Age 7
First computer
At seven, I met my first computer, a Sharp keyboard with a
single-line screen. Soon after, an NEC CPM came into the house,
and I designed game start-up screens under the name I.M. Alias.
Age 12
Teaching by doing
At twelve, I gave a presentation about computers at school and
brought the NEC along. Most people had only ever seen a computer
from a distance. I got an 8.6, my highest grade for any
presentation. My father stayed all afternoon, caught in
conversations with adults who wanted to know more.
Early years
Ten years ahead
Around the same time, I read an IBM booklet and assumed everyone
at my father’s office was using email. The world would catch up ten
years later. I tagged along once when my father helped distribute
computers to employees. I watched someone push a floppy disk into
the gap between two drives. My first real lesson: computers are
unwieldy, and people will struggle with them.
Secondary school
Fixing the teacher’s modem
In secondary school, during a lesson about computers, I helped
the teacher solve a problem with the modem. It was another early
example of learning by understanding how the system worked and
helping someone else use it.
Architecture
Choosing creativity over math
At the end of secondary school, every ICT program said the same
thing: math, math and more math. I wanted creativity, so I chose
architecture, but wanted to do everything on the computer. I had
AutoCAD and one semester to use it. In the second year, I designed
a residential tower with cantilevered floors and turned the kitchen
toward the living room because both partners would need to work,
leaving little time together. Years later, friends told me I had
invented the kitchen island. I had simply looked at what was needed.
Student helpdesk
Capitalism vs. the customer
As a student at the helpdesk, I saw how capitalism can work against
the company that practices it. We were told to keep calls short.
The moment a customer’s computer restarted, the call closed and
costs stayed low. Whether customers were actually helped was a
different question.
Around 1992
The seed of Infopalette
Around 1992, a thought stayed with me. A computer can add up an
invoice. Fine. Done. But what about wrapping that invoice as a gift
with a ribbon around it? How do you account for that? The seed of
Infopalette was planted here. A few months on a helpdesk for message
traffic taught me CSV, X.400 and X.500, the foundations beneath
LDAP and SSL today.
OMA
The space, not the structure
I landed the role of my dreams: systems administrator at OMA,
Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm. It felt like touring with your
favourite rock band. I built my first TCP/IP network there. One of
the architects once told me that architecture is about the space
the construction creates, not the construction itself. That
principle stayed with me. Years later, I built Infopalette as the
first service to follow modern architecture in this sense.
Syntegra · 2000
Internet security and RDF
At Syntegra, I worked as an Internet Security Engineer. Around
2000, I read something on the W3C website about RDF and triple
structures. It went over my head at the time. It would come back.
Alex · ING
First mobile payment in the Netherlands
I was the security consultant for the Firewall Team at Alex from
the day it went live. At ING, I gathered ICT knowledge across the
organisation to support developers building the first mobile
payment application in the Netherlands.
KPN Telecom
Connecting telecom systems
For several years, I was an MMSC specialist, flying across EMEA
to connect telecom systems within one or two weeks. Seven
interfaces, multiple firewalls and different departments all had
to align so the work could happen.
Ahold · Microsoft
The power of authorization
A year as an authorization consultant at Ahold, later sold to
Microsoft, taught me how simple the mechanism of authorization is
and how powerful its implementation can be.
Ordina · Tax Administration
Linked Data
For KPN, I moved the business website to new hosting while both
consumer and business sites were growing. At ASR, I saw how much a
generic messaging solution could do. Through Ordina, I met Linked
Data, did several projects for the Dutch Tax Administration and
built an internal architecture curriculum.
Now · Third attempt
Third time’s the charm
The first attempt at Infopalette came while I worked as a Ziggo
technician. The second came while I worked for the National Police
on their internal dictionary, also based on Linked Data. Now, the
third time around: third time’s the charm.
