Shaoxian Zhang Author

Dr. Shaoxian Zhang is an engineer and entrepreneur who has long studied and practiced industrial innovation from a systems perspective. Born in China in 1977, he moved to Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 2002 and received his PhD in Photonics from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 2006. He then joined ASML and worked in the Technical Development division within the Imaging System Department (Projection Lens Group) until 2010, contributing to the optical imaging system design of advanced lithography platforms. This experience gave him direct insight into how large-scale, high-precision semiconductor equipment is engineered, integrated, and brought into industrial production.

After leaving ASML, Dr. Zhang founded Vision & Action B.V. (V&A) in the Netherlands, focusing on R&D services and industrial incubation between Europe and China in photonics and clean technologies. For more than a decade, he has worked with high-tech companies and research organizations to translate advanced engineering capabilities into practical and sustainable industrial applications across different sectors and institutional environments. Alongside his entrepreneurial activities, he has continued to study industrial upgrading and the formation of innovation clusters. His work emphasizes that major industrial breakthroughs do not arise from isolated technologies alone, but from the long-term accumulation of engineering competence, entrepreneurial initiative, and stable yet open innovation ecosystems.