Building the Tech Future: How I Got Into Technology

At the end of the eighties, I studied in Germany, focusing on a business and economics degree, and started working a bit in my family’s company. I was so excited about this degree that I started writing the software my family business was to use, and even sold it to two more firms.

Since my school days, I was deeply engaged in the developer, (world-famous) hacking, and online community of my hometown. I was very fortunate to run into some extremely talented engineers, writing the first online and bulletin board systems in Germany, networking these via UUCP, Zerberus, X.25, and other ways. I got introduced early to Unix (before Linux was around) and ran it.

Through my work for the family business software, I decided to write a database server first and then business logic software using it—all on Unix. Networking software, linking up with UUCP/TCP, AppleTalk, etc., followed.

In the course of this, I got to know the guy writing the compiler I was using; he was also a Director at Bell Labs, Northern Telecom, and later Newbridge. People like Rex, Volker, Clemens Dillmann… Going to Germany’s CeBIT (it was in my hometown), I met even more engineers (that was before it turned into a sales show) and CEOs, including Jack Tramiel, then CEO of Atari.

At the 1988 CeBIT, the largest computer conference in the world by then, with all the top tech execs across US and Asia, I even showcased a self-developed concept app there for new E-Mail and communication forms, which garnered quite a bit of attention.

I learned a lot. Working on these projects built the foundation of my coding, design, and architecture skills.

With Rex, we opened a Networking, BBS, and Online consultancy in Canada and Asia, helping clients like CNN, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Samart, Lippo Group, McCann Worldgroup, and many others. We worked on one high-stakes Government / Private client with Roland Heller, building the first eCommerce platform in the country… but also opening the internet across this region, too. I gained early insight into Netscape via my friend Gregory Harris.

I learned a lot again, made new partnerships, and made many mistakes, too. I got excited by the vision of global, top-tier transformation—using technology to change industries at scale—at the very early Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). It had only 46,000 staff back then (today it is a different company with nearly 800,000). I traveled the world, working with formidable businesses like Sony, Hutchison Whampoa/A.S. Watson, NHS, Compaq, Siam Cement, KBank, Proton, Central, BASF, and RWE, where Klaus Grobler and Lukas Bakker became lifelong friends. Many more followed.

It’s still a race. Still many learnings and still working with formidable folks.