About me

Hi, Wouter here! 👋

I am a researcher studying the impact of digital technology on society. At the Rathenau Instituut I help shape the public and political debate about new technologies, such as immersive tech & AI.

Technology doesn’t dictate the way our lives can look like, no matter how much some investors would like us to believe it.

In my work I like to use design methodologies and ethnography. I’m interested in questions like how we can redesign the way we currently live with digital technologies.

Things I have been working on

Some of the things I worked on:

• Research into online harms
• Inclusive Online Environments
• The impact of the Digital Services Act
• Online Tracking
• Immersive tech and it’s impact on public values
• Podcast on immersive tech
• Digital ethnography in the public sector

Some facts about me

• Quite a nerd
• Social scientist at heart, with a Research Master in Public Administration & Organisational Science
• Love to cook (send me a recipe!)
• Mountains > cities
• Started building PHP forums in 2009
• Trying to read 25 books a year
• Tinkering is fun (like soldering an IR-transmitter to automate my vintage receiver)

Interviews

• NRC (2024): Interview about Bluesky
• Radio Stanvaste (2024): Interview on online hate
• Algemeen Dagblad (2023): Interview on doxing
• Design Digger (2023) Can immersive tech improve our humanity?
• de Volkskrant (2022): Interview about the metaverse hype
• Radio 1 (2021): Radio interview about online harms

Articles

• Opinion piece (2023): AI companies are using citizens as lab rats
• Essay Platform Overheid (2021): How to work together digitally
• Scientific article (2020): ICT-Based Co-production: A Public Values Perspective
• Essay iBestuur (2020): Dashboards as more than a technical intervention

Speaking & talks

• Dutch Design Week, Oktober 23 (2024): Inclusive online environments
• Digital Society Conference, April 25 (2024): Immersive tech & public values
• Pakhuis de Zwijger, February 28 (2023): Public debate on augmented reality
• The Hmm: November 9 (2022): A public counternarrative to the metaverse
• NPO innovatiefestival, June 3 (2021): Critical perspective on the metaverse