a piece of history

In 1978, my father bought a costly Ohio Scientific Challenger III computer. In those days, it was very advanced and immense. It interested my brother in programming, which he passed on to me. He gave me a Casio PB-100 mini computer with the programming language BASIC for my 14th birthday. And there it all started 😉

In 1984, when I was 19, I had a job interview in Dubai at American President Lines, a large international company. They acquired the first IBM PC, running MS-Dos V1.0 and Lotus 1-2-3 V1.0 Spreadsheet and needed someone to operate it. I had never seen this computer, nor Ms-Dos or Lotus 1-2-3. The job interview lasted 5 minutes, and I was asked if I had any experience with a computer. Then they dumped me in the room with the computer and told me they would come and see what I created in 45 minutes. I figured out what I needed to do, created a small schedule in Lotus 1-2-3 and showed it to them. I was hired straight away and started the following Monday 🙂

From there, my career started in IT, and I worked till my 26th for large companies setting up networks, developing software, and creating hardware. I developed software solutions and set up hardware for Heineken, Philips, Nokia, Dutch national TV, Corus Steel, and many smaller companies.

Then, I started my own company, developing software, installing networks and computers, and linking them to numerous devices. In 1993, when the Internet as we know it had gained popularity, I started developing sites in HTML, raw in code, nothing like how websites are created today.

In 2012, a project brought me to Malta. My upbringing in the Middle East led me down memory lane, and I moved my company from the Netherlands to Malta in 2014, renamed it MaltaCode. 

For the Maltese, I became the digital nomad next door 🙂