Jan Schneider

Jan Schneider is a researcher and educator specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Educational Technologies (EdTech). With a PhD and over 100 academic publications, Jan’s professional life has been dedicated to exploring new ways for students to learn with the help of technology—without being tethered to a chair or staring at a screen. However, his journey into the architecture of reality began far from the lab.

Born and raised in Mexico, Jan followed the path of the "good student"—disciplined, shy, and academically successful, yet internally unfulfilled. It wasn't until he moved to Sweden for his Master’s in IT that the "software" of his life began to crash. Living in isolation in a foreign land stripped away his social masks, forcing him to explore the raw question: Who am I when no one is watching?

This existential curiosity followed him across Europe. From working as an HCI researcher in Belgium to pursuing a PhD in the Netherlands—where he focused on using sensors and multimodal interactions to provide feedback—Jan became an expert in the analysis of human performance to provide instruction and insight. Today, based in Germany, he continues to push the boundaries of how we learn and interact with our world.

Despite his extensive academic credentials and his passion for teaching seminars on scientific research, Jan maintains a pragmatic view of work: it is a tool that supports a life of exploration. He is a thinker who finds much more truth in a long run, a dance floor, or a meditation session than he does in a peer-reviewed journal.

As a dyslexic author, Jan possesses a unique cognitive "wiring" that allows him to see patterns across disconnected fields. In (D)Mysticize, he synthesizes his deep knowledge of systems, sensors, and feedback loops with his personal quest for meaning, offering a roadmap for anyone looking to deconstruct their own assumptions and live more authentically in the "territory" of reality.