Pieter Geelen (born 1964) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. Geelen was born in January 1964 in

Hilversum Hilversum () is a city and municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is the largest urban centre in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller towns. Hilvers ...

as the oldest child of the illustrator

Harrie Geelen Harrie Geelen (born 10 January 1939, in Heerlen) is a Dutch illustrator, film director, animator, translator, writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers pro ...

and the children's author

Imme Dros Imme Dros (born 26 September 1936, Oudeschild, Texel) is a Dutch writer of children's literature. Life Dros grew up on the island of Texel. She studied Dutch in Amsterdam. There she met her husband Harrie Geelen, with whom she had three chil ...

. In 1991, he dropped off his Ph.D. research in Computer Science at the

Universiteit van Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

to found a company called ''Palmtop Software'' with his former university mate

Peter-Frans Pauwels Peter-Frans Pauwels (born June 1965) is a Dutch entrepreneur. In 1991, soon after he completed his studies in Business and Computer Science at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, he founded, with his former university mate Pieter Geelen, a company ...

. This company was later renamed

TomTom TomTom N.V. is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Amsterdam, TomTom released its first generation of satellite navigation devices to market in 2004. ...

. With the €100,000,000 he acquired from TomTom's

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

in 2005, he established the

Turing Foundation The Turing Foundation is a Dutch charitable organization, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Turing Foundation, named in honour of scientist Alan Turing, was established in 2006 by Pieter Geelen, who donated the €100 million he acquired ...

, a

charitable organization A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

. In 2013 he founded the Mapcode Foundation, another

which offers the Mapcode system he invented in 2001 with

Harold Goddijn Harold Goddijn (born April 23, 1960) is the CEO of the Dutch consumer/business electronics company TomTom since 2001. Early life and education He studied Economics at the University of Amsterdam from 1982 till 1986. Early career Goddijn st ...

References

External links

Turing Foundation websiteMapcode Foundation websiteTomTom website
1964 births Living people 21st-century Dutch businesspeople 21st-century Dutch inventors People from Hilversum {{Netherlands-business-bio-stub