Karl-Filip is currently working as head of the data and cities unit and senior project leader at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (imec-SMIT-VUB), and at the Hannah Arendt Instituut in Mechelen that was founded in 2020 to connect scientific knowledge about diversity, urbanity and citizenship with the insights of policy makers, organisations and citizens. He is also member of the board of directors of Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC), representing imec.
In 2018, building upon his experience as a (recovering) bureaucrat working at and with all levels of government, Karl-Filip founded the Cities of People partnership to develop and implement a people-centered model for future cities. With the partnership he is working with and for cities to develop their strategies, capacities and capabilities to cope with their challenges of today and tomorrow. He is especially focusing on a human-centered approach to the integration of digital tools and of digital transformation in an urban context. In 2019 he successfully organised the first edition of the Brussels Creative Bureaucracy Festival.
Previously he served as the Chief Strategy Officer of the City of Ghent in Belgium for 15 years, responsible among other things for the city’s innovation strategy. He is the founder of Digipolis, the public ICT-company of the cities of Antwerp and Ghent. He was also a member and chair (2017-2018) of the ExCom of Eurocities.