I applied for the Rijks-I-Traineeship (central government traineeship in IT) in order to learn more about IT, and to apply design skills to make the central government more user (citizen)-centred. So far I have noticed that design skills are very useful to improve public services, especially creative facilitation. Images on this page are mostly about using design thinking to improve business operations.

I am trying to learn as much as I can about the inner workings of the central government, in order to change it for the better. It is difficult to change such a huge organization drastically, but I enjoy making little changes with big impact. I try to apply (parts of) design methods and mechanics where I can, or teach others how to. 

My traineeship consists of three assignments at three different organizations. Each one lasts 8 months:

• Using Design Thinking in Innovation at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO)
• Discovering public servants’ hybrid work preferences at the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Agriculture (EZK&LNV)
• Continuing a Robotics experiment and running innovation workshops at the Innovationlab of P-Direkt (HR organization of the Rijksoverheid)

Next to this, I taught design thinking classes to fellow trainees in collaboration with the LOC and UBR (business operations unit of the traineeship).