A too long while ago Wit studied physics at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, graduating on magnetic bearings.
Wit started at shipyard CentraalStaal in Groningen, researching laser cutters and making a 3D view simulation of steel plates.
After one year he started programming measuring machines at Materia Technica, a university research group focusing on biomaterials. There he later worked on his thesis: "
Computer aided research in microbial and particle adhesion
", learning about biophysical process modeling and neural networks.
Soon after his PhD, Poppo moved to Amsterdam, to work for
computer vision startup
Eagle Vision B.V. where he helped to build label inspection machines and glass-particle inspection units for Heineken beer bottles.
He started on a person counting tool but was offered a position at Aweta B.V. before its completion.
Aweta is a main manufacturer of video fruit sorting machines, where Wit holds the position of Senior Electronics Specialist and initiates new developments in computer vision. This involves working on new video sorters and a lot of worldwide traveling to test new software versions.
Intermittently, Wit worked at Q-Free (in Beilen), a company specialized in road tolling systems where he learned the secrets of ANPR, vehicle tracking, color patch recognition and the research value of using large databases of labeled example images.
Now Wit founded his own company and last year, together with his 15 year long colleague Servaes Joordens, he joined as co-owner in Sphericam.Inc, founded by Jeffrey Martin. Aim is to market an awesome 360 video device in the summer of 2015.
Together Servaes and Poppo founded Flatlands B.V., a Haarlem company, joining their hardware (Servaes) and software (Poppo) skills for a variety of smart camera products.