Paul Suijkerbuijk is the driving force behind open data in the Netherlands.

In this role, over the last few years he has managed to create an unprecedented momentum in the Dutch open data community, convincing governments to open up and share their data and optimizing the preconditions for open data to take off.

Paul is the founder of data.overheid.nl the dutch open data portal which is launched in beta in 2010. Currently data.overheid.nl is giving access to more than 7.000 open data sets in the Netherlands and still counting.

Open data is about value, Paul is constantly challenging government, society and industry to work together to find this value. It can be social value, economical value or democratic value. However, the biggest value is on cooperation, finding new ways of working together to find innovative solutions.

Paul regularly works for the European Commission as an expert in H2020 projects.

Paul has a technical background in physics.

Former projects of Paul are in the area of developing business architectures for customer contact. In this role Paul has been working for large companies in the Netherlands and a large group of public bodies in the Netherlands.

People working with Paul have experienced that he is able to make things work, driving on creative and innovative solutions and passion for the subject.