Professor of Innovation & Technology | Entrepreneur | Former Professional Speed Skater

Daan is a highly curious newcomer in the open-source world. Emerging from a background of systems integration and writing testtooling. Having been introduced to enablement around an OpenShift implementation, he's taken the leap to HCS-Company to learn as much about containerisation as he can. Recently, he has taken the green and is learning a ton about the SUSE stack, which he's willing to share.

Erik Zandboer is a Cloud-Native Architect at Portworx, based in the Rotterdam area. He helps organizations across EMEA North accelerate Kubernetes and cloud-native adoption, with a strong focus on persistency for container workloads. Erik advises customers on modern application platforms, data services, and multi-cloud architectures, ensuring strategies align with business outcomes. His expertise spans Kubernetes, app modernization, automation, enterprise storage, and VMware. Previously, he held senior architect roles at Dell Technologies and worked at EMC as a vSpecialist.

A lifelong Linux nut with a penchant for automation, I have spent most of my career working on the platform side of things. In recent years my attention has shifted to CI/CD. As a member of their CICD team, I'm currently assisting Bol. with securing their software chain.

Jan Buurman (HCS Company) is a born IT puzzle-solver with a passion for seemingly impossible IT challenges. He fits the pieces of technology, people, and process together in such a way that platforms deliver real value. With industry standards as his compass and his rich experience as a catalyst, he brings inspiring images to life; realistic, actionable, and progressive. He likes to make you think, maybe just a little differently than you do today. His trademark: refreshingly quirky and pragmatic, always hunting for the next value - for you, your team, and especially your platform customers.

Captain of HCS Company

Event manager at HCS Company

Nick Jansen (42) is Lead DevOps Engineer with a background in middleware and integration. He has almost 20 years of experience across various organizations and has been working in DevOps for the past 5 years. Nick lives in Deventer with his wife and three children.

Technology is only valuable when it solves real problems. I help organizations and our partners cut through complexity and turn AI, Multi-Hybrid Cloud, and Cloud-Native IT into practical solutions that drive business forward.

With a multi-decade background in state-of-the-art IT technology, I work with IT architects, development teams, and senior decision-makers to build future-proof, sustainable and intelligent platforms. My focus is on:

🔹 AI & Automation – Practical applications that actually deliver value
🔹 Multi-Hybrid Cloud – Scalable architectures without vendor lock-in
🔹 Cloud-Native IT – Kubernetes, serverless, and intelligent workloads

I enjoy breaking down complex challenges, helping teams structure their journey, and making advanced technology accessible to both IT professionals and business leaders. Whether through advisory, hands-on collaboration, or public speaking, my goal is to help organizations move forward with confidence.

Board menber of e-NABLE Nederland

From a young age I knew I wanted to work in IT. After completing my bachelor's degree I went all in on Kubernetes and cloud-native. To this day I never regret that choice. I'm an enthusiast of SRE and the modern way of working. Trying to stay up-to-date in the daily changing landscape of cloud-native and CNCF is a challenge I face daily.

In my personal time I try to sport a lot with running and a few triathlons each year. Otherwise I like to spend time with friends and family.

Platform Engineer with 7+ years of hands-on experience designing, automating, and optimizing infrastructure on GCP, Kubernetes, Docker/Containerd, and bare-metal environments. Skilled in Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, GitOps, and modern DevOps practices, with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, and operational excellence