About Anthony

Striving to democratize and decentralize access to science and technology.

Mad Scientist

I am an eclectic high-tech skill collector with a keen interest in anything science and technology. I am a real life mad scientist — doctor in biomedical technology, master in computer science, sous-chef in French cuisine and technology designer by trade — but that doesn't stop me from learning more.

Inventor for hire

I help organizations understand and tackle the necessary technical steps toward feasible high tech products and services, from biotech over data science to the internet of things. I'm a technology designer with a can-do-will-do mentality to tackle your challenges for the future.

Community builder

Acting as benevolent dictator and janitor of the Open Garage hackerspace, residing as our national radio's scientist, running maker camps and building online communities, I enable knowledge sharing and community vibe, promoting spontaneous high tech education.


Do you need a twisted brain for your next project?

Contact Anthony!

I don't have a hyperactive imagination...
I just happen to live in an underactive universe.

Portfolio

A sample of my eclectic making and hacking, both professionally and as a hobby, online and in real life.

Works match criteria

Project Details

    Open Garage

    Maker community

    A community in my backyard

    Every Thursday evening, I open the door to my laboratory, the Open Garage. Everyone keen on geeky projects is welcome for a visit. Bring a few drinks for our community fridge. If you have a project or a friend that you want to bring, then please do.

    Having been weekly active for many, many years, the Open Garage is a huge community of many hundreds of people of which a dozen drop by each Thursday, to collaborate on projects and to chat about technology in a nerd-friendly atmosphere. Everyone is welcome to drop by. The amount of knowledge sharing and community vibe is very rewarding, worth your visit!

    DateNov 2011 - Present
    LocationMy own garage
    KeywordsHackerspace, Community, Garage, Making, Electronics, Knowledge sharing, Informal vibe, Thursday
    Websiteopengarage.org

    Fri3d Camp

    Family-friendly hacker camp
    Date15-17 August 2014, 13-15 August 2016 and 18-20 August 2018
    LocationDe Hoge Rielen (2014, 2016) and De Kluis (2018)
    KeywordsSummercamp, Camping, Hacking, Making, Science, Technology, Nature, Community, Family-friendly, Children, Workshops, Talks, Quality food, Campfires, Glowsticks, Organizer
    Websitefri3d.be

    The Plan

    With the help of Open Garage friends I am organizing Belgian hackercamps, with a third edition in 2018, after two successful runs in 2014 and 2016. Fri3d Camp is a family-friendly summer camp around the themes of technology, nature and education, held at the beautiful camping grounds of De Kluis (Scouting en Gidsen Vlaanderen) in Sint-Joris Weert.

    The Camp

    With 200 children and 600 attendees spending 3 days and nights together on a camping ground, entertained by over 110 workshops and lectures and quality warm group meals, plenty of power and fast internet access over WiFi (in the forest), our third camp in 2018 has been a huge success.

    Power Tool Drag Racing

    What could possibly go wrong?
    DateLast Sunday of November (Dag van de Wetenschap in Flanders, Belgium)
    LocationDe Schuur in Fort Borsbeek
    KeywordsPower tools, Drag racing, Hacking competition, Science plus Rock'n'Roll, Spontaneous high-tech education, Open Garage anniversary
    Websitepowertoolracing.be

    With the help of Open Garage friends I organize the Belgian Championship Power Tool Drag Racing. Participants bring circular saws, grinders and sanders that they converted into superb racing machines that drag race each other on a wooden race track. The resulting competition is guaranteed to be spectacular!

    More information on the yearly competition, or how to participate or come over to watch the show, can be found on the project's own web site at powertoolracing.be.

    IO lab

    Self-employed prototyper
    DateMarch 2014 - Present
    ClientsArgus Labs, Universiteit Antwerpen, Playpass, Sign2pay, Rombit, Stratified Medical, Foodpairing, VRT
    KeywordsMy company, Professional, Self-employed, Prototyping, Technical business case assessments, Biotech, Data science, Knowledge management, Data mining, Big data, Data architecture, Machine learning, Internet of Things, Code, Electronics

    Self-employed prototyper

    Professionally, I am a self-employed biotech/datamining/machinelearning scientist, code monkey, maker. I love to tackle project-based challenges in technological, scientific and innovative environments.

    I specialise in building prototypes and proofs of concept that allow for technical business model assessments in early stage start-up or spin-off projects.

    IO lab BVBA is the company from which I manage my contracting and consulting activities.

    Your goal must be to pick my brain so you can take the next step.

    If you are in need of a twisted brain, contact me to discuss your project!

    Workshops

    Geeky team building
    ClientsNarato, Mobile Vikings, Telenet.
    KeywordsWorkshops, Team building, Internet of Things, Concept building, IFTTT, Technology, Geeky, Motivational, Inspirational, Hands-on.

