In 2016, at the age of forty, I decided to start my own company and offer my knowledge and experience in databases as a freelance consultant.

Ordina – a company operating in the Benelux – is an independent services provider in the field of consulting, solutions and IT. Ordina has 2,900 employees who use their knowledge and expertise on a daily basis to improve corporate processes and IT. Ordina focusses on eight innovative themes to support the transformations the clients are going through: big data, cloud computing, ICT talent development, mobile, social media, security, smart sourcing and unified communications & collaboration. Ordina works with clients in the financial services sector, public sector, healthcare sector and the industry sector.

Atos is a global digital services provider with 93,000 employees in 72 countries. Atos provides consulting & systems integration services, managed services & BPO, cloud operations, big data & cyber-security solutions and transactional services through Atos Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. Atos works with clients across different business sectors: defense, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, media, utilities, public sector, retail, telecommunications and transport.

DevoTeam/Guidance Education is an IT consulting firm who's also offering education services to its customers. For security reasons both businesses are operating on physically separated networks. To support the education services operations an automated deployment platform is built with Altiris on a Windows 2000/2003 environment. Before going on a client mission, David Van Geel needs to become a Microsoft Certified System Engineer on Windows 2003. A process of learning by doing.David is responsible for the following tasks:* Maintaining, managing and monitoring the IT infrastructure* Troubleshooting the desktop/laptop hardware and software issues* Providing first, second and third level end-user support* Building, configuring and optimizing the Microsoft and the Guidance courses* Installing and setting up the education classrooms on a weekly basis (approx. 100 workstations)Achievements:Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer for Windows Server 2003Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator for Windows Server 2003

IMWO is a real estate company with several subsidiary companies. One of these companies, the Bouwpartners, is a construction firm which has two important building activities: apartment buildings and industry buildings. The supermarket chain ALDI cooperates with different construction companies for the design and the construction of their new shops. David responsibility is the supervision of the construction works of the ALDI shops for the Bouwpartners.David is responsible for the following tasks:* Project preparation and calculation* Reporting on project status to senior management, ALDI and an independent study office* Yard planning, institution and administration* Follow-up and coordination of the construction works* Leading the construction workers* Communicating with the different subcontractors on planning and implementation (<20 people)* Communicating with public and utilities on planning and implementationAchievements:Interior finishing of a new ALDI supermarket shop @ StekeneNew ALDI supermarket shop with four apartments @ St-Amandsberg

Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that powers the navigation and the location-based services of its customers. Tele Atlas wants to align all its business processes according to the standard in the automotive sector, the ISO TS/16949:2002 standard. Because of the specific nature of the company a custom framework is developed to accommodate the business model. To support this process a new document management system is developed.David is responsible for the following tasks:* Reporting on project status to project management* Analyzing and adapting the current business procedures in accordance with the new framework* Management of all the documents with the new document management system* Undertaking and developing actions to optimize the current business procedures* Communicating with the different teams on planning and implementationAchievement:Compliant with the ISO TS/16949:2002 standard

All the operational support on the infrastructure backbone of the VUB is performed by the Information Centrum. The operational support of the local LANs is the responsibility of the faculty departments. The ELEC department of the faculty Applied Science has a need for operational support for their Windows NT/2000 environment. This is a temporary part-time replacement assignment which David combines with his post graduate studies in Applied Computer Science at the VUB.David is responsible for the following tasks:* Installing, configuring and optimizing the NT/Windows 2000 cluster* Maintaining, managing and monitoring the server and network environment* Troubleshooting the desktop/laptop hardware and software issues (approx. 50 workstations)* Providing first, second and third level end-user support* Providing, validating and reviewing the installation and the configuration guides for the NT/Windows 2000 clusterAchievement:Implementation of a NT/Windows 2000 cluster