that can be applied
directly to solution development.
GIVING
DIGITAL STARTUPS
ACCESS TO VITAL
RESEARCH CAPACITY
WHY STARTUPS MATTER
Small- and medium-sized
companies are major engines
of economic development,
responsible for about half of all
jobs and more than 90 percent
of business in many regions.
Despite that vital role, these
companies — especially startups
— struggle to make use of the
research capacity they need to
realize their full potential.

The Flipped model also helps solve
other challenges faced by startups
in the early stages of development,
such as obtaining access to financing.
Without being able to demonstrate the
capacity to follow through on research
requirements, startups risk losing
out on vital financial support from
funding bodies. As several iMinds-
supported startups have found, having
an experienced, credible research
partner - with financial means - on
board can make the difference.

WHAT’S BEING FLIPPED?
Flipped Knowledge Transfer reverses
the researcher-driven flow of
traditional academic research, so
that discovery is instead motivated
directly by the business and technical
innovation challenges brought
forward by digital entrepreneurs.
While conventional contract research
also reverses the knowledge transfer
flow in this way, the Flipped model
is different because it focuses
specifically on meeting the needs
of startup companies.
CONTRACT RESEARCH THE FLIPPED MODEL
Because part of their challenge is
defining, in a fundamental way, what
research questions need answering
in order for innovation goals to be
achieved, startups have a unique
need to approach knowledge creation
collaboratively rather than as a one-
sided venture.
This is precisely the focus of the
Flipped model: researchers and
entrepreneurs form a team, working
together to define research questions,
write research proposals and >>
THE FLIPPED MODEL
Designed specifically
for startups, the Flipped
model helps bridge the
cultural divide between
entrepreneurs and
researchers, facilitating
greater collaboration as
the research problem is
identified, (re)defined and
solved. It may also take
a more entrepreneurial
approach to research
funding, based on the
principles of risk and
reward.
CONTRACT RESEARCH
With traditional contract
research, companies pay
research organizations
to generate the answers
to specific, well-defined
questions. Few startups
have the deep pockets
required for this type of
engagement.
VS

co-create knowledge. This degree
of collaboration marks a change in
traditional research relationships in
that it requires researchers to become
more entrepreneurially minded and
for innovation to be applied to the
funding process.
iMinds’ collaboration with Ontoforce
is a good illustration of this kind of
collaboration. Founded in Flanders,
Ontoforce came to iMinds for help
strengthening its business plans and
also to solve a specific technical
problem associated with its semantic
web search solution. iMinds connected
the company to researchers in its
Multimedia Lab (MMLab) at Ghent
University.
MMLab developed the solution
Ontoforce needed; the company
bought it, built it into its product and
struck an ongoing R&D arrangement
with MMLab. Rather than receive
traditional research funding, MMLab
recouped its investment of time and
effort through the sale of intellectual
property (IP) to Ontoforce. In other
words, MMLab took the risk and reaped
the reward.
BRIDGING THE CULTURE GAP
Working closely together may
not always be perfectly intuitive
or comfortable for startups and
researchers at first. After all, the
business and research cultures are
inherently different. In business, the
old saying that “time is money” is
truer than ever before; getting to
results as quickly and efficiently as
possible is always a prime objective.
In research, on the other hand,
exploration has enormous value
and is vital to the process of true
discovery; thoroughness trumps
haste due to the unforgiving rigor
of peer review.
THE FLIPPED MODEL APPLIED
iMinds defined the Flipped model
through the experience of working
with Ontoforce. Since then, it has
applied it to a number of startups —
in some cases proactively identifying
opportunities to connect startups to
the research capacity they require.
That was the story with Flemish
startup App Ninjas.
O
C
T
20
11
M
AY
20
12
D
EC
20
12
N
O
V
20
11
THE ONTOFORCE EXPERIENCE: A TIMELINE
Ontoforce
approaches iMinds
with the idea for a
semantic web
search solution.
iMinds realizes
Ontoforce needs to
better deﬁne its
business plan and
solution and connects
the company to
research capacity
within MMLab.
With MMLab’s
research capacity
on board, Ontoforce
receives SOFI
(Spin-Off Financing
Instrument) funding.
Ontoforce secures
additional SOFI
funding and venture
capital from LRM.
FLIP!
GIVING DIGITAL STARTUPS ACCESS
TO VITAL RESEARCH CAPACITY

