April 24, 2026, 14:00-15:00 CET
The changing environment results in the increasing demand for energy-efficient houses, in a time in which a housing shortage is increasing in dense urban areas of Europe. It is therefore of utmost importance to develop technologies that allow for the rapid development of houses with these increasing climate requirements. One of these key enabling technologies is robotics, which is expected to play a major role in automating (parts of) the construction process.
Join YEAR on April 24th for a webinar on automated building innovations! Led by Michiel Celis (VITO) and Wouter van Groesen (TNO).
Sign up for the webinar Here!
WEBINAR OVERVIEW
In this webinar, Michiel Celis from VITO and Wouter van Groesen from TNO will present their experiences and vision within the field of construction automation. At VITO, Michiel Celis is a part of CRIB, a research team with the mission to accelerate the much-needed renovation wave of the EU building stock through construction robotics. He’ll discuss why you probably haven’t heard of this term (yet), what opportunities it does bring, and how we attempt to make it a widely adopted technology in the future. From TNO, Wouter van Groesen of the Building & Energy Systems department will present their vision on robotics in the built environment, with a bottom-up perspective from the construction industry. In addition, he will touch upon the activities TNO is currently involved in this emerging field.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Michiel Celis
Michiel Celis is a systems engineer who has been active in R&D for nearly a decade. He’s had the opportunity to contribute to a range of innovative systems and products across various sectors, including novel robots (surgical, logistics, infrastructure), as well as several consumer appliances and medical devices. Michiel is passionate about robotics because it requires a systems engineering mindset and broad cross-domain knowledge. For the past two years, Michiel has been focusing on construction robotics as a researcher at VITO.
Wouter van Groesen
Wouter van Groesen mainly works in the built environment, collaborating with stakeholders on the transition from project‑based to product‑based ways of working. He operates at the intersection of business administration and technology and is active at both strategic and operational levels. He investigates the impact of the latest technologies on relevant industries. Additionally, he advises both (inter)national consortia and individual companies on the design and optimisation of concepts, processes, value chains, and factories.