A voice for knowledge and decency has fallen silent. During Hans’ three years as a member of EBA, we learnt to know him as a devoted and fearless defender of humanitarian principles and knowledge based decisions; a person with a warm heart and a hearty laugh.
In times of often hard-hearted, soft-brained analyses, Hans was an antipode. Hans described himself as an edutainer and was seen as someone who taught the facts. True. But Hans was also a listener to good arguments with the capacity to change his position when so convinced. This intellectual honesty, together with his dedication for those most in need, his commitment to knowledge (and a handful of data visualisation) gave a strong transformative power.
Hans never ceased to show how the world is actually better than we think, something we need to remind ourselves of when the world has now become one voice poorer, a voice that made the world a better place.