Jannes Hoekman

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

I am married and have a daughter and a son. After my higher professional education I finished a study at the University of Kampen and Utrecht.

It all began with a quest for information. Back then we didn’t have Google or any other search engine, so I began with scanning and OCR-ing my large library. That was the only way to get access to all the information of my book collection. That information was very important, because as a minister I make my weekly Sermons in the congregation I serve! In my daily life I am a minister in a small town called Urk.

I began to get more interested in digitizing books, especially in the OCR-process, where most recognition of the old and Gothic characters was very poor. That’s how my love for this process grew – for almost 15 years now. There are always these particular questions: How can I get the Gothic character being recognized, with a high percentage, in every language? How can old books too be OCR-ed above the 98%, for example to serve scientific research?

This quest comes from my passion for history. Or as I like to say:

‘A nation that doesn’t know it’s history, doesn’t have a future!’

I hope that we – from BIQE – can cooperate with you – the user – to make this product the best scan software there is!