Norbert Kouwenhoven

Customs Administration of the Netherlands

Norbert Kouwenhoven joined the Customs Administration of the Netherlands in October 2021 as Special Advisor Strategy and Innovation. He is leading their automated detection program, which is aimed at applying artificial intelligence to a combined set of external and internal data. Artificial intelligence techniques and machine learning in customs supervision tasks have his special attention. Amongst other activities, he currently leads the developments in Dutch Customs on image recognition for letters, postal packages, and sea containers.

Before he joined Customs he worked in IBM. In that capacity, Norbert Kouwenhoven was leading IBM’s Customs projects around the globe. IBM was involved in customs projects in the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, New Zealand, the United States, and more. Norbert was leading the creation of a UCC-compliant solution set, which is used in current implementations in NL, UK, DK, and Belgium.

As one of the founding persons, Norbert was involved in the implementation of the private sector data-sharing platform TradeLens. There he specialized in the role of Customs Organisations and other Border Authorities related to TradeLens.

As a member of the European Commission’s Digital Trade and Logistics Forum Norbert supported the development of a network of federated platforms.

Norbert is the author of various articles on customs, supply chains, risk management, and trade facilitation.