October 16, 2026
Some memories leave their mark.
At PreparationTech's recent AI Skills Day, Ilja Heitlager told a story his father shared with him which helped him become resilient while facing challenges over the course of his career. On the first day of classes, one of his father's high school teachers showed students a treble clef on the board and said "Anyone who doesn't know what this is doesn't belong here", exposing his elitism and bias against students who were from working class backgrounds.
The students listening to Ilja expressed shock but Ilja used the story to talk about the importance of having self-confidence and thriving even when people have low expectations of you. This belief has stayed with him while navigating his career and rising to the C-Suite.
llja is Chief Innovation Officer at Schuberg Philis, a Dutch IT engineering and technology company that helps large organizations build, secure, and operate critical IT systems. The company is focused on re-inventing and re-imagining the software and data engineering field. According to Ilja, "We see that this field is definitely changing due to generative AI. More and more, we develop and use AI solutions for tasks like incident analysis, fraud analysis and detection, cyber security and physical maintenance. While we use AI a lot, our team remains accountable and responsible and we never let AI operate without human oversight."
One of Ilja's main responsibilities is leading the company's innovation unit called Lab271. One of the youngest teams at the company, it consists of a group of designers and innovation leads who help the customers like the NS, Tennet and EDSN develop new digital products and services. Lab271 recruits innovation-savvy, Masters university students with strong academic backgrounds. So far, 35 Masters students have worked with Schuberg Philis on graduation projects covering fields such as sustainability, drones, strategic design and AI-centred software engineering. Lab271 is also working with Hogeschool van Amsterdam to set up applied AI labs.
What can high school students do right now to prepare themselves to be successful in a world dominated by AI?
Ilja says, "Honestly? Read books. Learn an art-related skill like drawing or painting. Just graduate and have lots of fun with your friends. Learn to write code before AI writes it for you. At uni, there will be enough time to learn how to deal with AI."