About Rob Hoeijmakers
My name is Rob Hoeijmakers. I work with organisations on AI and digital strategy, and I write more broadly about research, innovation and technological change.
In my professional work, I help senior teams understand what new technology means for their organisation, where to start, and what decisions need to be made before it can become genuinely useful. Through Schmuki, the agency I run, we also build AI-driven knowledge systems: infrastructure that helps organisations make what they know available to both people and machines.
What I Do
Most of my work starts with a strategic question.
An executive team that senses AI will change their organisation but is unsure how to approach it. A knowledge-intensive organisation exploring what becomes possible when AI can navigate its internal expertise. A leadership team trying to distinguish what matters from what is noise.
I help them understand the technology, make choices and move from strategy towards practical use.
The organisations I work with include KPMG Meijburg, UMC Utrecht, Education Lab and Enreach. Much of my work grows out of existing relationships and long-term collaboration.
I write mainly in English here. My Dutch-language writing on conversational AI and digital communication appears at Chat voor Bedrijven and Enreach.
What I Write About
This blog is where I think in public about research, innovation and how technology becomes useful.
I am interested not only in the technology itself, but in the systems around it: research and development, companies, capital, institutions, infrastructure, markets, regulation and government.
AI is an important part of that because it is one of the major technological shifts happening now. But the underlying question is broader: how does new knowledge become technological capability, and what determines whether organisations and societies are actually able to use it?
That leads me into subjects ranging from AI models and knowledge systems to R&D, industrial policy, taxation, investment, procurement and the European technology landscape.
I write as a practitioner and a curious generalist. Usually because I encounter something I do not yet fully understand and want to work out how it fits into the larger picture.
If you want a sense of the writing, these are good places to start:
- Technology
What new technologies can do, how they work, and what they make possible. - Innovation
How new knowledge becomes useful technology, through research, capital, companies, markets and institutions. - Practice
What happens when organisations and professionals actually start using new technology. - Europe
The economic, political and institutional context in which much of this development takes place.
Get in Touch
For a concise professional profile, see robhoeij.pro.
The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn. If you want to know more about my work with organisations, visit Schmuki.
If you want to follow the writing, subscribe to the newsletter.
Weekly, editorial, no noise, on research, innovation and technological change.
