Michiel studied Industrial Design and Management for one year at the Technical University Delft. He switched to do Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. He did empirical research in Jakarta, Indonesia in the year 2000, at the height of the internet bubble. His masters' thesis is about the transformation of the cultural perceptions of the internet from a politically subversive and underground medium to a predominantly mainstream lifestyle item amongst urban Indonesian youth.
After his studies and before starting the PhD research Michiel worked a few years at Knowledgeland, a Dutch thinktank on the knowledge society which initiates innovative projects in the fields of creative industry, digital public domain, lifelong learning and social aspects of ICTs. He has also been involved in Digitaal Trapveld Cybersoek (a computer neighborhood center), based in Amsterdam-east that helps people from "challenged" neighborhoods to start using new technologies.
In the Playful Identities project Michiel focusses on the mobile telephone. He maintains a weblog at blog.bijt.org. Michiel lives in Amsterdam.