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Dr. Ben Schouten

Dr Ben A.M. Schouten was born in 1953 and graduated from the Rietveld Art Academy in 1983. For many years he worked as a computer artist and his art has been exhibited in many places in the Netherlands and abroad. Interested in patterns and iconography, and after travelling in the Magreb and studying number theory he rediscovered his fascination for mathematics. During this period he worked both as a professional artist and student, receiving his master’s degree in mathematics, specializing in chaos theory, in August 1995.

In 1996 Ben Schouten founded Desk.nl, an Application Software Provider (ASP), providing innovative internet related solutions to a wide range of customers. In the early state of internet, Desk developed e-commerce solutions. Together with the Dutch Design Institute (Vormgevings Instituut), Desk was internationally awarded with a webby award in gaming.

In 2001 he received his PhD on content based image retrieval schemes and interfaces that express in an adaptive and intuitive way image similarities according to human perception. His thesis was awarded a bronze medal for Information Design.

Currently he is a researcher at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His main research interests are biometrics, image and video understanding. He is chairman of the working group Research and Development of the Dutch Biometrics Forum and a director of the recently founded European Biometrics Forum.

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