Ben Pronk (1959) studied physics at the Technical University of Delft, after which he worked for 3 years at the university of Leiden on research in the field of solid -state physics. In 1987 he joined Philips Medical Systems where he has been involved as lead architect in the development of the system and software architectures for several new generations of medical diagnostic devices including conventional X-ray and Magnetic Resonance Imaging equipment.  He moved to Philips semiconductors now NXP semiconductors in 2002, where he was appointed as lead architect for the business line digital television systems. After a tenure with Trident microsystems in Sunnyvale California he (re)-joined Philips. He is currently system architect and Department Head in Philips Lighting research, focusing on the transformation of Lighting to an IoT-centric company.

He is a contributor to international conferences on system architecture such as WICSA, SPLC, HOTCHIPS and OOPSLA and has published several articles in this field. In his various positions in system architecture he also acquired extensive experience with large scale, distributed and  multinational software development projects.