Ever since I was a child, technology has fascinated me. This has brought from first building websites and apps for my friends and school to then pursuing a degree in computer science (major) and mathematics (minor) in Aachen, Edinburgh and Oxford.
Since 2019, I’ve been a PhD student at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof Sir Nigel Shadbolt. My main research focus is empirically measuring the effect of data protection and privacy laws on the actual data practices of smartphone apps. Since I love writing, I’ve been pretty active with publications. In fact, this blog started off as a personal project to improve my English writing through publishing articles every two weeks.
Besides my studies, I’ve been engaged in a broad range of activities. I’ve done various internships in business roles, helped attract the first funding for an Oxford startup (Alchemist Accelerator, 3% acceptance rate), worked on digitisation and higher education policy as part of German think tanks, worked at the European Parliament leading to a widely circulated policy paper, provided teaching on machine learning and the managment of IT projects at Oxford University, been trying student journalism, and did some other consultancy work in a range of industries.
I’m also the creator of TrackerControl, which is a somewhat popular privacy app with a few tens of thousands users and available in 18 languages thanks to the help of the TrackerControl community. You can find more of my projects under ‘Projects’.
More generally, I’m interested in how we can live in more peace with technology. This is what I’ve been exploring in this blog for a couple of years now, and look forward to hear your thoughts.