About me

Hoi! 👋🐥. My friends describe me as kind, open, and enthusiastic. They might also say I can philosophise too much sometimes. I enjoy exploring; places, hobbies, thoughts, and people. I sometimes do so via my personal website, but recently I struggle to find the time. Philosophy is something I unknowingly have been doing since very young, but recently try to do more consciously through reading. Religion and its role/benefit within society is something I have been a bit obsessed with lately - on my website you can find a draft prayer I made for myself. Besides philosophy I thoroughly enjoy exercising through yoga, running, bouldering, fitness, or dancing. The dancing goes really well with my love for music; I enjoy all kinds - but if someone puts on Skrillex, Four Tet, or Fred again.. you really make my day! Also, I have a lovely girlfriend, who is doing really cool stuff researching into what makes plants ripen. 🪴

Let me now tell you a bit about what I’ve been up to before joining Dembrane.

Former working experience

After high-school, my academic career started with two years of high-performance sport and international experience as a student-athlete in the USA. After, I obtained a bachelor's in applied physics at the TU/e, and a master's in data science & entrepreneurship at the JADS. On the side, I have always been a busy bee leading various committees and doing various part-time jobs in education, communication, consultancy, and data science - for which I was taking jobs being self-employed during a large part of my master’s program. For my thesis, I did research in both NLP (computer science) and ethics (philosophy), where I tried to have a large language model (ChatGPT) perform the moral work of a specific ethical theory. This thought me much about AI and philosophy, and got me interested in the intersection between AI and our society.

Why I joined Dembrane

In the summer of 2023 I got the chance to work together with Evelien and Jorim on the Democratic Inputs to AI project by OpenAI when we were linked by a shared friend. I was impressed and grateful for the warm welcome and how they made me immediately feel part of the project. Furthermore, during the project when I was learning more about the democratic input space, I got more and more convinced by the power and good that the next set of democratic tools can bring. Also, I found out that Evelien and Jorim are two crazy passionate and talented people. So after the project, when I got the change to join Dembrane full-time, I was really interested!

Although I was also looking seriously to PhD’s in the field of AI and consciousness, the direct impact a startup can deliver over a PhD is what made me choose for Dembrane. I had been doing academics for many years, and I felt ready and excited to make something that can directly be used by communities to improve their communication.

And thus, in January 2024, I started as project and team lead for Dembrane! I also joined the board, because I believe in Dembrane and its mission, and am excited to do what I can for it to achieve its mission! 🚀

People Know How!

- Bram