A
PR
20
13
FA
LL
20
13
JA
N
20
14
Ontoforce proposes a
two-year ICON project to
further develop its solution.
The proposal is not
approved, but leads to a
bilateral R&D project with
iMinds-MMLab-University of
Ghent.
Ontoforce negotiates
deal for IP generated
by MMLab — plus
future technology
development.
Ontoforce and MMLab
enter into collabora-
tion with Harvard
University through the
eagle-i program.
FLIP! FLIP! FLIP!
In September 2014, the company was
looking to develop a customizable
platform to help organizations onboard
new employees and migrate users
to Google apps. It mentioned its
interest in e-learning technologies
on its registration form for iMinds
The Conference. That caught the
attention of iMinds staff, who put
App Ninjas in touch with ITEC, an
iMinds research group at KU Leuven.
The research team was excited by
the prospect of helping App Ninjas
develop the ‘recommendation engine’
for its platform, a mechanism for
automatically adapting learning to
account for users’ prior knowledge
and experience.
“The night before iMinds The
Conference, I got an e-mail from
ITEC, which has specialization in
technology-enhanced learning,”
says Freek van de Griendt, Founder
of App Ninjas. “Less than a month
later, we confirmed a partnership for
implementing an adaptive learning
algorithm for App Ninjas. That’s how
connections originate at iMinds.”
Through the fall, iMinds and App
Ninjas hammered out a working
arrangement, business plan and
proposal for SOFI (Spin-Off Financing
Instrument) funding. That proposal
was approved in January 2015.
Without access to ITEC’s research
capacity, App Ninjas would not have
received the funding to advance its
product development. Since then,
App Ninjas and ITEC have embarked
on their first research project to
develop the recommendation engine
technology. >>

WITHIN A YEAR OF CONTACTING US,
ONTOFORCE HAD LICENSED A PIECE
OF IMINDS’ MMLAB INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY; WE SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED
FORANINNOVATIONGRANT;ONTOFORCE
GAVE US NEW REQUIREMENTS AND
CHALLENGES; AND WE BUILT A TESTBED
TO FURTHER FINE-TUNE AND EXPAND
OUR TECHNOLOGY. ON TOP OF THAT, I’VE
BEEN PART OF ONTOFORCE’S ADVISORY
BOARD EVER SINCE AND TOGETHER
WE’VE MANAGED TO GET A DEAL WITH
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
A CLEAR WIN-WIN FOR BOTH PARTIES!
Erik Mannens, Researcher
iMinds - MMLab - Ghent University

One of the most compelling examples
of the effectiveness of the Flipped
Knowledge Transfer Model is a Flemish
company that started out as POSIOS
and now goes by the name Lightspeed
Restaurant. In the space of two years,
the startup grew from a founding
team of three to a global business
with 23 employees and more than
700 customers.
POSIOS came to iMinds not only for
incubation support but also to devise
a test methodology for ensuring its
cloud-based point-of-sale platform
for restaurants would deliver the
real-time performance demanded
by the hospitality industry, which
it lacked the RD capacity to do in
house. iMinds helped POSIOS develop
that test methodology, which by the
end of 2014 was yielding its first data
for analysis.
“We did not have the capability
to devise that kind of framework
ourselves,” says Zhong Xu, Director
of Hospitality Product for Lightspeed
Restaurant. “So we asked iMinds and
they helped us work out a technical
test with one of their research groups
in Ghent.”
iMinds’ support contributed to the
success and ultimate acquisition of
POSIOS in 2014 by global hospitality
iMinds is exceptional in that it is one of a very few incubators that has built-in
research capacity (or a research center with built-in incubation capacity, if you
want). Since 2011, iMinds has supported more than 80 startup projects through
its iStart incubation program. Since the program was opened up to external
entrepreneurs, more than half of the incubation projects come from outside
iMinds or academia.
iMINDS START-UP SUPPORT Entrepreneurs can enter at any stage
Internationalization scalingIdeation / Initial development Incubation User technical testing
Go Global
Opportunity Recognition
Workshops
iStart Technical Testing Center
Follow-up ﬁnancingEntrepreneur-in-residenceiBoot Living Lab
FLIPPED KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
IMINDS MATCHES ENTREPRENEURS
WITH RESEARCHERS
The Flemish government created iMinds in 2004 to develop digital solutions through
demand-driven research, and to foster commercial and societal uptake of new
technologies, knowledge, products and services. Today, iMinds acts as an ‘integrator’
of digital research, leveraging strategic partnerships with all five universities in
Flanders (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Ghent University, Hasselt University, KU Leuven
and University of Antwerp).
This graphic illustrates iMinds’ multi-stage entrepreneurial support process,
highlighting the various stages at which companies can engage with iMinds.
ENTREPRENEURS
MATCHED
WITH IMINDS
RESEARCHERS
STARTUPS COMING


