Inspiration, That’s What It’s All About: Q&A with Walter Arkesteijn of InnoFaith

In electronics, ideas, crude sketches and ‘triggers’ can prove more valuable than turnkey circuits. Walter Arkesteijn explains how he applies this philosophy within his young company, InnoFaith Beauty Sciences.
  Jan Buiting: In the electronics industry, development and education, we come across many readers having a “Deja-vu” when they see Elektor (Elektuur) again, often after making a career. But it’s different with you since you are both “in e-business” and an active Elektor reader today.

Walter Arkesteijn: That’s right, I’m still an active reader of Elektor. There is a difference with the old days! While I am now a nostalgic reader, I used to be a reader of Elektor at a fairly young age. It was the right place for me to pick up all the knowledge and feed my boyhood dream of creating. I can truly say that Elektor has contributed to the person I am today. Through your magazine, I was able to accumulate a lot of knowledge and use it to think in terms of solutions and options. It still stimulates my creative mind and I enjoy following the innovations and different projects that are covered.
 
Jan: What did you think and feel about the magazine? Be frank!

Walter: I found and still find the magazine a source of information. Especially back in the day when I started with my passion for electrical engineering and I still had to learn to understand each table.
 
Jan: What is your technical background and how has Elektor helped or thwarted you? What were your favorite projects or articles and why?

Walter: My technical background is from a higher professional education study in electrical engineering. Elektor magazine helped me find my passion for e-engineering, which is why I decided to follow this program. Reading the magazine whetted my appetite for learning more, especially within the world of electrical engineering. I’ve always been given the scope to discover everything myself and in this respect, Elektor has helped to inspire me.

Here my fascination goes mainly to the process of fantasy becoming reality with the help of technology. If I had to mention an Elektor product, it would be the collection of audio amplifiers featured in the magazine. What fascinates me is how you can specialize a lot within the same objective: audio amplification. Through technology, there are multiple dimensions to the same product. Here I find the conceptual insights and technical insights very interesting.

Jan: You started your own company called InnoFaith. Briefly describe how that went. What were your main motivations? Hopefully not Elektor’s Corrections & Updates section?

Walter: I started InnoFaith Beauty Sciences out of entrepreneurial ambition. I felt the personal urge to jump into the “opportunity hole” within the Aesthetic Medicine industry. I found out that there was a lot to be gained when I was a teenager accompanying my mother to a trade show — she is employed within the beauty industry. I wanted to create the tool to help the industry interpret and treat both skin problems and skin aging. This is how Sylton was formed, the brand under which we sell these devices. Elektor’s corrections were not an issue here. To me, Elektor really is a breeding ground for imagination and knowledge.

Jan: Elektor as a magazine often propagates that it prefers to inspire rather than instruct. How did you experience that? What was your personal trigger condition, so to speak, to read an article or undertake a project?

Walter: I experienced Elektor as inspirational and not pedantic. I still experience it as such. I didn’t do much building from Elektor articles; the fun was quickly gone when it was already thought out by someone else. To me, the main trigger condition is this: after reading an article, a technological fascination grows in me. Seeing different perspectives feeds my creativity; it enables me to see opportunities that make me want to think in new ways.
 
Jan: What does InnoFaith look like in terms of the organization, and what is your product palette?

Walter: At this time, InnoFaith Beauty Sciences consists of a team of 25 employees. We develop the software and hardware ourselves within our team. Our main product, the Observ 520x, is sold through distributors in different countries around the world.  

It is vital to our product that it is easy to operate while technically it is very sophisticated and intricate. Digital technology bridges the world between our instinctive and analytical abilities to look at beauty in a way that is visually intelligible and compelling in a stimulating and inspiring way.
  Jan: What electronics technologies are key at InnoFaith?

Walter: At InnoFaith Beauty Sciences we work with various items where signal processing is especially important. But in addition, software development and device design. We are always trying to develop ourselves further within image processing and imaging. For example, we work with different light modes and developed an application required when using the Observ.
 
Jan: How would you outline the industry that InnoFaith is in? What are the opportunities and challenges?

Walter: InnoFaith Beauty Sciences finds itself in a very interesting industry where the end-user of the product is not a techie. So, with us, it is very important the product, in addition to striving to be innovative, should also be easy to handle.  

I especially see a lot of opportunities within image processing systems. The sector in which InnoFaith Beauty Sciences is present is fueled enormously by the availability of new technology. In this, the challenge is to collect a lot of image data in a short period of time, combined with the different types of exposures. We want to be able to capture increasing amounts of information from the skin in order to properly understand the ratio between perspective and visual perception. We want to be at the cutting edge of the perception of beauty and make this visible and understandable through digital technology.

Jan: On the subject of technology availability, to what extent is InnoFaith suffering from the crisis in the component market, especially chips?

Walter: We, too, are facing a market with chip shortages, long delivery times of electronic components, and sharp increases in component prices, in addition to an overall disruption in the supply chain. Fortunately, we have been able to minimize the impact of the shortages by doing small redesigns, ordering on time and in large quantities, making an accurate production forecast, and sourcing difficult but critical chips on the open market through chip brokers.

Jan: The Netherlands wants to be a manufacturing country again. What is your view on that?

Walter: : I also see this trend, particularly in the production of serial industrial technical products. In my view, the current labor shortage is an inhibiting factor in this development. We have therefore chosen to carry out the high-tech or critical production/control in-house and to carry out the large, more labor-intensive serial and space-consuming assembly steps in a partnership with a Slovakian production company..

Jan: Thanks for the interview and we will be reading and hearing more from you and your company soon, here in Elektor Mag and on our YouTube video channel.