    The Challenge

    Team building isn't limited to activities in a forest. Your (geeky) team is more than welcoming to the idea to play with high tech, while building team spirit.

    You want to step up the digital skills of your whole team, relate it to processes on the job, and are looking for an educational and hands-on workshop?

    You may contact me to see how I can help out your team.

    Workshops

    I'll bring everything to entertain your team with a hands-on workshop about the Internet of Things.

    We'll learn about IoT, I will personally build a one-off IoT device tailored to your team, everyone (no geeky experience required) builds their own first working application with IFTTT and we discuss how IoT is important related to your job processes or company values to build your team.

    Public Speaking

    Anthony on stage
    KeywordsPublic Speaking, Motivational, Energetic.

    My Offer

    As a frequent speaker at events and a need to transfer my enthusiasm onto crowds, I am ready to energize your audience. I can offer motivational talks on a range of subjects, about the future of the internet and technology, about the rock'n'roll view of makers and hackers in innovating our planet, about mad science and decentralizing access thereto, or even about current revolutions in our Flemish language.

    You may contact me to talk about how I can help out at your event.

    Thomas More

    Design lab course
    DateSeptember 2015-current
    ClientSchool of Information Management, Thomas More Mechelen
    KeywordsBachelor students, Wearables, Smart Cities, Design thinking, Electronics lab, Arduino, Particle Photon, teaching
    WebsiteThomas More Information Management (Dutch)

    The Course

    Engineering students shouldn't be allowed to graduate without ever having touched a screwdriver. --Lieven Standaert

    The goal of this design lab course is to break information management students out of their comfort zone and into an electronics lab, to assist them in transferring their digital skills to the physical world, to guide them on a design project and to let them explore an entrepreneurial spirit. In 2015, we built wearable products, in 2016 we conceptualized smart cities ideas.

    iFest

    Improved festival experiences
    DateMarch 2015-December 2016
    ClientPlayPass NV
    KeywordsFestivals, Crowd control, Improved experiences, Organizers and crowd members, Big data, Real time analysis, Business intelligence, Internet of Things
    WebsiteiFest project

    The Challenge

    Within Vlaio's "iFest" project, I helped Playpass NV to design and build enriched digital experiences for festival organizers and crowd members. By leveraging smart wristbands and big data technologies in festival environments we can provide revolutionary new realtime experiences for the crowd and business intelligence insights for organizers.

    Radio 1

    Resident scientist
    DateJanuary 2015-March 2016
    PublisherRadio 1, VRT
    KeywordsNational radio, Belgium, Flemish, Science, Technology, Science communication, Layman audience
    WebsiteDe wereld van de wetenschap voor ons uitgelegd

    The Challenge

    Radio 1 is a Belgian national radio station whose main goal is to keep their audience informed with news, backgrounds and views on current topics. One of their programs, De bende van Annemie, was looking for a new resident scientist to provide weekly views on current scientific and technological news.

    After a few visits to my garage for a few loose items on hackerspaces and biotech related subjects, they asked me to join their team to share views. I had a weekly segment, where I explained recent scientific news items and the magic of science for a layman audience.

    HEXXX

    Three player game console
    DateAugust 2015
    KeywordsHEXXX, Game console, 3 players, Hexagon, Tron for 3, Pong for 3, LED display, Buttons, Raspberry Pi, Laser cutting, WS2811
    WebsiteHEXXX at GitHub

    The Challenge

    With the Open Garage, we visit Europe's biggest hacker camps every two years. In preparation for Chaos Communication Camp 2015, I needed something portable to bring and I needed to build it, fast, in 10 evenings. With a bunch of spare LEDs and buttons from a broken iCade interface, I built the HEXXX 3 player console.

    The hexagonal shape provided me with a whole bunch of interesting mathematical problems. You can find the plans to build your own, and all the software in the HEXXX GitHub repository.

    Foodpairing

    Cocktail robot
    DateMarch 2015
    ClientFoodpairing
    KeywordsCocktail robot, Cocktail pairingHardware prototyping, Internet of Things, Bartendro

    The Challenge

    Foodpairing.com builds software for chefs, based on an extensive database of ingredient properties, to matching ingredients and to generate new, surprising recipes. For their newest product, a cocktail recipe generator, I helped them convert a Bartendro cocktail robot to work with their software.

    House deco

    Blinkennumbers
    DateMay 2015
    KeywordsLED displays, RGB LED string, Lasercutting, Free format layout, WS2811, Arduino, Outdoors

    The Challenge

    We needed a nice, clean new house number for our house. I couldn't think about anything else than smooth, colorful blinkenlights. This is the result.