GIVING DIGITAL STARTUPS ACCESS
TO VITAL RESEARCH CAPACITY
solution provider Lightspeed — at
which point the Flemish startup
became Lightspeed Restaurant. Its
story shows the speed at which the
Flipped model can deliver market
results — and offers an indication of
why a growing number of companies
involved with iMinds are engaging in
ongoing collaboration with research
groups.
THE WAY FORWARD
Startups have a crucial role to play in
economic development, diversification
and growth. Their historical isolation
from centers of research has put
them — and society as a result — at
a disadvantage.
By connecting startups to the research
capacity they require and orienting the
research process around solving specific
challenges associated with targeted
RD, the Flipped Knowledge Transfer
Model stands to boost the economic
performance of startup companies,
forge new bonds between academia and
industry, and help governments achieve
their objectives for commercialized
innovation.
iMinds is exceptional in that it is
one of a very few incubators that
has built-in research capacity (or a
research center with built-in incubation
capacity, if you want). Since 2011,
iMinds has supported more than 80
startup projects through its iStart
incubation program.
Since the program was opened up
to external entrepreneurs, more than
half of the incubation projects come
from outside iMinds or academia.
iMinds is exceptional in that it is one of a very few incubators that has built-in
research capacity (or a research center with built-in incubation capacity, if you
want). Since 2011, iMinds has supported more than 80 startup projects through
its iStart incubation program. Since the program was opened up to external
entrepreneurs, more than half of the incubation projects come from outside
iMinds or academia.
Internationalization scalingIdeation / Initial development Incubation User technical testing
Go Global
Opportunity Recognition
Workshops
iStart Technical Testing Center
Follow-up ﬁnancingEntrepreneur-in-residenceiBoot Living Lab
FLIPPED KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
IMINDS MATCHES ENTREPRENEURS
WITH RESEARCHERS
demand-driven research, and to foster commercial and societal uptake of new
technologies, knowledge, products and services. Today, iMinds acts as an ‘integrator’
of digital research, leveraging strategic partnerships with all five universities in
Flanders (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Ghent University, Hasselt University, KU Leuven
and University of Antwerp).
This graphic illustrates iMinds’ multi-stage entrepreneurial support process,
highlighting the various stages at which companies can engage with iMinds.
ENTREPRENEURS
MATCHED
WITH IMINDS
RESEARCHERS
STARTUPS COMING
FROM ACADEMIA

When startups are better equipped
for IP creation — through the Flipped
model, for instance — they have the
potential to be more appealing to
investors. And when researchers
have the opportunity to work so
closely and collaboratively with
entrepreneurs, they gain invaluable
industry experience, which is highly
relevant considering that 80 percent
of researchers end up pursuing careers
outside of academia.
While iMinds’ focus to date has been
on applying the Flipped Knowledge
Transfer Model to startup companies,
the organization believes it could
easily be adapted to support small-
and medium-sized enterprises more
broadly. Nor is the Flipped model
only relevant in the Flemish context;
public research organizations in
virtually any jurisdiction should be
able to reap observable benefits
from reversing the knowledge
transfer flow and fostering greater
collaboration between entrepreneurs
and researchers.
Going forward, iMinds aims to broaden
its catchment and internationalize
its Flipped program, opening it up
to applicants outside of Flanders. A
further potential ‘flip’ of the model may
be to place researchers inside startups
on a project-by-project basis for
truly embedded innovation capacity.
iMinds plans to trial a ‘researcher in
residence’ program in 2015.
iMinds extends an open invitation to
all entrepreneurs and researchers to
connect with its team and discuss
opportunities to further test and
deploy the Flipped Knowledge
Transfer Model.

