20th Anniversary Brochure - Stan Ackermans Institute

10
Former OOTI’s Ad Peeters
11
“Without OOTI
I’d never have
been able to do
what I do now”
Ad Peeters was one of the first wave of OOTI students in
1988. He had completed his Computer Science studies in
four years, and was able to continue working at OOTI on the
subject of his graduation project, trace theory. He’s currently
still working on this technology, but now as CTO of
Handshake Solutions, a part of Philips that will soon become
independent. At OOTI he gained a broad understanding of
his field, and the chance to try things out for himself. That’s
been a big benefit in his career. Now he travels the world to
promote ‘his’ technology.
“Trace theory is a line that was started by Martin Rem”, Ad
explains. “It’s all about the way in which circuits on ICs work.
Trace theory is a formalism which allows you to reason about
correctness properties.”
At that time OOTI students didn’t yet do their graduation projects
in industry. But Ad already had contacts with the Philips
department that was working on this technology. After gaining
his industrial designer’s diploma, Ad also took his doctorate in
this subject. He followed an internship in the same department
at Philips, which since then he has never really left. “All that
time I’ve continued working on the same technology, although
in a series of different positions. I started as a researcher and
was given more and more management tasks. Now I’m CTO, and
together with two other colleagues we’re running a company of
22 people. A few years ago we recruited a CEO who is taking us
through the transformation process from a research department
into an independent commercial company.”
Energy-efficient ICs
Ad Peeters travels all over the world to promote his technology
to IC companies. Interest is increasing steadily. Among other
benefits, ICs made with this technology are very energy efficient.
Around 500 million of them are already in use, in applications
that include electronic passports, cars and mobile phones. “For
example there’s an IC using our technology in a specific Nokia
range. This allows the telephone to be equipped with NFC, Near
Field Communication”, says Ad, not without pride. “I’ve launched
my concept on the market and now I have to make sure that it
really takes off and can continue to grow. It’s great to do that,
but it takes a lot of patience and hard work.”
Plenty of freedom
“I learned a lot in my two years at OOTI”, says Ad. “It was a
broadly based programme, which gave me a sound base in this
specialised field. We also had the chance to try all kinds of
things for ourselves. In fact that was the main theme in those
two years: give people plenty of freedom, then they’ll find out
how to do it by themselves. We were glad to take advantage of
that, also because we knew we were backed by people with a lot
of know-how, and we could ask them anything we wanted.”
There’s one more thing that Ad benefits from every day, and
that’s the Technical Writing & Editing course. “Having ideas is
easy”, he says, “but if you’re going to do anything with them
you have to be able to convince other people. I can immediately
spot the people who haven’t done this course.”
“In fact I could never have done what I do now without OOTI”,
he concludes, “which is why I regard it as a plus-point if job
applicants have also done this programme. Because then you
know that they possess a number of the required skills.”