Employee Spotlight: Jeroen Nelen

Meet Jeroen Nelen, AI Specialist at KickstartAI. Fresh from his studies but bringing a wealth of knowledge about AI's practical applications, Jeroen focuses on bridging the gap between the technical and real-world implementation.

Let's dive into his journey and his work making complex AI solutions accessible in different industries.

Hi Jeroen, what's your role at KickstartAI?

My official title is AI Specialist, but I would describe my role as being the glue between use cases, stakeholders, and technical people. I focus on the projects we're doing with our partners — preparing and coordinating challenges, implementing machine learning models, and bringing them into a production environment.

I work closely with Evertjan on projects that are already in the development phase, and with Sophia when setting up new projects. It's about connecting the technical and practical sides to ensure we're creating solutions that deliver real impact.

Can you tell us about your journey into AI?

This is actually my first full-time job after my studies. I did both my Bachelor's and Master's in Computer Science at Delft University of Technology, where I developed a strong interest in AI and machine learning.

During my studies, I did an internship, a part-time job, a research engineering job, and my thesis all related to AI and machine learning. But I always saw AI as this cool technique that needed to be used with purpose. I think many people approach it backward — "we have AI as a solution, let's find a problem for it." I believe it should be the other way around: identify problems first, then look for solutions, which might be AI or something simpler.

I wanted to do something beneficial for society, something that had an impact beyond just building AI solutions. When I was graduating, I already knew Sophia, so I reached out to her about what KickstartAI is doing. We connected over our shared vision for AI's potential, and the rest is history!

What projects are you most proud of?

Since I joined KickstartAI six months ago, I've been heavily involved in the NS project, where I prepared and coordinated the challenge. This involved splitting the challenge into manageable pieces so our 15 participants could work effectively in different teams.

More recently, I've been working on a new partner project. It hasn’t been announced yet, so I can’t share the details. But it’s a combination of challenging and exciting. It involves understanding the scope, data infrastructure, and domain knowledge in a large organisation.

What drives you in your work?

What fascinates me is not just building cool AI, but ensuring it's adopted by people who will actually use it. Keeping users in mind when building AI systems, especially when developing explainable AI, is something I enjoy.

I love communicating with different stakeholders and getting everyone on the same page. Especially when working on projects that involve safety, like those at NS and KLM. Making sure we mitigate risks while creating valuable solutions is challenging but rewarding.

AI is almost magical. When engineered correctly, it can learn patterns that humans might not be able to understand. But the real challenge isn't implementing a model from a standard library — it's ensuring that, with the right context, knowledge, and data, the AI produces something relevant and valuable for the user.

What do you enjoy most about working at KickstartAI?

That's an easy one — definitely the people. Everyone here is so interested in AI, but in their own unique way. Some approach it from a deeply technical perspective, discussing new models like DeepSeek and reinforcement learning techniques. Others focus on the social impact or the political environment, discussing why it's significant that China has its own models. Or what certain developments mean for the open-source community.

Having these diverse perspectives all in one office, where everyone brings their own angle to AI discussions — that's what I enjoy most. It creates a rich, stimulating environment where I'm constantly learning from my colleagues.

What AI tools do you use most in your daily work?

I mostly use Claude for programming assistance. It's a great tool for generating code and helping to debug problems. For my personal projects and coding needs, it's become an essential part of my workflow.

I occasionally use Whisper for transcribing my thoughts from audio to text, which helps me capture ideas quickly. Beyond these core tools, I'm constantly exploring and experimenting with new AI libraries and frameworks as part of my work on various projects.

How do you stay up to date with the latest AI trends?

I follow several sources to keep up with AI developments. And I try to spend about two hours a week diving into either a new technology, package, or model.

Hard Fork from The New York Times is my favourite podcast. For Dutch content, I recommend the AI Report podcast.

I've also created my own curated RSS feed that bundles together various news sources. I particularly enjoy The Guardian's articles on AI, along with Hugging Face and arXiv papers.

Staying up to date has been challenging in recent months because so much is happening. There's constant innovation and new developments. It's exciting but somewhat overwhelming to keep pace with everything.

What advice would you give to others considering a career in AI?

Get your hands dirty! It might sound cliché, but I've found that reading doesn't help me as much as actually building something does.

I often find myself reading about new techniques, tools, or approaches — whether feature engineering, data engineering, or a new framework — but not actually implementing them. This makes it harder to fully grasp the concepts.

So my advice is to be practical: connect APIs, build data pipelines, deploy a model, or create an inference pipeline. Don't just read about new technologies — implement them, either in your own time or during work if you're already in the field.

This hands-on experience is key to understanding how these technologies work in practice.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not working?

Although I do enjoy coding on personal projects in my spare time, I also love sports — bouldering, tennis, cycling, running, and swimming. I also enjoy playing guitar when I'm not at my computer or being active.

Fun fact about yourself?

I spend way too much time setting up new productivity tools (that are supposed to save me time)!

Thanks, Jeroen!

💡 Want to learn more about KickstartAI and our mission to accelerate AI adoption in the Netherlands? Check out our website, listen to our podcast, or connect with Jeroen on LinkedIn!