FLIPPED
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFER
SERVINGUPTHECLOUD
TO RESTAURANTS
AROUND THE WORLD
Belgian startup POSIOS launched
in 2012 with an innovative point
of sale (POS) solution and the
ambition to become the world’s
top POS app for the hospitality
industry—specifically restaurants.
In just two years, the company
has grown from a local team of
three to an international business
with 23 employees and more
than 700 customers worldwide.
That rapid expansion caught
the eye of Canada’s Lightspeed,
the global leader in retail POS
solutions.

In the summer of 2014, Lightspeed
acquired POSIOS (now Lightspeed
Restaurant), massively expanding
the Belgian solution’s international
reach. We talked to POSIOS founder
and Lightspeed Restaurant Director
of Hospitality Product, ZHONG XU,
about the adventure of delivering a
game-changing technology to the
world market.
Q: Where did the idea for POSIOS—
now Lightspeed Restaurant—come
from?
Zhong Xu: Restaurants today need
more systems than they used to—
for online reservations, ordering,
customer relationship management,
the whole range. Traditional POS
solutions don’t address these
functions and are expensive and
not so agile. You need PCs, a fixed
network, you need to train users.
We saw the opportunity to bring
restaurant technology into the
connected world. Also, there is a
big regulatory driver for restaurants
in Belgium and other European
countries to mature their IT systems.
By next year it will be mandatory
for every restaurant in Belgium to
connect their cash registers to a
locked server—a ‘black box’. If you
don’t have that black box, you can’t
run a restaurant. Restaurateurs are
nervous about what this means for
them. We can help.
Q: How does your application
work?
Zhong Xu: We use iPads and
iPhones to connect every functional
area of a restaurant—bar, kitchen,
waitstaff and cash—as well as other
aspects of the business like loyalty
programs. Using those kinds of
devices gives restaurants mobility
and flexibility in integrating their
systems. All of this is connected
through the cloud, which has two
advantages. First, it doesn’t require
restaurants to invest in a lot of
expensive equipment. This is the
disruptive part of our business
model. Instead of spending 5,000
euros on IT gear, restaurateurs
can buy a couple of iPads and
subscribe to a complete POS
solution for 50 euros a month. The
other advantage of our solution
being cloud-based is that it gives
owners more visibility into their
businesses. They can be offsite,
or halfway around the world,
and log in and find out how their
restaurant’s night went.
Q: Are there also benefits to
restaurant customers?
Zhong Xu: When your menu is
available on an iPad, you can
augment it with all kinds of deeper
information: ingredient lists,
nutritional facts and the like. So that
gives customers more information
about the choices they’re making.
Q: Did you face any challenges in
getting POSIOS off the ground?
Zhong Xu: Oh, sure! From a
technical perspective, we had to
think about how to make a cloud-
based system that would meet the
real-time demands of the restaurant
environment. Everything has to
move quickly: you can’t have lag
slowing down your dinner orders.
We did a lot of work to optimize
its performance, and also to ensure
it’s secure, because we’re dealing
with people’s private data and
financial transactions. So we’ve
embedded FSL for HTTPS, secure
tokens and other state-of-the art

security measures. We also put a
lot of thought into how we wanted
to build our business itself.
Q: How so?
Zhong Xu: My business partner,
Jan Hollez, and I knew we weren’t
looking to sell an idea: we wanted
to build this solution and take it to
market. That was a lot of work. We
spent a year putting the platform
together by working in our cars
while carpooling to work and using
all our weekends and holidays. We
also knew we didn’t want to do a
local launch, just in Belgium. There’s
a global market for this technology
and we wanted to launch to the
world. So we came up with a brand
and global-sounding name, built
a multilingual website, and set up
phone numbers in every region.
We wanted to appear credible on
the world stage, and it worked. In
a year and a half we had offices in
Singapore and across Europe. A
lot of startups aim to become the
biggest in their region, but when
you start there, your foundation
won’t necessarily let you scale
when you grow. We built our app
and our company to scale.
Q: How did you learn about iMinds
and how did they help you launch?
Zhong Xu: Jan and I had known
about iMinds from our time at the
University of Ghent. We worked at
a university startup supported by
iMinds and went through iMinds’
iBoot program. It was iStart that
helped us through the steps of
starting the company, finding office
space, hiring our first employee,
setting up sales and marketing.
Q: Was there a technical need
iMinds helped meet as well?
Zhong Xu: Absolutely. We wanted
to build the fastest cloud-based
POS in the world. As I mentioned,
restaurants demand real-time
performance. So we needed a
framework for measuring the speed
of the cloud. We did not have the
capability to devise that kind of
framework ourselves. We couldn’t
have done it, so we asked iMinds.
They have this thing they call the
‘flipped’ model for knowledge
transfer. Instead of researchers
pushing discoveries out of the lab,
iMinds opens the door for startups
to come in with research questions
A BLACK BOX
IN EVERY
RESTAURANT
The Belgian government
recently introduced
legislation requiring all
restaurant owners to
connect their cash registers
to an on-site secure
electronic register that will
record every transaction for
tax purposes. These ‘black
boxes’ are an example of
increasing connectivity
within businesses. Germany,
France and the Netherlands
are all considering similar
legislation.
SERVING UP THE CLOUD
TO RESTAURANTS

