Skip to content

About me

Hi! I am Douwe. I am an independent data ethics researcher and practitioner. I advise governments, companies and activists on ethical data practices, privacy and digital security.

I like to think and talk about how technology influences our lives and the ethical implications therein. I mostly focus on the power structures and how they (not) shift because of technology. After doing so for over ten years now on an ever more theoretical level, I thought it is time to get my hand more dirty and create technology myself. I do the fabacademy to create physical metaphors. With them I hope to aid my work in explaining the intrinsic values that are part of any system.

Next to that I hope to convert my studyroom into a mini-fablab over time. A place to study, experiment and play.

My background

I was born in Amsterdam and I still live there. I studied Philosophy and European Economy. The last 10 years I have been working in digital security, tech ethics and privacy rights. I do not read as much as I want to but I watch less television then I should. My main other hobby is music.

Tutorials

Recitations I still have to watch:

Ideas

  • use thermochromatic inks
  • keep it simple
  • make it beautiful
  • if you put many little ugly things together, it becomes beautiful
  • make a project to explain energy usage of the internet.

These ideas are now dormant.

  • An internet microscope; create a physical internet to explain how it is working
  • A ferry enabled internet (FerryNet or Pondr) (Building on Netless)
  • A robot that sweeps dust under the carpet: annoying machines project.
  • A tree planting Robot
  • A rocket (boring)
  • A zeppelin build from reused Fairphone 2 cameras utilizing the flash to make it literally shine (LED Zeppelin) (too complicated)
  • An random email destructing induction cooker (russian roulette ratatouille) (funny but not for too long)
  • A biased bot: something that discriminates you on silly bases; not talking to people wearing glasses?

The philosophy robot

create a basic module that can be used to make little robots. The robots could be made in several themes and be used to discuss philosophical implications of technology. Say, we make robots in our image: why do we want to bestow human traits on bots in the first place?