Prof. dr. Pieter Ballon

Pieter holds a PhD in Communication Sciences (VUB) and a licentiate in Modern History (KULeuven). His PhD dealt with business model innovation in mobile communications. From 1998-2007, he was researcher and team leader at TNO, the Dutch organisation for applied scientific research. He has also been Director of iMinds, the Flemish institute for digital innovation; guest Professor at the Polytech (ISTIA) of the Université d’Angers, France; and co-founder of the European Network of Living Labs (EnoLL) and the Open and Agile Smart Cities Network (OASC). From 2017-2021, he held the VUB Academic Chair on Smart Cities.

Pieter is Director of imec-SMIT, VUB (Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology) and Professor in communications and digital economics at VUB. Since 2022, he is the Vice-Rector for Research of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is co-founder and board member of the Hannah Arendt Institute (2020), which disseminates best practices on citizenship in diverse, urban contexts.

Pieters' research interests include digital business models, the political economy of digital platforms, smart cities and platform urbanism. He has delivered over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, over 100 published conference papers and over 50 keynotes. He has also written a number of popular-scientific books, including "Smart Cities: Hoe slimme technologie onze steden leefbaar houdt en slimmer maakt" and "De Stad is een Boek"(LannooCampus). From 2016-2019, he was appointed by the Brussels regional government as Brussels Smart City Ambassador. In 2017, he was awarded the prize for Societal Valorisation by the VUB research council, meant for researchers with a strong societal impact. In 2020, he was appointed by the Flemish government as member of the post-Covid societal relaunch committee.