Gert Jan Hofstede

Gert Jan Hofstede was born in 1956, in optimistic times. Europe was rebuilding itself after the Second World War. New housing appeared everywhere. There were children everywhere you looked. Working hard towards a better world was the name of the game.

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During his childhood he lived in many different places, before settling in the Netherlands. With a Masters degree in population biology, industry experience as a computer programmer, and a job in the social sciences, he is a jack of all trades.

Gert Jan is professor of 'Artificial Sociality' at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He is an active researcher, a committed teacher, and - at least that is what people tell him - an inspiring teacher. He is the founder of Silico Centre Wageningen ('Let's meet in Silico!), and an advocate of agent-based modelling as a means of clarifying the complexity and dynamics of socio-ecological and socio-technical systems.

You can find his publications on various topics through Google Scholar or ResearchGate, and his books with Geert on this site.

Pronouncing Gert Jan's name can be challenging for people who are used to English. The more so because the vowel differs from Geert's.

• The Dutch 'G' sounds like the Scottish 'loch', in between 'g' and 'h'. 
• 'Gert' is pronounced 'Chaert', with the same vowel sound as 'red'. It is NOT pronounced like 'burp'.
• 'Jan' sounds like 'hard', not like 'man'. The 'J' is pronounced like a Y. 
• 'Hofstede', written phonetically, would look like 'Hofstayder'.

So we get 'Chaert Yan Hofstayder'.