Sjoerd Nienhuys is an architectural engineer and lived as technical advisor, consultant and project manager for 40 years in a dozen developing countries in Africa, South America and Asia. In addition, he provided short-term consultancies in two dozen countries of the same continents. His main fields of operation were: building design, settlement upgrading, earthquake engineering, small enterprise development, micro finance and renewable energy. He worked with several UN organisations, DGIS, private enterprise, NGO’s and occasionally as free-lance advisor.