Stefan en Emile started their own company during the bachelor's CreaTe

Creative Technology students started up their own company and sold it to LG

Many CreaTe students have an enterprising and creative spirit; a number of students and alumni have started their own companies.

For example, the successful company Homey - a home automation system - was set up by two CreaTe students during their studies at the University of Twente. Emile Nijssen and Stefan Witkamp had a good idea and started up Homey: an automation system for the home. Since then, their business has grown exponentially. In 2024, the company was acquired by LG Electronics.

What Stefan says to future students:

"I can recommend CreaTe to all students who want to do (digital) product development – if you want to become an inventor, so to speak. The best thing is that you don't just learn programming, electrical engineering and business administration, but that you learn this while developing your own ideas develop and implement it, so that you also develop your brainstorming and project management skills.
At CreaTe you really get back what you put into it. So if you put a lot into it, you get enormous value back.”

Want to know more about this CreaTe adventure? Watch the video of Stefan and Emile in 2018 on the UT website.

Image Emile and Stefan: Athom

Emile Nijssen (left) and Stefan Witkamp, CreaTe students and founders of Enschede based Athom. Image: Athom

"At CreaTe, you learn by doing product development in small teams, from initial idea to proof-of-concept. This way of working together in a small team, using everyone's personal strengths to realize ideas, is something that is super useful. Combined with the start-up focused business courses it's what helped us found and grow Homey, and ultimately exit it to LG Electronics."