Unfortunately, I arrived a week delayed in Tilburg due to my Malaria. And I find the recovery of fitness is going rather slowly. Of course, this is not a complaint, as this kind of Malaria is still a life threatening disease and it seems no surprise that a full recovery is not done in days but weeks. I am visiting Tilburg University and Lecture in the Master of International Management, as I also did last year. It is a very enjoyable environment with bright students, nice colleagues and good infrastructure. It is an amazing late summer this year, while in the same period of 2015 I was taking pictures of a commencing autumn here. Most of Northern Europe is experiencing record temperatures these days. And of course many people see this with pleasure and concern at the same time.

I am also looking a bit deeper into the economic development of Tilburg, including the recovery from the time after the decline of the textile and leather industry. One of the newest achievement is that Tesla has opened an assembly plant, in the commercial zone. The city revived after depression with services, logistics, food and beverage production. It is experimenting with "unconditional minimum income" for every citizen, no ties attached. And it turned itself, not into an architectural beauty, but a modern and clean habitat, which in many ways appears like it could serve as a model for others and future cities. This fits into a research topic I am going to deepen in 2017 with some projects.

Tesla at Tilburg. After a great test drive of the Model S (photo snapped by Jeroen Kuilman).