and work with teams to get them
solved. So they helped us work
out a technical test with one of the
iMinds research groups in Ghent.
We’ve just received the test data
and are analyzing it now.

Q: Why is it important for startups
and small companies to have access
to an organization like iMinds?
Zhong Xu: You need an organization
that can back you up. As a startup,
you can’t just walk into a university
and commission research, but
iMinds gives you the heft to get that
done, because with them you’re
part of a larger entity. The iMinds
connection gave us instant access
to good facilities and smart people.
iMinds researchers devote a lot of
time to projects like this at a cost
that is accessible for startups.
Q: Was being acquired always
your exit strategy for POSIOS?
Did Lightspeed’s approach come
as a surprise at this stage in the
company’s development?
Zhong Xu: I think if you’re really
passionate, you don’t have an exit
strategy. Our goal was to conquer
the world. We didn’t quit our jobs
to become an SME. We wanted to
be the market leader. Lightspeed
gave us the opportunity to make
our solution available to the world.
The people involved are amazing,
and the team we joined is similar
to us, with a comparable business
model, just a great deal bigger. Our
goal was to go global, so it made
sense to be a small piece of a very
big company, rather than the other
way around.
ABOUT
LIGHTSPEED
RESTAURANT
The technology developed
as POSIOS is now Lightspeed
Restaurant, distributed
under the global Lightspeed
brand. Lightspeed makes
point-of-sale products for
retail stores and restaurants.
Today, more than 21,000
businesses in over 30
countries use Lightspeed
to process $8.2 billion in
transactions annually.

FINDING MARKET
OPPORTUNITY THE
‘FLIPPED’ WAY
While digitization has evolved how music is recorded, produced and distributed,
the sheet music industry has remained largely unchanged for centuries. The
founders of neoScores set out to create an application to digitize and add value
to sheet music. But their innovative idea might have ‘fallen on deaf ears’ without
the benefit of iMinds, whose ‘flipped’ approach to knowledge transfer helped
the company discover where its true opportunity lay. We spoke to neoScores
CEO BART VAN DER ROOST about how iMinds helped the startup focus its
product and business development.
FLIPPED
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFER

