Talk:Walter De Brouwer/Archive 1

Removing extraneous external links and sections
As part of removing some of the promotional tone of this article, I'm going to remove all external links not in English and the recent lecture section. Please see this revision for the materials prior to removal. Jokestress (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Notes & Queries
The following references appear to be trivial mentions, so I am moving them here for now. They can be cited within specific sections if they discuss non-redundant information. Jokestress (talk) 20:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Notes & Queries: Mary Imlay, The Analytical Review (Oxford, 1982), 29: 204-206
 * Notes & Queries: Joshua Toulmin in The Analytical Review (Oxford, 1983), 30: 209-212

Sponsorships
I removed the following information pending verification: "From 1996-2001, De Brouwer was a sponsor of the MIT Media Lab, and sat on the programming board of Nicholas Negroponte’s Digital Life project at the Medialab. [...] In the past he has been a corporate sponsor of Merton College (University of Oxford), the MIT MediaLab at and recently the Singularity University’s FutureMed at NASA Ames. [...] He also sponsored the Centre for Quantum Computation of the University of Oxford." These claims are not supported by reliable third-party sourcing. Jokestress (talk) 21:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Memberships
Moved here: "a Member of Discovery Channel and How Stuff Works group Curiosity.com." this is not backed by a reliable source and does not appear to be notable. Jokestress (talk) 21:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

MPEG-21
The article stated StarLab "laid the foundations for further research into MPEG-21." I moved that here until it's verified with a third-party reliable source. Jokestress (talk) 22:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Silicon Fen influence
I removed this per WP:SPS: "He has been mentioned as a contributor to the future success of Silicon Fen. " Link is to a PowerPoint presentation. Jokestress (talk) 22:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Bieneviste Bio
Removed: "De Brouwer is the managing director of Benveniste Bio. " This appears to be a non-notable company, and there's no citation. Jokestress (talk) 22:36, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

WSJ/RTBF
Moved from article: "De Brouwer's work as a futurologist has been covered in the Wall Street Journal and Belgian TV RTBF. " It appears this was in Wall Street Journal Europe, but all references lead back to pieces published by De Brouwer. The RBTV doc is in Dutch and not preferable for this version of Wikipedia. Jokestress (talk) 23:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Philanthropy
Moved from article: connection with Dance your PhD and Long Now Foundation. He is not listed on current version of long now site, but was listed as a contributor on their old site. "Dance your PhD" is a non-notable contest sponsored by the blog ScienceNow. Jokestress (talk) 23:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

SCANADU, Jellybook, 1998 conference
Moved the following here: "In 1998, De Brouwer organized the First International Conference of Quantum Information and Computation in Brussels. De Brouwer is founder and CEO of SCANADU. In May 2011 he was appointed director in Jellybook, a new social media investment fund based in London." These are not backed by reliable sources and do not appear to be notable achievements. Jokestress (talk) 23:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Emotiv EPOC
Moved: "De Brouwer heads European operations for the developers of Emotiv EPOC." Found no source except a self-published tweet. Jokestress (talk) 23:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

23andme

 * One of its spinoffs (spitters.com) was collecting spit for personal genomics typing, similar to what 23andme started doing 6 years late.

This is a ridiculous comparison. This would be like comparing the form factor of a backpack or brick cell phone with the latest model. It should probably be removed. Viriditas (talk) 02:18, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed it. Someone is playing some silly games with this article and it needs to stop. Viriditas (talk) 02:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Walter De Brouwer. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for //globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010402010132&query=Starlab

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:44, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Notable?
The following sentences can be referenced (some by obscure sources), but I doubt whether they are actually notable: "In 2003 he placed a bid for bankrupt company DataPlay.[26] In 2005 he spoke at the World Spirit Forum.[27] . He is a non-executive board member of Bboxx. [28]"

Can you imagine an article on Steve Jobs that mentions "he once bid on a company", "he once spoke on a forum that has no wikipedia article of its own", "he is a board member of a dozen companies, but he is also a non-executive board member of a company that has no own wikipedia page"?

