A week with several intensive days, and increasingly beautiful weather.

• Had a session with various other government structures to discuss the forming of a national digital ethics coalition. I represented the ethics committee of the association of provinces. Shortly before the summer a document with the plans for this coalition was sent to Parliament by the deputy minister for digital affairs.
• Did the final steps and checks of the books of both my and E’s personal company and filed the annual tax forms for 2022.
• Had the weekly client meetings
• Did a preparatory session with several PhD students for a meet-up late September with the interprovincial digital ethics committee about the governance of digital ethics and governance / allocation of responsibilities when using machine learning algorithms.
• Did a half day workshop on creating information models and using it in/with standards.
• Had a meeting about an experimental ‘data safe house’ in Rotterdam, a project that is now being scaled up to wider, national use by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The conversation was to explore how something like this would fit in the notion of the European common data space(s).
• Had a conversation with the network manager of the Open Knowledge Foundation to hear more about their current European network. This as I am creating a first overview of European civic entities engaging around the EU data strategy.
• Celebrated E’s birthday together (gifts, tea, cake, and pizza)
• Onboarded a new intern, and made an offer to a potential new hire.
• Spent a half day in Amsterdam at the Open State Foundation I chair, to catch up, and to sign the lease for the office space for the coming two years. The old naval yard where the offices are located has been in active redevelopment for 10 years now, and had an interesting conversation with the team managing the area about current developments, also politically.
• Did the monthly invoicing, this time with colleague F. as we intend to do the bookkeeping together in the next year. This should increase the sharing of responsibilities in the company, increase transparency, and free up some time for me while removing me as a potential single point of failure.
• The weather during the weekend was great. Went out with Y, she on her inline skates and me cycling, on Saturday. Today we went kayaking with the three of us, on the canals and Laak stream near our home.

‘dinner for two’ glass house at the water’s edge at Mediamatic in Amsterdam, originally put there during the pandemic measures. NEMO science museum in the background