Coaching connector
As a self proclaimed ‘compulsory explainer’, Inald Lagendijk is always eager to share the knowledge and expertise he gained during his long-standing career as a computer scientist and ICT research director. ‘But I certainly do not want to become that know-it-all grandpa in the attic who is telling people what to do.’
For anyone who is in any way active in the Dutch computer science landscape, his is a well-known name. Besides being a multiple award-winning scientist, Distinguished Professor in Computing-based Society at TU Delft Inald Lagendijk has fulfilled a vast variety of managerial positions. To name only a few: he was a board member of the NWO Natural Sciences domain, founder and coordinator of the national top sector program Commit2Data, founding board member of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering, and, until recently, captain of science of the national innovation top team on ICT.
Deliberate career move
‘I enjoy bringing parties together, for example in the context of public-private partnerships. Over the past fifteen years or so, this has in fact become a large part of my work,’ Lagendijk looks back on his career so far in a lively conversation. Moving away from doing his own research towards getting actively involved in policy-making and agenda-setting was a conscious decision, he states. ‘I became an assistant professor at a very young age, before I had even completed my PhD. The next steps in my career also progressed rapidly, leading to a full professorship by the age of 37. After ten years of conducting research and publishing as a professor, you start looking for new challenges.’
As a result of his experience in leading large-scale national and European projects, Lagendijk increasingly was asked to take part in evaluation committees and steering groups for all sorts of things. That is when he found his new destiny. ‘Ultimately, I asked myself where I would be able to make a difference. I had already supervised a large number of master and PhD students and published my fair share of papers, and there are many talented young researchers who can do that just as well or even better than I can.’ Through his extracurricular activities, Lagendijk had found himself being rather successful at developing strategic agenda’s, communicating his vision, and bringing people together to make new things happen. ‘What’s more, I really enjoy this type of work, especially the coaching part of it. In fact, I hope to continue coaching young people and junior researchers even after I retire from university in a couple of years.’
Constructive yet critical
As a coach, he lives by the motto: True leaders do not create followers, but more leaders. To him that motto translates into trying to help people and parties move forward from a constructive, yet critical perspective. ‘If people ask me to participate in something, I always warn them in advance: I am happy to help you, but know that you will also get my honest opinion. You can do with it whatever you want; if you decide to completely ignore my input, that’s fine too. But don’t expect me to come along and just nod in agreement, because that’s not how I work.’
Finding the essence
Lagendijk went to college in the eighties, before computer science was a separate field of study. ‘Since I’ve always been drawn to technical challenges, and I am true engineer who has a knack for making things, I enrolled in Electrical Engineering at TU Delft.’ Early on in his studies he became fascinated by information theory. ‘That subject asked the essential questions: what is data, what is information, what is knowledge? With the rise of artificial intelligence, these questions are now more relevant than ever.’
Back in the eighties, the main application area for this type of research was in telecommunications, he recollects. ‘How can you efficiently send – at that time still analogue – telephone signals through cables? What happens if the signal is disrupted, can you still retrieve the information that was lost? That type of research is now housed at disciplines like computer vision, but at the time it was part of electrical engineering in the signal processing groups.’
Inald Lagendijk is always eager to share the knowledge and expertise he gained during his long-standing career as a computer scientist and ICT research director. ‘But I certainly do not want to become that know-it-all grandpa in the attic who is telling people what to do.’
Golden thread
‘Signal processing became the recurring theme throughout Lagendijk’s research career. ‘My PhD was about retrieving information from distorted images. Later, I moved to compression. What information should be preserved from an image when it is reduced to a .jpg? In my research, I developed theoretical descriptions of information, which I then translated into algorithms and computational solutions. This resulted for example in compression techniques that are now so common that we no longer teach them.’
Quite naturally, the question arose: nice that we have techniques to store data on CD’s and DVD’s, but isn’t all this very easy to copy? ‘That’s how I got into security, delving into topics like watermarking, fingerprinting, cryptography, and privacy. Here too, the fundamental question is: what is the essential information that I need to protect?’
Those questions are still relevant today, Lagendijk emphasizes again. ‘In contemporary AI, a neural network compresses vast amounts of data. But how does that work exactly? How does AI select what is essential and what is not? How do you create an effective representation of enormous amounts of data?’ Thus, his move into the world of artificial intelligence also was a rather natural one, with Lagendijk standing at the cradle of initiatives like the Netherlands AI Coalition and the Growth fund programme AiNed, which both merged into the AI Coalition for the Netherlands (AIC4NL) last January.
TOP team ICT
Perhaps his most visible role so far has been that of the captain of science of the national innovation top team on ICT, a role that he has fulfilled from the start of the top sector in May 2015 until last December. The top sector has had some major positive effects, Lagendijk says. ‘Compared to the big sciences such as physics and chemistry, computer science has long felt like the neglected child. When we were awarded our own top sector, with our own TKI (Top consortium for Knowledge and Innovation) and independent budget, our self-confidence got a major boost. Initiatives such as the annual ICT.OPEN conference have also contributed to the fact that we are now seen, heard and valued as mature sector with an obvious added value. The fact that in the National Technology Strategy, two out of the ten chosen key technologies are clear computer science subjects, is an excellent proof of how far we’ve come.’
Role of IPN
Besides from getting its own top sector, the Dutch computer science community has also greatly benefited from the maturation of IPN, Lagendijk thinks. ‘Especially when Maarten van Steen came in as a chairman, he managed to bring the entire field together. This is, for example, reflected by the highly successful process of developing the informatics sector plans. Towards the future, I think IPN can take on an even stronger role as an advisory body to organizations like NWO, RVO, the TKI and others involved in the implementation of the National Technology Strategy.’ Lagendijk applauds initiatives like the leadership courses IPN is now organizing. ‘ICT in the Netherlands needs new leaders. If people feel inspired, I would strongly advise them to invest in developing professional skills in that area. I can say from my experience that you can build an interesting career in it, with ample room for personal growth and development.
The power of acting
Looking back, Lagendijk does not regret the career choices he has made. ‘Over the years, I have had multiple opportunities to leave the academic world for a position in industry. But that has never been an option for me. There is one very clear reason for this: education. I am a natural teacher, a compulsive explainer. I have always enjoyed teaching and mentoring students. In fact, to improve my teaching skills, I once even took a week-long theatre course in Maastricht. That was extremely confronting; theatre people are very direct when it comes to providing feedback on things like your posture and subconscious facial expressions. But those acting classes helped me a lot in learning how to bring across a message in an enthusing and convincing way. I would highly recommend people to try this for themselves.’