Q: How did the idea for neoScores
come about?
Bart Van der Roost: It was born from
frustration, honestly. The three of us
who founded the company, we’re all
trained musicians. We found it very
odd that with the global transition
to digital media—especially in the
music industry—literally no one was
looking at transposing sheet music
to a digital format. When it comes to
sheet music, the business model has
been the same for three hundred
years. Yes, today’s sheet music
companies have made some use of
new technology, but it’s mostly PDFs.
They’re basically shipping digital
paper around. There needed to be
another step, another evolution,
where value can be added to digital
sheet music through extra features
and things like that. We waited and
waited for this to happen. By 2012,
nobody had done it. So we figured
we’d give it a shot.
Q: What did that “shot” look like?
Bart Van der Roost: At first, we were
designing an app that we thought
would make musicians happy. But we
started an iMinds Living Lab project
and found out musicians already
had solutions for digital sheet music
and didn’t want any of our bells and
whistles—audio playback, syncing
adaptations, those kinds of things.
They wanted clear scores, and the
opportunity to share with their
network of musicians and friends.
Music is, in essence, a social thing,
and that was the new emphasis of
the customer side of our business.
Q: How does neoScores meet those
customer-side needs?
Bart Van der Roost: We went
to the content owners to access
official professional scores: the
Mozarts, the Bernsteins, musicals,
everything users want available in
a digital format. We signed up the
content owners and producers to
create a marketplace. We still have
an app with added features—you
can annotate scores, share them,
remove parts of the score that you’re
not interested in at the moment,
highlight others. But the main
business model was to gather official
content and create the marketplace.
You could think of neoScores as an
iTunes or Spotify for sheet music.
We’re taking the music we cherish
and helping it make the transition to
the digital age.
Q: Was it easy to get content
owners interested in evolving their
product?
Bart Van der Roost: It took some
time to get them on board, honestly.
Their existing business model is
fairly deeply engrained, but we
showed them early versions of the
application and convinced them. We
had a proof of concept in 2012, and
we went live with the full consumer
version in December 2014.
Q: How did iMinds help you
in the early stages of product
development?
Bart Van der Roost: As I mentioned,
our new business model came
directly from their support and
guidance. They’ve been immensely
helpful throughout the process,
from our early days until now. When
we first had the idea for neoScores,
we got in touch with the Belgian
Chamber of Commerce, and they
introduced us to iMinds. We pitched
them our idea, and they pointed
out that we were really lacking
market data. So, they put us in
IMINDSGAVE
USACCESSTO
FREEADVICE
FROMSOME
OFTHEIRTOP
DIGITALSECURITY
RESEARCHERS.“
“


their Living Lab program to learn
about the needs and pain points
of our potential customers. We
went from that Living Lab to iStart,
which is an incubation program for
promising young companies. Then
we advanced to the Go Global
selection, which is for companies
that iMinds determines may have
the potential for a significant global
impact. That’s a great program,
because they support your travel
around the world, which is one
thing, but then they connect you
with the right people in all the places
you visit. So, you network and get
insights on the spot, get introduced
to VCs, investors, researchers. That’s
the real value. They get you to where
you need to go, and connect you to
the right network when you’re there.
Q: iMinds talks about ‘flipping’
traditional knowledge transfer so
that research is driven by the needs
of startups like neoScores. Did you
have that experience?
Bart Van der Roost: iMinds
connected us with an iMinds-KU
Leuven research group, DistriNet,
that’s working on digital security.
Security is always a concern in
digital marketplaces, and iMinds
gave us access to free advice from
some of their top researchers in
the field. Because of that—because
we were able to develop a totally
secure product, we were able to
strike a lot of deals with content
owners. That, of course, presented
us with a new challenge: scaling up
operationally. Three of us founded
neoScores, and we’re musicians,
right? We needed to progress from
three guys with a decent idea to a
company that can satisfy the needs
of its customers. Again, here’s
iMinds. They connected us with an
experienced entrepreneur—and
helped us with the fee—to advise
IMINDS
GUIDESAND
SUPPORTYOU
INYOUROWN
DECISIONS.
FINDING MARKET
OPPORTUNITY
THE ‘FLIPPED’ WAY

us on how to scale up quickly and
efficiently. And they’ve got a great
coaching system that was there to
support us throughout the process,
making sure we were still happy
with running a company and that
we didn’t feel overwhelmed.
Q: It sounds like iMinds has had a
real impact.
Bart Van der Roost: Absolutely. But
it’s not just us. The Belgian start-
up ecosystem, honestly, did not
exist in 2012. We just didn’t have
the infrastructure and the support.
Good Belgians worked for the
government, or a big company. The
entrepreneurial culture just wasn’t
there. Today, we’ve noticed that
something is changing in Belgium.
The start-up culture has grown,
established itself. The vibe has
changed. The ecosystem has been
built up, and I attribute a lot of
that to iMinds, and the companies
they’ve supported.
Q: What is it about iMinds, do you
think, that has helped companies
be so successful?
Bart Van der Roost: What I love
about iMinds is their guidance. They
don’t tell you what to do, they don’t
lead you down a path, they just
guide and support you in your own
decisions. They just help you when
you need it, and let you grow and
learn on your own when you don’t.
They can provide seed money and
funding, of course, but to me, that’s
the least valuable service they offer.
They provide access to knowledge,
the keys to innovation—for example,
through their notion of flipping
knowledge transfer so research is
driven by entrepreneurs’ needs. And
they do it all at your pace, not theirs.
ABOUT
NEOSCORES
neoScores is a web
application that allows
musicians to safely
download, use and share
sheet music. Its intelligent
sheet music is responsive
and automatically adapts to
the screens of smartphones,
tablets or computers on
any operating system.
neoScores was founded in
July 2013 by professional
musicians with a passion
for new media and in 2014
won the Foxconn Prize at
the Startup Nations Summit.
neoScores is also part of the
European Tech All Stars and
is supported by iMinds and
Start it @KBC.

