Welcome! My name is Ronan Smedeman (born 31-10-1999) and I recently got a BSc in Computer Science from Leiden University in the Netherlands. If you are visiting this website you might want to know more about who I am and how you can contact me. In this about section I will therefore tell you a bit more about myself and explain how I got to the point of creating this website. At the bottom of the page I will also provide some ways in which you can contact me if you want to get in touch. There is also a button there to download my resume if you want to take a look at that.

My background

From a young age I was interested in computer games which eventually led to an interest in game development. When I was around 13 years old I started to get into programming to start developing my first video game. In 2015 I finished the development of my first basic video game, a 2D android game made with the Unity3D game engine in its javascript language. Over the next 3 years I continued to develop small games to get a better understanding of programming and the tools needed for game development. I gained basic knowledge of software like Unity3D, Blender, Audacity and Photoshop/Gimp as well as Unity's javascript language which is similar to C#. I ended up releasing 2 more games in this time span, each slightly more complex than the previous one. Eventually I created a few more side projects to get a better understanding of 3D modelling and game graphics in general. Before I could get around to applying these newly aquired skills in a new video game, I finished my secondary education and started my BSc in Computer Science at the University of Leiden in 2019.

My studies

Due to my interest in programming and game development, the choice for a Computer Science degree was an easy one. During my BSc I learned more about programming outside of video game development. I gained experience in languages such as C++, Java and Python as well as more theoretical knowledge about computer science topics such as data structures, automata theory, databases and operating systems. Besides the traditional computer science topics I also followed a minor in global affairs where I learned more about international relations and global issues. During my BSc I also got more interested in data science related topics such as machine learning and data analysis. I eventually graduated from my BSc after completing my thesis on the topic of anomaly detection in time series data of pollutans in European air quality data. This thesis can also be downloaded at the bottom of this page if you are interested in reading it.

During my BSc I worked on several small side projects with the new skills that I learned here like discord bots and small console applications. Examples of this are a tamagotchi inspired discord bot and an F1 manager game that can be played entirely through the console. These applications taught me more about working with databases and API's and their documentations among other things. Besides such small projects I also gained an interest in web development as a result of assignments where I had to create web applications. This interest eventually led to the creation of this personal website which is built on the same Flask web framework that I learned to use during these assignments.

Current situation

For the past year and a half I have also been active as a student assistant for sevaral courses about probability theory and statistics. Doing this has helped me improve many valuable skills like communication and presentation skills beside improving my knowledge in the topics of these courses. Besides working as a student assistant I have also been active as a polling station member during the 2025 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in an attempt to explore activities outside the area of computer science.

Now that I have completed my BSc I want to focus more on building a portfolio of projects that showcase my skills and interests. This has lead to the website that you are currently visiting. I plan on working on multiple projects in the near future which will all be listed on this website in due time. At the moment of writing this I am working on creating a web based party game called "onderdekking" which you can read more about on the projects page. I also plan on turning this website into a free to use template for other developers to create their own portfolio websites. Once these two current projects have been completed I will likely start working on more projects that align with my interests of data science, game development and motorsports.

Contact

If you want to get in touch with me, feel free to reach out to through one of the methods that are listed below. You can either send me an email, connect with me on linkedin or check out my github page. If you want to take a look at my resume you can also download that by clicking the button below.