Civic Prototyper

From complex questions
to working prototypes

I build small AI-enabled tools that help people understand systems, reflect more carefully and act with more confidence around societal challenges.

Not technology for its own sake. Not consultancy that ends in a PDF. Working experiments that make an idea visible, usable and discussable.

See the work Start a conversation

What I do

Practical prototyping for public value

I help people and organisations turn abstract questions into things they can see, test and improve. My work sits between strategy, learning and technology: systems thinking to understand the context, AI-assisted coding to build quickly, and public-value thinking to keep the human question central.

AI and knowledge work

Small tools for searching, structuring, reflecting and learning with complex information.

Civic and environmental sensing

Prototypes that connect local observations, public data and reusable information products.

Reflection and judgement

Sober instruments that help professionals think more clearly without replacing their responsibility.

See the work

See the work

These are not polished products and not abstract concepts. They are working questions: small systems built to learn from reality.

Geluidsmeter

Local sound sensing as public geo-information

Geluidsmeter is an open prototype that turns local sound observations into shareable, privacy-conscious geo-information. It measures sound at a fixed location and through an iPhone workflow at temporary field locations. The system does not store raw audio by default. It extracts features such as sound level, frequency pattern and event type, and compares them with public sound maps and source registers.

Noise is both physical and experiential. Official models are necessary, but they do not always explain what people notice in daily life. Geluidsmeter explores how local sensing, public data and open geo-standards can become a reusable information product.
  • Edge AI
  • Jetson
  • GeoParquet
  • STAC
  • PDOK
  • public data
  • privacy by design
View on GitHub

Moral Helper

A reflection instrument for civil servants

Moral Helper is a working concept for public professionals dealing with policy dilemmas. Over twenty-one working days, the user speaks briefly each day. The device responds with two written questions: one mirror question based on what was said, and one structured question from an ethical reflection path. At the end, it produces a written learning report.

Public professionals often face questions that are too early, sensitive or personal to bring directly into a group session. Moral Helper explores whether AI can support individual ethical reflection without becoming a judge, coach or compliance tool.
  • Local AI
  • reTerminal
  • public service
  • ethics
  • reflection
  • professional judgement

Derwisch / X2

Technology as a mirror for attention

Derwisch / X2 explores how AI, sound, image and ritual can support attention and inner movement. Where Moral Helper is sober and civil-service oriented, Derwisch is more experimental: a physical installation that uses voice, questions, soundscapes and symbolic interaction to help people pause, listen and reorient.

Much of today's technology accelerates reaction. This project asks the opposite question: can technology slow us down just enough to hear ourselves better?
  • AI
  • sound
  • ritual interface
  • reflection
  • installation
  • local hardware

WaterLab IJssel

Live hydrological dashboard for a Dutch river

WaterLab IJssel is an operational dashboard for the IJssel river, running on the same Jetson AGX Orin hardware as the other projects. A Wflow SBM hydrological model simulates discharge and water levels for the 1995 and 2021 flood events. A 14-day live forecast combines real measurements from RWS Waterinfo, Open-Meteo precipitation data, and statistical recession modelling — with automatic flood alerts above 1500 m³/s.

Understanding water systems requires models that can be tested against historical events and kept current with live data. WaterLab explores how a single-person edge setup can run a full hydrological simulation and serve a live public dashboard — with the same hardware that also runs reflection software.
  • Wflow SBM
  • Julia
  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • deck.gl
  • RWS Waterinfo
  • ERA5
Visit dashboard GitHub

Felix Nazaten

A living family archive

Felix Nazaten is a digital archive for family history, memory and connection. It turns documents, stories and genealogical material into a living web environment: not only preserving the past, but making family memory accessible and meaningful for later generations.

Technology is often used to chase the new. This project uses it to remember.
  • Digital archive
  • genealogy
  • storytelling
  • family history
  • web publishing
Visit archive

How I work

How I work

01

Listen to the real question

Before building anything, I map the context: people, systems, tensions, information flows and decisions.

02

Make the system visible

Complexity becomes easier to discuss when it has a form: a map, a model, a workflow, a prototype or a shared language.

03

Build a small working version

I use AI-assisted coding to move quickly from idea to prototype. The point is not speed alone, but faster learning.

04

Test, learn and improve

A prototype becomes valuable when people use it, resist it, misunderstand it, improve it and make it their own.

Work together

Build something that helps people think, learn or act

I work with people and organisations who have a complex question and want to make it practical. That can be a public organisation exploring AI, a team struggling with knowledge work, an innovator with a social idea, or an individual building a personal tool.

2–4 weeks

Prototype Sprint

From question to working prototype: clarify the problem, map the context, define the smallest useful version, build it and document the next step.

2 hours

Direction Session

For early ideas, vague energy or half-built experiments. You leave with a clearer concept, a practical build path and a first next step.

Custom

Strategic Prototyping Support

For organisations that want to use AI and prototyping responsibly in public or social contexts. Focus on learning, governance, information flows, decision support and public value.

About

Bob Felix

I work at the intersection of public value, systems thinking and technology. By day, I work on spatial planning, public-sector information systems and digital architecture. Alongside that, I build prototypes with AI, hardware and code.

Not because technology is the answer to everything, but because working things teach us faster than abstract plans.

My strength is the combination: analytical enough to understand systems, practical enough to build, and reflective enough to keep asking what it is all for.

I like ideas. But I trust them more when they work.

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