Ben Schouten was appointed as a lector at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in 2013, leading the Play & Civic Media research group (now, Civic Interaction Design). He graduated from the Rietveld Art Academy in 1983.
He found himself interested in patterns and iconography and discovered his fascination for mathematics. In August 1995 he received a Master’s degree in mathematics, specializing in chaos theory. In 1996 Ben Schouten founded Desk.nl, providing innovative internet related solutions. Together with the Dutch Design Institute (Vormgevings Instituut), Desk was internationally acknowledged with a webby award in gaming. In 2001 he received his PhD for his thesis on content-based image retrieval and interfaces that allow browsing & searching for images in an intuitive way, according to human perception. His thesis was acknowledged with a Bronze World Medal for Design in the New Media category, sub-category Information and Education, in New York, USA.
In the following years, Ben Schouten started teaching at the Utrecht School of Art & Technology (HKU) in Interaction Design and Gaming. In 2010 he was appointed Full Professor Playful Interactions in Smart Environments at Eindhoven University of Technology.