ai.rizom.brain.note

{
  "body": "## Professional Experience\n\n**Rizom — Founder** *(January 2024 – Present | Taipei / Rotterdam)*\n\nFounded Rizom to research and build infrastructure for institutional knowledge coordination — specifically, how organizations diagnose and repair the gap between their formal structure (roles, policies, procedures) and the informal knowledge, memory, and coordination that actually keeps them running. Leads the development of Transactive Memory Systems (TMS), a diagnostic methodology adapted from organizational psychology, alongside an AI agent suite for organizational knowledge coordination. The Rizom Foundation (non-profit) supports projects into institutional design, and stewards open-source AI infrastructure.\n\nFor example, Jan Hein was engaged as ecosystem architect for transportation sharing software Weave, applying TMS methodology to strengthen the organization's expert positioning in software engineering and to develop international partnerships aligned with its values-based mission.\n\n**Offcourse — Founder** *(June 2013 – December 2024 | Taipei / Rotterdam)*\nFounded and led an open-source platform for collaborative online learning. Offcourse pioneered crowdlearning — enabling practitioners to curate, structure, and share knowledge across distributed networks. Relaunched in December 2023 with a focus on AI-assisted knowledge coordination.\n\n**Superconnectors Network — Founder & Chief Vision Officer** *(May 2021 – Present | Rotterdam)*\nFounded a structured matchmaking event series connecting startups with high-value connectors. The format — in which founders pitch a critical ask and connectors compete to provide the best match — has been adopted across the Netherlands and expanded internationally, including to Japan.\n\n**Snowday — Co-founder & CTO** *(March 2022 – December 2023 | New York City)*\nCo-founded a ratings and reviews platform for competitive extracurricular education for high schoolers in the United States. Responsible for technical architecture and the organizational infrastructure to support rapid scaling.\n\n**Varias — Chief Product Officer** *(January 2022 – January 2024 | Rotterdam)*\nDeveloped the AI \"virtual team member\" concept — originated at his earlier venture Lefthoek — further into an AI-powered productivity tool that embeds virtual team members into human teams, automating routine tasks and redeploying human capacity toward higher-value work; the tool became one of Varias's core IP assets. Subsequently led product development for Varias's broader scale-up services business, providing autonomous, dedicated teams to later-stage startups — responsible for product strategy, team performance frameworks, and scaling methodology.\n\n**Lefthoek — Founder** *(June 2020 – November 2021 | Rotterdam)*\nFounded Lefthoek, which added AI-powered \"virtual team members\" to messaging apps for information management — taking over laborious and difficult tasks so teams could work smarter with less effort. The concept was later further developed at Varias.\n\n**PublicSpaces — Project Lead Developer** *(October 2019 – October 2021 | Amsterdam)*\nLed development of the Public Badges framework — a system of digital quality marks that technically validates websites and software applications against a set of public-interest values. Collaborated across Dutch media, culture, education, and health sectors.\n\n**University of Amsterdam** *(2005–2018)*\n\n- Assistant Professor in Cultural Analysis *(August 2005 – December 2016)*\n    - Developed and taught cross-disciplinary curricula and research projects at bachelor's, master's, and staff levels. Key projects:\n    - *Coding the Humanities* (2013–2015): One of the first programming bootcamps in the Netherlands, integrating software development with humanities research\n    - *Augmenting Masterpieces* (2014–2015): Research project at the Rijksmuseum; nominated for the Best of the Web award (Museums and the Web, 2015)\n- Human Resources Manager *(September 2011 – September 2012)*\n    - Designed a training curriculum for new academic staff and developed a policy framework for job mobility within the faculty.\n- Guest Researcher, Faculty of Humanities *(January 2017 – December 2018)*\n\n**Dev Bootcamp — Coach & Teaching Assistant** *(June 2013 – September 2013 | San Francisco)*\nCoached and supervised students; delivered lectures throughout the intensive software development program.\n\n**Jan van Eyck Academie — Research Fellow** *(January 2006 – December 2008 | Maastricht)*\nPostdoctoral research fellowship in art theory and cultural analysis.\n\n---\n\n## Education\n\n**Ph.D. in Philosophy** — Utrecht University, in a joint doctoral trajectory with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Media Studies) *(2001–2005)*\nActivities included: Dissertation, lectures, seminars, student supervision, and conference presentations.\n\n**Drs. (BA and MA Combined) in Philosophy** — Utrecht University *(1995–2000)*\nActivities included: President, Student Association FUF; Member, Education Board; Member, Education Committee; Erasmus Exchange Berlin; minor in gender studies and cognitive artificial intelligence.\n\n---\n\n## Selected Publications\n\n- *Off Beat: Pluralizing Rhythm* (Amsterdam, 2013) — Essay collection on rhythm as an analytical tool for cultural objects\n- \"Oh Baby I Like It Raw\" in *Sonic Meditations* (Cambridge, 2008)\n- \"New Adventures in Low Fidelity\" in *Image and Narrative* (Leuven, 2008)\n- \"Aus der Spur Geraten\" in *Lettre International* (Berlin, 2002)\n- *Time Tracks* — PhD dissertation (Utrecht, 2005)\n\n---\n\n## Selected Projects & Awards\n\n- **Best of the Web nomination** — Museums and the Web (2015), for *Augmenting Masterpieces* at the Rijksmuseum\n- **Public Badges** (2019–2022) — Open-source digital quality mark framework; adopted across Dutch public sector institutions via PublicSpaces\n- **Bots With an Attitude** (2019–2021) — Designed modular AI agents equipped with interchangeable capabilities (search aggregation, crowdsourced data collection, social monitoring) and released into a shared network where they interacted with one another and developed emergent, personality-like behavior over time. Developed as part of Waag's Planet B initiative; the conceptual seed for Lefthoek, Varias, and later Rizom.\n\n---\n\n## Languages & Technical Skills\n\n**Human languages:** Dutch (native), English (professional), German (professional), French (elementary), Mandarin Chinese (elementary)\n\n**Technical:** Full-stack software development; polyglot programmer (frontend, backend, DevOps, system architecture)",
  "$type": "ai.rizom.brain.note",
  "title": "Untitled",
  "format": "text/markdown",
  "createdAt": "2026-07-21T06:12:06.915Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-08-07T06:03:26.062Z",
  "sourceEntityId": "CV",
  "sourceEntityType": "note"
}

did:plc:dtxrise7xa4kat6mh4zd4lqe | at://did:plc:dtxrise7xa4kat6mh4zd4lqe/ai.rizom.brain.note/CV