I was 19 when I became a volunteer firefighter in Chile. For seven years, I had the privilege of serving at one of the busiest fire stations in the country. In 2015, I moved to the Netherlands for Teamscope, my first tech startup, and had to put my firefighting career on hold.
From the day I set foot in the Netherlands, I dreamed of one day being a firefighter again. My biggest obstacle was learning Dutch. In an emergency, communication is everything, and I knew that if I wanted to serve here, becoming proficient in Dutch was a must.
In October last year, after a seeking every chance to improve my Dutch and a long selection process, I finally made that dream come true and became one of the 24 firefighters in Groesbeek, the town where I live.
Launching Oefio
Every firefighter in the Netherlands follows the same training curriculum, and earning a diploma means passing both theory and practical exams. For the theory exams, we get access to an e-learning platform with a handful of example questions.
My problem was simple: I didn’t want a few example questions before an exam. I wanted hundreds of them, tough ones, so I’d know I was ready.
I passed the first exam, but I felt poorly prepared. So for the second one, I gave the e-learning content to Claude Code and asked it to generate hundreds of questions, each showing exactly where the answer could be found in the e-learning chapters. It was a simple idea, and it worked.
I called it Oefio (pronounced Uu-fee-oh).
With Oefio in my learning arsenal I passed my second exam with confidence, and I knew this could make a real difference for the hundreds of firefighters who face the stress of these theory exams.
From July to September this year, I took that first prototype from a rudimentary local web app to a full-fledged web and mobile app. Along the way, I built a robust AI harness for generating study questions in multiple question format: numerical, multiple choice, list ordering, etc. It combines System 1 thinking via Jev with System 2 thinking from Opus 5.5 in Claude Code.
Oefio is now production-ready, and I’m starting new pilots across the Netherlands every month.
Overcoming the forgetting curve
We’ve all been there: after an exam, the knowledge quickly fades. What was once fresh in our minds turns vague.
In an emergency, the margin for error is tiny, and a split second can mean the difference between life and death. As firefighters, we can’t afford to forget. The communities we serve deserve the best version of us at every single emergency.
I built Oefio to help my colleagues and me pass our firefighter training exams with confidence, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The real opportunity is keeping crucial theory fresh for every firefighter, rookies and veterans alike.
Want to try out Oefio? All feedback is welcome! https://www.oefio.nl