Building companies around games that reach the people healthcare and education usually miss.Building companies around games that reach the people healthcare and education usually miss.

I’m co-founder and CEO of Hulan, a studio in the Netherlands that makes serious games, gamification and extended reality for healthcare, education and business. Alongside it I co-founded Freequency, an augmented reality game for people with tinnitus, and Pillo, a gaming system for people with severe intellectual and multiple disabilities that you play by squeezing an ordinary cushion. At both, I lead the product.

I never start with a game. I start with the question: who are we trying to reach, and what has to change for them? The game and the business model are then designed around that answer, side by side, because a game that works but can’t pay for itself won’t reach anyone for long.

Design is the part I can’t leave alone. I care about UI and UX down to the details: the spacing, the timing of an animation, the moment a screen explains itself without a manual. For people who never went looking for a game, those details decide whether they keep playing.

I set the direction and carry the commercial side, but I still write code, mostly Unity, Swift and Kotlin. It keeps the estimates honest: when someone asks whether something is possible, the answer comes from someone who has tried to build it.

I’m also CTO of Jungle the Bungle, a language-learning platform for young children, and technical advisor to CityLegends. Outside the companies I’m an alumni ambassador for SintLucas and mentor people starting out in the games industry.