Wim van der Hoek Award celebrates 20th anniversary
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Wim van der Hoek Award, we will dive into history by posting interviews (in Dutch) with previous winners. In 2007, Rob van Haendel was the second winner. He was interviewed in 2020: “I wanted to learn the trade from experienced chief design engineers.
The Wim van het Hoek award (also known as the Constructors Award) was introduced in 2006 to mark the 80th birthday of the Dutch doyen of design engineering principles, Wim van der Hoek (1924-2019). Under the auspices of DSPE, the award named after him is presented each year to the person with the best graduation project in the field of design in mechanical engineering at a Dutch or Belgian university of technology or university of applied sciences. Traditionally, the award ceremony takes place in November, at the end of the second day of the Precision Fair, the annual highlight of the Dutch precision engineering community.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Wim van der Hoek Award, we will dive into history by posting interviews (in Dutch) with previous winners. These interviews were published by Dutch professional mechanical engineering magazine Constructeur, which kindly gave permission for republication. The winners talk about their engineering interests and education, starting from their childhood, and on their professional career thus far, reflecting on Wim van der Hoek’s design principles and the impact of the award.
In 2007, Rob van Haendel was the second winner. He was interviewed in 2020: “I wanted to learn the trade from experienced chief design engineers. Because the world of design principles appealed to me, I looked for a company that followed that approach and applied it daily. I was pretty sure that was Philips.” There, he worked at Philips Innovation Services, before joining Additive Industries in 2014. As of 2023, he is a system architect at ASML. Please check the full interview, either the original Dutch version or the English translation.
Please check the full interview in English
Please check the full interview in Dutch