PHARMACEUTICAL
RESEARCH JUST GOT A
WHOLE LOT FASTER
In pharmaceutical research, time really is money. But with thousands of
health research databases around the world accumulating highly specialized
information on an almost daily basis, research findings have essentially become
unsearchable. Flemish entrepreneur HANS CONSTANDT is changing that
with his company, Ontoforce, by using semantic web technology to expedite
pharmaceutical research.
FLIPPED
KNOWLEDGE
TRANSFER

It was the experience of working
with Ontoforce—helping the
company solve the technical
challenges it needed to address to
make its solution market ready—
that first spurred iMinds to develop
its ‘flipped’ model for knowledge
transfer. In the flipped paradigm,
startups like Ontoforce become the
drivers of research projects instead
of receiving research knowledge
created in isolation from their real-
world needs.
We sat down with Hans to find out
how iMinds helped him get the
company off the ground and into
the marketplace.
Q: Where did the Ontoforce concept
come from?
Hans Constandt: It goes right back to
my childhood, in a way. When I was
born, I had malaria, and out of that
experience I decided I wanted to be
a doctor. I went all the way to fourth
year in medical school, but along the
way I got into ICT and something
about that really grabbed me. I was
better with technology than I was
at patients’ bedsides. So I switched
over to bioinformatics and that led
me to work in the pharmaceutical
sector. I spent nearly 10 years
working in a big pharma company.
Like most industries today, there’s
a pressure to do more with less in
that sector now, and speeding up
the research process seemed like a
key opportunity area.
Q: So you set out to find ways of
making pharmaceutical information
more searchable using ‘semantic
web’ techniques. What is the
semantic web?
Hans Constandt: The first web, Web
1.0, was a web of documents. Web
2.0 is a web for the people, where
anyone can put content online
but it is impossible to search. The
semantic web, which will be Web 3.0,
is essentially the web of data—and
key to it will be searchability. I like to
give this example because it seems
to catch people’s attention: say
you’re a business traveler and you’re
looking to stay at the Hilton in Paris.
If you Google “Paris Hilton”, your
top result isn’t likely to be a hotel.
Semantics is about disambiguating
queries and interpreting results
to get people to the information
they’re actually looking for, without
IMINDSHAS
BROUGHTTHE
SILICONVALLEY
MODELTO
FLANDERS.“
“


them having to know exactly where
to start or how to phrase the query
themselves.
Q: How does this apply to
pharmaceuticals?
Hans Constandt: Scientists today
are very time-pressured, and smaller
biotech companies don’t have the
resources to aggregate data. But
out there on the web are thousands
of health research databases —
clinical trials, literature reviews,
patient studies and the like. So how
do you get to a fast result if you’re
looking for information on a very
specific topic—say, growth hormone
applications for a particular disease—
and you want to be comprehensive
without spending a month searching
manually? Our tool, disQover,
concatenates the data—right now,
from 30 databases—compares it,
identifies linkages and visualizes the
search path. So you can zero in very
quickly on the information you want
and see exactly how you got there.
Q: How did you get involved with
iMinds?
Hans Constandt: We started the
company in 2011. Even though I came
from pharma, we initially conceived
of our tool for the education sector.
My son has a learning disability and
I could see ways semantics would
help kids like him academically. We
were pitching around for money
and got involved with iMinds’ iStart
program. People think of iMinds
as a technical organization—and it
is—but they are very serious about
building entrepreneurial skills and
capacity. They said to me, “Hans,
the education market doesn’t have
the economics to support your tool.”
That’s when we started looking at
targeting DisQover to pharma. This
is a thing about iMinds: they’re very
polite, but they’re firm. They impose
discipline on entrepreneurs. So they
pushed me out of my “golden cage”
and got me to write a business plan
and prove out the feasibility of the
product.
Q: What would you say has been the
main benefit of your engagement
with iMinds?
Hans Constandt: The access to
expertise. Raising money is much
less of a problem than getting
good, expert advice and building
a network. iMinds has brought the
Silicon Valley model to Flanders,
which was missing. If you are a
first-time startup, you get hit with
an avalanche once you’re out of
the gate. iMinds helps you deal
with it.
ASPARTOF
THEISTART
EXPERIENCE,
WEDIDA
FEASIBILITYSTUDY
WITHIMINDS’
MULTIMEDIALAB.“
“
PHARMACEUTICAL
RESEARCH JUST GOT A
WHOLE LOT FASTER

