Dirk van der Woude

Dirk van der Woude is the program manager of the municipal broadband policy of Amsterdam. The city recognizes the necessity of an open and future proof next generation network as an essential precondition for a sustainable and competitive economy and society. The city defined an open and symmetric fiber to the home (FttH) model, however found the market hesitant to build it. Therefore a commercial company, GNA, was established with a minority share of the municipality. GNA now rolls out the FttH network in an inherent point to point network architecture.
Based on new open fiber regulation by the Dutch Telecom and Competition Authorities the city in 2009 entered into an agreement with Reggefiber, a commercial FttH venture owned by Reggeborgh and incumbent KPN.
In March 2010 the Amsterdam model was recommended by EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes as a means to reach her primary target, the roll out of super broadband to all of Europe. In the same month the national Task Force Next Generation Networks, chaired by Ferd Crone, supported the model as well, underlining the importance of involving local government.
Nowadays Dirk works on combining the potential of NGN's with programs on sustainable energy, smart homes and -living.
In separate projects he was closely involved in the project to connect all Amsterdam schools as well as many theatres with 1 Gigabit symmetric connections. In 2007 he was awarded the prestigious national Vosko Award for Perseverant Innovation. Dirk (1955) studied management sciences and sociology in Amsterdam and Utrecht.