    Badge Control

    Internet of time recording
    DateSeptember 2014
    ClientRombit
    KeywordsHardware prototyping, Internet of Things, Time recording, Raspberry Pi, 3G, Barcode scanner
    Websitebadgecontrol.be

    The Challenge

    Big Belgian construction sites are required to register workforces and Badge Control is a platform that helps contractors to make this registration easy. For the development of this platform, Rombit asked me to develop a prototype of the device for onsite workforce registration and help prep the product in its first steps toward production.

    The Solution

    I helped Rombit develop the hardware prototype of the on-site time recorder, back-to-back integration with the BadgeControl SaaS backend and develop documentation to help them plan toward the production of the devices.

    Sign2Pay

    Signature verification
    DateJune-August 2014
    ClientSign2Pay
    KeywordsMachine learning, Data science, Signature verification, Python, Ruby
    Websitesign2pay.com

    The Challenge

    Sign2Pay develops a revolution in online payments by securing mobile payments with signatures, thereby simplifying mobile payment processes for buyers and increasing conversion rates for merchants.

    I helped Sign2Pay develop a prototype of the signature verification machine learner, define methodologies for future development, and to identify important technical elements to align the business case with the real world.

    Testimonial

    "It’s rare that you come across standout talent like Anthony. He’s ridiculously efficient and has the capacity to understand the business requirements as well beyond the scientific outlining necessary in developing our technology.

    We’ve initially met on meetups regarding upcoming technologies such as 3D-printing where Anthony would steal the thunder with his positive and energetic attitude. Whenever you need to muscle through a though problem on your scientific or technical department. Anthony is my go-to guy. He’s like a snowplough, clearing the way for the rest of the team."

    — Nicolas Mertens, Founder Sign2Pay.com

    Playpass

    Cashless payments
    DateApril-July 2014
    ClientPlaypass
    KeywordsCashless payments, Festivals, Events, PayPal, Ruby, Ruby on Rails
    Websiteplaypass.be

    The Challenge

    Playpass helps events manage their crowd and crew, by building a platform to support entrance control, zones, benefits, meals, etc.

    I helped Playpass develop a personal account for cashless payments, where visitors can register their event ticket and link their festival wristband to their PayPal account. The system allows for cashless payments at the events, so visitors can pay for drinks and food with their wristbands and no longer need to bring cash to the event. The cashless system had its first successful deployment at Low Festival 2014 in Benidorm, Spain.

    Mood based music

    Recommending music
    DateMarch 2014
    ClientSentiance
    KeywordsMusic recommendation, Moods, Knowledge management, Knowledge mining, Music hackday Paris

    The Challenge

    Argus Labs develops deep learning algorithms to ambiently sense, understand and predict context, human behaviour and mood. Their cloud platform allows companies to reach new levels of mobile customer engagement, by enabling context-rich and behaviour-aware solutions.

    I helped Argus Labs develop their first context and mood-based music recommender system, within an extremely short timespan of 2 weeks. The small-scale research project identified mood-related genres and resulted in a working prototype for a mood-based music recommender. Joining the team for Music Hackday Paris #2, Moodji was built as a back-to-back demonstrator of the recommender.

    BioGraph

    Biomedical knowledge mining
    Date2007-2013
    EmployerUniversiteit Antwerpen & VIB Department of Molecular Genetics
    KeywordsBiotech, life sciences, knowledge management, knowlegde mining, semantic web, Ruby on Rails
    Websitebiograph.be

    The Challenge

    Biotech and life sciences are known to suffer from an exponential growth of information, presented as high-throughput experiments and knowledge contained in a vast amount of literature.

    Researchers need to be able to automatically and intelligently leverage the available knowledge to make their discovery pipelines faster and cheaper.

    The Solution

    BioGraph offers knowledge integration and data mining methods for these tasks, as a SaaS platform with various R&D applications.

    BioGraph optimizes workflows, early in the life sciences value chain. Because of networked data mining and heterogeneous information, it can find more relevant targets and provide transparency through rationales, furthering downstream research.

    LED displays

    Free-form lights
    DateDecember 2013 & December 2014
    KeywordsLED displays, RGB LED string, Triplex, Free format layout, WS2811, Arduino

    The Challenge

    In the autumn of 2013 and 2014 I built rather big scale LED displays, for the simple reason that I love watching hundreds of blinking lights.

    In 2013 I built a huge Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) display, with 300 RGB LEDs. It parodied religious christmas lights hanging from our window and is on constant display in the Open garage.

    In 2014 I built a big triplex 3-letter combo, HEL, for my friend HELene Zegers, made in co-op with Stefan Van Geenhoven. It contains 666 LEDs (222 * RGB) and its best animation is an old-skool fire effect, completing the hell theme.


    I am always ready for new, exciting challenges. How about your next project?

    Contact me

    Don't complain, suggest what's better.

    Contact

    Are you ready to start your project?
    I am ready to take your call.

    Find me

    Business hours

    • Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00 CET
    • Formal chats: Fridays, at my or your office
    • Social chats: Evenings, in the Open Garage