Januarry 2002
Curriculum
Vitae Nico H.G. Baken
Nico Baken was born the 2nd of July
‘55 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He received his graduation of the gymnasium b in '73 and graduated, cum laude, in mathematics
from the Technical University of Eindhoven, where he received the M.Sc.
degree in 1981.
During his studies he made a mathematical model
of double-heterostructure injection lasers to simulate their operation as a
function of the various device parameters; this work was done at the Philips
Research Laboratories and has been applied successfully to improve the laser
design and performance. For his master thesis he investigated the
elasto-plastic behaviour round crack tips in metal. He was involved as a
student-member in the Committee Education of Mathematical Engineers and
practised sports like bicycling, hockey, sailing (and in fact has built his own
sailing-yacht with two friends), karate and judo; for the latter sport he was
active in the organisation of tournaments at the TU Eindhoven. During his
military service he was involved, as a reserve officer, in the software
development for the artillery (KMA, Breda and FEL TNO in the Hague); final
rank: first lieutenant.
In December 1982, he joined the PTT Research
Neher Laboratories where his main research interest concerned Fibre Optics and
the propagation characteristics of integrated-optical waveguides embedded in
stratified media. Through this work he became actively involved in the European
research project COST 216: "Optical
Switching and Routing Devices" and the project RACE 1019: "Polymeric Optical Switching".
He published over 20 papers, holds several patents and won two prices for his
Scientific work: the Dr Neher Laboratory-price (yearly price for the most outstanding researcher) and the
Veder-price. He completed his scientific career at the Neher Laboratory with a
dissertation and Master Thesis from the
University of Delft at the department of Electrical Engineering, promotor Prof.
dr ir. H. Blok.
In addition to the scientific work at the Neher
Laboratory, he was a secretary of the BECOM, a policy co-ordination board
between Philips and PTT Telecom, also he has been made responsible to lead and
co-ordinate the PTT taskforce "Exploration
of Future Telecom Systems", an assignment from the board of directors.
Finally, he organised for nearly three years the lecture program of the "Dutch Association of Electrical and
Radio Engineers: NERG".
In april 1991, he started working at PTT Telecom,
Network Services. First within the strategy department, where he was
responsible for the Masterplan Fiber In
The Local Loop. In 1993, within the department of the network operator, he
was responsible for the transformation of this plan into commercial, technical
and operational guidelines constituting the Telecom policy for the introduction
of fiber in the Local Loop. In 1994, these guidelines were the actual basis for
the automated production of blueprints for FO networks in all major cities in
the Netherlands. In 1995 he was made responsible for the organisation of the
actual roll out of these networks and became senior project-manager for the
development and implementation of a Fiber In The Local Loop in the Netherlands.
Within the context of Unisource (Telia, Swiss Telecom and PTT
Telecom) he led the contribution of PTT
Telecom in the Kernel Group Access
Network; the work of this group involved e.g. the initiation of a Fiber To
The Curb pilot and studies on wireless access.
At the end of 1995 he was asked to prepare the
introduction of Asynchronous Transfer Methodology within NWD through organising
the ATM programme, which is now running and amongst others comprises a large
Research programme (40 man-years), national and international projects. The
latter since he also holds a responsibility to co-ordinate the ATM activities
within the Unisource Alliance. In fact, he led the production of a roadmap for the harmonisation of the
current ATM platforms and the migration towards a ‘Unisource Alliance’s Second Generation Common ATM Platform’. The execution of the actions of roadmap
led to an Request for Information, an
EC-call, and (in august 1997) to a
world-wide Request for Quotation.
In oktober 1996 he was elected as the best
speaker at the 36th European Telecommunications Congress of FITCE in Vienna
combining the topics Local Loop and ATM. At this point in time, he also became
involved in the initial plans of Het Net[1],
and the start up of the business unit InterNet Diensten. In may of 1997, he was
asked to lead a Network Architecture and Service taskforce to design the future
architecture of Het Net, comprising
the narrow- and broadband dial in part (the latter with the use of ADSL), the
transport (SDH/ATM) backbone and the IP-backbone. In August 1997, he was asked
to accelerate and lead the start up of the second and third tranche of het Net, comprising 150.000 narrow band
Internet ports and 50.000 broadband ADSL modem pairs.
In 1998, besides the work in the ATM field,
working out a strategic vendor relation and the organisation of a Unisource
Alliance’s Workshop on the crucial topic ATM
and or IP will be on the list.
End of 1998 a new role as linemanager of group of
senior architects for BroadBand Access and IP started, evolved in designing the
Multi-Service Platform (next Generation Networks) for KPN within the department
Network Design. Currently, he is also involved in FTTX and the kenniswijk
projects in the Netherlands, the access network in a broader sense,
cross-border lease constructions and real-estate management. In may 2001, he
has been appointed as a part-time professor at the University of Delft in the
field of Telecommunications.
In addition to this work he has been a member of
the taskforce Integrated Network Architecture that developed a portfoliomodel
for Telecom, comprising business modelling and the interaction between
commercial, technical and operational issues. Also was he a member of the
taskforce Vision Access Network.
Furthermore, he is an alumnus of the London Business School.
In his social life, Nico is a husband, married to
Charlotte van den Biggelaar, and father of two sons: Peter-Pim. and Jan-Joris.