Ton Backx

Ton Backx has worked both in industry and at the university for more than 42 years.

He started his career at the Dr.Neherlab of PTT (1977 – 1981). In 1981 he joined Philips to startup and manage an applied research group working in the field of process modelling and model-based control (1981 – 1988). From 1988 – 1990 he worked with Datex-Getronics as stepping stone to form his own company called IPCOS (1990 – 1993). IPCOS was acquired by Setpoint in 1993 and became part of Aspen Tech in 1996. During this period Ton was responsible both for running his former company and for R&D in model-based control in these companies (1993 – 1998). He founded a new company – IPCOS Technology- to develop advanced tools for process modeling and model-based control and to apply these tools in the processing industries (1998 – 2006).

He was appointed part-time professor at Eindhoven University of Technology in 1990 in the field of modeling and model-based control of industrial processes. He joined Eindhoven University of Technology full-time in 2006 as Dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering (2006-2016).

He was appointed Vice-Rector of Eindhoven University of Technology with special responsibility for strengthening the collaboration between the university and industry (2010-2016). In 2016-2020 he was Vice-President of the university and responsible for International Relations.

From 2016 – 2020 he also was responsible for research and development of Photonic Integrated Circuits and Systems at Eindhoven University of Technology. He started the Institute for Photonic Integration in April 2016. He also is co-initiator of Photon Delta. Photon Delta is an eco-system for R&D, innovation and industrialization of Photonic materials, photonic integrated circuits and systems, photonic-electronic systems. Photon Delta is set up to initiate, support and grow companies in the field of Integrated Photonics and to support R&D institutes in this field.

Since January 10, 2020 Ton retired from Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2020 he started the company Amazec Photonics together with Arthur Bouwman, Erik Korsten and Pim Kat as co-founders.