Q: And your involvement with
iMinds has continued?
Hans Constandt: Yes. As part
of the iStart experience, we did
a feasibility study with iMinds’
Multimedia Lab, or MMLab. We
also applied for ICON project
funding, but we didn’t fully meet
the consortium requirements. We
put in for IWT funding instead,
because IWT funds projects
involving just two parties, and we
won that. What was great was
that after the feasibility study,
MMLab continued to work on
our technology, so that when we
came back, they had a solution
for us that addressed some of
the technical requirements. From
my understanding, this was
where iMinds first got the idea to
reverse the traditional knowledge
transfer flow that’s at the heart of
their Flipped Knowledge Transfer
Model. It’s exciting to think we
were part of that. We bought
the IP from them and licensed it
back to iMinds for other research.
Having access to their research
capacity has been a huge
accelerator for us. When you’re a
company of five or 10 people, you
just don’t have the means to do it
yourself. Today we have a bilateral
research agreement with MMLab
to continue refining our solution.
Q: You mentioned building a
network. We understand that
network now includes Harvard
University?
Hans Constandt: That’s iMinds
again! The European market is very
fragmented, and of course the U.S.
is very big, so iMinds has a Go Global
program to help entrepreneurs
reach out beyond Flanders. They
get investors to come over and look
at companies and their solutions.
We put in for Go Global support
and said where we wanted to go.
First we went to MIT and got into
their accelerator program, which
helped us refine our business
model. That was a stepping-stone
to Harvard, which has its eagle-i
catalyst program that is focused on
opening up access to data beyond
public databases.
Q: What’s next for Ontoforce?
Hans Constandt: Well, we’re not
Google or Facebook yet, so we have
some room to grow. But our product,
disQover, is fully commercial and in
the marketplace. We’re continuing to
evolve it—expanding our database,
the databases we draw from. With
our next round of funding, we’ll
expand to a team of about 30
people; we’re at about 10 right now.
And we’re continuing to look for
opportunities to demonstrate our
value to pharma-sector customers.
If you can show with one drug that
you’ve saved a company a day of
time, that’s a million dollars for them.
That’s a compelling business case.

ABOUT
ONTOFORCE
Ontoforce is a leading
company in semantic
technologies with an
innovative solution to
improve information
management,
acknowledged by
respected institutes and
industry players including
IWT, MIT, Gartner and
iMinds.

SVEN DE CLEYNiMinds Incubation Programs
LIST OF SUBJECT-MATTER EXPERTS WHO
CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PAPER
HANS CONSTANDT
CEO Ontoforce
SVEN DE CLEYN
Incubation Programs iMinds
STAN DE VOCHT
IP Tech Transfer iMinds
FRANK GIELEN
Director Incubation
Entrepreneurship iMinds
BART VAN DER ROOST
CEO neoScores
ZHONG XU
Director of Hospitality Product
Lightspeed Restaurant
iMinds editorial team: Sven De Cleyn, Koen De Vos, Thomas Kallstenius, Els Van Bruystegem,
Wim Van Daele, Stefan Vermeulen
Copy: Ascribe Communications
Design: Coming-Soon.be
Photography: Lieven Dirckx, Nils Blanckaert, Alexander Popelier
Promotion: Aimee Bacallan
©2015 iMinds vzw - CC-BY 4.0. You are free to share and adapt the content in this publication
with reference to iMinds.
Additional content will be published on www.iminds.be/insights
FOR MORE INFORMATION
about iMinds’ collaboration between start-ups and researchers,
please contact Sven De Cleyn
sven.decleyn@iminds.be, +32 9 331 48 36

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