BY THE AFRICA BAZAAR Staff Writer
May 20, 2015

In efforts to collaboratively find innovative solutions to address world’s most pressing healthcare challenges, Royal Phillips and Massachusetts Institute of Technology signed a five-year research partnership that will bring about developing breakthrough innovations in health technology and energy efficient lighting systems.

Phillips has given the five-year partnership a $25 million funding that will be disbursed over a five year term. The partnership is an integral part of the Netherlands-based company’s border strategy to accelerate innovation and business growth through collaborative efforts with leading-edge partner companies and leading institutions.

As a result of the partnership, Phillips said it plans to move its research center to Cambridge, Mass to tap into the region’s rich innovation ecosystem and to be in proximity to the institution, allowing it to better explore applications as it is being developed for population health management through the use of patient-centric, high-resolution imagining and healthcare informatics and data analytics.

Some of the key areas of focus for the partnership will be on improving the diagnosis, treatment, management of diseases such as cardiovascular disease and the various types of cancer by improving patient outcomes while reducing costs.

The partnership will also give Phillips an edge to advance its cloud-based LED lighting- energy-efficient lighting systems initiative-to address the need to make cities more livable and sustainable improve energy-efficiency, safety, productivity and quality of people’s daily lives.

Phillips recently announced new unique innovations in connected, cloud-based LED lighting for the city of Los Angeles and the New NY Bridge across the Hudson River in New York, and will explore new ways to exploit the digitization of lighting.

Commenting on the new partnership, Henk van Houten, Global Head of Phillips Research said working in close proximity to the culture and vision that contribute to the vibrant innovation ecosystem in the Boston area is very much in line with that of Philips.

“By moving to Cambridge and collaborating with MIT, its staff and its partners, Phillips can work with some of the best minds in the world on healthcare delivery, looking at ways to better prevent, manage or treat common diseases across the health continuum. In addition, we will explore advancements in connected lighting systems that can improve energy-efficiency, safety, productivity and quality of people’s daily lives,” said van Houten.

MIT Associate Provost Karen Gleason added that through industrial alliances like this Philips, [MIT] also “hope to ramp up the speed with which we move new technologies from the lab to impact.”

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