As of 2014, I am a 43 year old married man from the Netherlands, father of two sons and daughter (Ruben (12), Matthias (9) and Anna (4)). I am married to Sandra and live in Gouda.

Most of my childhood was spent in the Netherlands. But I also spent 6 years in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Kenya and the United States during my teenage years. I studied Business Administration at the Rotterdam School of Management.

I work at the Kennisnet Foundation who allow me to spend a certain amount of time on promoting the use of wikis and Wikimedia projects in education (amongst other things). The Kennisnet Foundation is a public Dutch organisation which is publicly funded and has the goal to be "THE dutch organisation for ICT use in Education". Apart from being responsible for our "consumer" services I am very involved in the Wikiwijs project which aims to encourage Dutch teachers to develop and share Open Educational Resources.

Through my work at Kennisnet I have been involved with Wikimedia since February 2005. I have attended all the past Wikimania conferences (giving talks on the educational uses of Wiki(pedia)).

On December 15th, 2006, I became part of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation as an appointed member. As of august 2013 I am the Chair of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. Most of my time right now is occupied with Board development and finding the next Executive Director for the Wikimedia Foundation.

I hope to be more involved in the educational use of Wikimedia projects and the opportunities that await us in countries which are just entering the internet age. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on these topics.

If you feel that there are important things to be achieved in the coming period which I should support you are invited to post these on my Talk page.

Disclaimer: I work for or provide services to the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is the account I try to use for edits or statements I make in that role. However, the Foundation does not vet all my activity, and edits, statements, or other contributions made by this account may not reflect the views of the Foundation.