20th Anniversary Brochure - Stan Ackermans Institute

16
“OOTI graduates
make better
career progress”
Ton Kostelijk
The industry 17
Philips Applied Systems
“At Philips Applied Systems we develop ‘first of a kind’ products,
and OOTI graduates can be very useful in that process”, says
system architect Ton Kostelijk, “but they can also learn a lot
here.” He’s very happy about the collaboration with Software
Technology: “I even give lectures there, about the performance
bottlenecks that you can encounter in various kinds of
systems. And they also really do listen to people from industry.
For example I once recommended that they add the subject of
‘testing’ to the programme. That’s now been done.”
Real high-flyers
He regards the Software Technology programme as very focused,
although each OOTI graduate is different. “The people who
come to us are usually the real high-flyers, both in terms of
programming skills and in project experience. We noted for a
while that there were some big cultural differences, but the
curriculum has now been greatly improved in that respect.”
Earlier responsibilities
“The ability of OOTI graduates to think in abstract terms ensures
that they are given responsibility earlier in our lab, and as a
result they make better progress in their careers. They sometimes
lack in-depth programming skills, but usually gain those very
quickly. And they also have very good social skills. I sometimes
see that even though individuals may really be introvert, they’ve
gained those social skills during the OOTI programme. That’s
quite an achievement.”
Keep putting quality first
Ton Kostelijk also has some suggestions to make for Software
Technology in the future. “Keep on putting quality first, by
which I mean the right combination of in-depth technical
knowledge and communication. And check innovations for
quality.”