About Me

My words are my own and are not to be taken as being representative of the views of any organisation or employer I work for

Why this personal website? If you read further on this page, you’ll notice that in my daytime job I have a lot to do with policymaking in respect to IT related innovations. In the business meetings I have with people, mostly managers, consultants and politicians, I often wonder if the people who are deciding about IT budgets can do a simple job like building a website themselves. So with building my own site I am putting this thought into practice.

But there are more reasons to build a website. Read the opening words of the book ‘Program or be Programmed’ by Doug Rushkoff: “When human beings acquired language, we learned not just how to listen but how to speak. When we gained literacy, we learned not just how to read but how to write. And as we move into an increasingly digital reality, we must learn not just how to use programs but how to make them. In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software.” (True, building a website is not the same as programming. And to be honest, even for building this website I needed help.)

Having said that, it is time to introduce myself. My name is Carlien Roodink. I am born, together with an identical twinsister, in 1968 in the Netherlands and I currently live in Amsterdam. I am married to Babs (yes, a gay marriage) and I have two daughters, born in 1998 and 2000. In May 2011 our son was born.

Besides being a mum and a spouse I am a member of the City Council of Amsterdam for D66, the Dutch liberal democratic party (www.d66amsterdam.nl), since 2010 Having a background in Finance, (Cost) Accounting, ICT and general management and working experience in the financial sector it is not surprisingly that I have issues like Finance, ICT, Personnel in my portfolio. Other issues are the Amsterdam airport Schiphol and the so called Amsterdam municipal council’s 1012 project. The project 1012 aims to discourage crime and corruption in the city centre by reducing the types of businesses that are conducive to crime and by permitting prostitution.

Since July 2011 I work for IIP/Create (ICT Innovation Platform Creative Industry), a national thinktank in the field of creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. IIP/Create is involved in two EU projects ImmediaTe and BCreative. IIP Create is also a partner in the consortium Nederland Opent Data. The consortium stimulates SME’s in the creative sector to develop new services based on Open Data.

I also work as Program Director for the Dutch Program on Service Innovation & ICT (SII), www.si-i.nl. SII is an innovation program supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The program stimulates innovations on themes as e-payments, connectedness, crowdfunding, open data and e-identity and is initiated and co-funded by a a wide range of partners in mainly the financial and creative sector among which Logica, Rabobank, IBM, Novay, IIP Create and Holland Financial Centre. SII has contributed to 16 different project with more than 80 projectpartners involved. Unfortunately by June 30rd, 2011, the Dutch program will no longer be financially supported by the Dutch Ministry due to a change in strategy of the new administration.