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The subject of the article is hardly Steve Jobs. 193.190.253.145 (talk) 18:01, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

PS: I've been contacted via e-mail by the subject of this article (a fellow countryman) to help clean it up. Since I feel it is important to help people like Walter with their Wikipedia page, I edited it, but I will try to remain neutral and comply with the policy of conflict of interest. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested edits December 2021
Hi, I have a personal connection with the subject and therefore have a conflict of interest. WP:COI. I’ve noticed that this article is in need of some improvements and updates and I made some. I looked it up and realize I should have submitted these first here for review. Since I am not being allowed to “undo” because of “conflicting intermediate edits”, I hope someone can review the changes I have already made and decide whether to keep them.

I’ve used two “Good Article” bios of contemporary persons as models: Brian Halligan and Shaygan Kheradpir.

1. I propose the “Personal life and studies” section be renamed “Early Life and Education”, which is the name consistently used for the first section after the lead in the Good Articles.
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 17:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

2. This article’s structure is non-standard and problematic. In both of the model Good Articles mentioned above, information about the individual’s career history is grouped together into a single Career section rather than broken up into multiple sections. Please add a new Career section directly below the existing “Teaching and board memberships” section.

Also, in keeping with the organizational framework of model Good Articles, please convert the existing sections (in order) “Publisher”, “Internet”, “Research labs”, “Scanadu”, “doc.ai”, and “XY.ai” into subsections of the new “Career” section.
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 17:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

3. I propose the current section “Serial entrepreneur” be deleted. Some of it is unsourced and some of it is a summary of his Career, which in keeping with the structure of Good Articles, should actually be in the lead. I therefore propose creating a new third sentence in the lead which summarizes that information with a high-quality source:

As a serial entrepreneur, as of 2013, was he had taken part in the creation of over 35 companies, including two that became publicly traded.
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 17:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

4. The “Doc.ai” sub-section is missing important information (e.g., when the company was founded), includes several unsourced statements, some redundant repetitions of information, and multiple statements that violate WP:COATRACKING.

To rectify these issues, I propose the following rewrite, which includes parts of the current version (with better sourcing) as well as up-to-date information:

De Brouwer was a co-founder in 2016 (along with his wife, Sam de Brouwer) and the original CEO of of doc.ai., a Palo Alto, CA-based artificial intelligence company with a focus on digital healthcare, including an app to help patients manage and analyze health data. In 2020, he stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Sam De Brouwer; he stayed on with the company as chief scientific officer. Doc.ai was acquired in January 2021 by the Atlanta-based digital health company Sharecare, who brought Walter De Brouwer onto their board as chief science officer as part of the merger.

5. In the proposed “Scanadu” subsection of the proposed “Career” section, the first sentence provides unnecessary detail and is based solely on a source that is clearly a reprint of a press release. The second sentence is incomplete and lacks a beginning clause. I propose replacing both with the following complete sentence that resolves these issues:

De Brouwer is co-founder and former CEO of Scanadu, a California company. which developed digital personal healthcare products.

Also, please fix the missing period at the end of the final sentence in the proposed new “Scanadu” subsection.

6. I suggest that the proposed “Research labs” subsection of the proposed “Career” section be renamed “Starlab”, as its content is entirely about de Brouwer’s establishment and management of Starlab.

Additionally, because the existing content contains an unsourced statement that Nicholas Negroponte co-founded Starlab, is missing important details, contains several other unsourced claims, I propose an update to the text:

In 1996, De Brouwer founded Starlab. Under De Brouwer’s direction, by April 2001 it had hired 70 scientists from 33 different countries, whose academic expertise varied across a range of disciplines. Starlab eventually went bankrupt in June 2001.

Because the Nature article is not available for free online, here is an excerpt from it:

Too few of Starlab’s ‘great ideas’ were attracting commercial interest, and investors had declined to buy bonds in the centre. By the end of May, Starlab was unable to pay its staff. And on 11 June, when a group of existing investors withdrew their support, de Brouwer was forced to call in receivers.
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done partly ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 17:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

7. Please remove the final sentence from the proposed “Publishing” subsection for the proposed new “Career” section, which reads: “The only things he publish nowadays are blogposts and patents.” This statement does not belong on Wikipedia as it is both unsourced and unsubstantiated.
 * Yes check.svg Done ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk&#124;contribs) 17:40, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

8. In the proposed “Internet” subsection of the proposed “Career” section, please remove the following incomplete sentence fragment, which provides no useful information: His employment site, Jobscape

Thank you for your review. DOPE343536 (talk) 19:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC)