06 May 2008

Since September 2007 Rob has been working as Principal Consultant with Sogyo. His active interests are in the real effects of the computer revolution, the amazing existence of human intelligence, the art of story telling, the origin of life, the universe and everything. Besides that can be mentioned: coffee (Rob is a coffee gourmet roasting his own coffee beans), science fiction, mmorpg's (Rob can be found in EVE-online), yoga, non-western philosophy and languages (not just programming languages).

Rob has been actively involved with the object-oriented and Smalltalk community from the start of his career in computer science in 1988. Before Rob started working for Sogyo in 2007, he has worked with CIBIT (now DNV ) from 1995. Before that Rob has started his own company Sepher Software in 1991, which delivered solutions for complex simulations and business process modelling.

Rob has studies physics on the University of Utrecht, languages and cultures of the Middle East (cuneiform) on the University of Nijmegen, has worked as a cook in a health restaurant, has been involved in the Sufi Movement, Antroposophy en Theosophy, and has grown healing herbs, cereals and exotic vegetables.

From 1997 to 2007 Rob has been a board member of ESUG, a European group of Smalltalk users. Before starting his own company Rob was a science researcher on the University of Groningen at the Faculty of Management Science.

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Education

Rob got his degree in Computer Science from a rather experimental training on the University of Groningen. This training had been organised by a learning psychologist, Agnes van Arkel, who attempted to apply learning theories in an experimental educational method. By a combination of cognitive psychology, object-oriented thinking and computer science Rob was able to lay a unique foundation for the work he is currently doing in this exciting field of information technology.

My term of probation was finished on the same university, on the Faculty of Management Science. My mentor, Ap Rutges, played an important part in many activities that started around the same time in Groningen - so many in fact that it can be argued that the rural part of Groningen where I live provided an atypical concentration of object-oriented expertise! Other OO people live here like Reinier van Oosten who put numerous students on the Hanzehogeschool (the Groningen Technical School) in touch with Smalltalk and OO thinking.

Research

After finishing my studies I stayed on the Faculty of Management Science as a researcher, more and more specialising in simulation theory and applications. I contributed to several projects like FarSys (research in flexibility of enterprises). One project started to serve as a vehicle for my PhD: Huplic. This was a European simulation research project under Esprit. Unfortunately the project found a premature end because scientific institutions could not agree on the way to do things... During these years I developed another simulation application, LogSim. This was an interesting project in close cooperation with Ernst & Young that attempted to help in building and running logistic models with full simulation support such as stochastic scheduling and complex flow control. For me it was one of my first attempts in building executable models, a subject that still has my interest and is of current interest in emerging standards like MDA. Also this project had an approach to business processes very similar to current efforts like ebXML and execution languages like BPEL, but especially BPMN, that incorporates almost all concepts already developed in LogSim. Please read more on on this subject on: Business Process Management .

Standing on my own legs

After starting my own company in 1991, Sepher Software , LogSim, as well as the generic simulation kernel provided with an object-oriented layer for building executable UML models called SmallSim, was marketed as shrink-wrapped software, and as a service in helping organisations build models for strategic purposes. The software has been placed in the public domain and can be downloaded from this site.

In 1995 I started working for Cibit, currently a part of DNV IT Global Services, by 2007 as a principal consultant. I work as mentor and coach for architects, project managers and teams working with new technologies. For the last years with CIBIT I was active as (interim-) enterprise architect, which I see as a role attempting to bring non-executive responsibilities to the board level in organisations.

In 2007 ben ik voor Sogyo gaan werken.

My special interest is in agile processes, complex models, business-centred architectures, business and IT alignment, and the art of working together effectively. Philosophical implications of my work and IT in general have my special interest. I believe we, as the global society, have not yet realised the tremendous impact IT has, and the potential it contains. The science of chaos and complexity, history of computing, and the origin of the universe, life and Homo Sapiens are other areas of interest. I am a keen reader of (hard) science fiction, and speculative historical novels like Umberto Eco's Baudolino or Mary Gentle's Ashe. I have a broad and active interest in the exact sciences, physics and microbiology in particular but certainly not exclusively as I try to keep up not only with developments in my own area of expertise which is developing with a breathtaking speed, but also with science in general.

Other activities

As board member of ESUG, the European Smalltalk Users Group, I keep working with the Smalltalk community. Smalltalk has my special interest because it is the best attempt so far in supporting people to work with computers. It was my primary programming language used in the training mentioned above. And, of course, all tools you can download from my site are Smalltalk products!

Also I am deeply involved in the Domain Driven Design community, as well as the Agile Movement. Download my presentation on it here.

Domestics

My residence is in Usquert, a rural village in the North of Groningen, which itself is in the Northeast of The Netherlands, of about 2000 souls. In the middle of this ancient village which dates back to at least 500 BC and where remains of human settlement have been found dating back to the last ice age I live next to a historic church dating back to 1000 AD, and which before that occupied a pagan sanctuary of which the remains were discovered when the foundation for a new church tower was built in 1862. The house I live in with my partner Jitske is at least 200 years old, and has an old water well in the cellar which provides high quality drinking water. The house has seen the birth of my two youngest children Mirjam and Gabe and though my eldest two children, Biem and Florian, were born in Wageningen they grew up here. This locality suits well with my attempts to remain linked with the roots of humanity and my ambition to keep my views and understanding as deep and broad as possible.