Keynotes and Panels Participants
Miguel Albuquerque
President of Governo Regional da Madeira
Graduated in Law, he exercised his professional activity between 1986 and 1993, when he left the law to run as number two on the PSD Madeira List for the Funchal City Council. Miguel Albuquerque was elected deputy for the PSD in 1988 and 1992. He chaired JSD Madeira between 1990 and 1992, during that period belonging to the JSD's National Political Commission. After leaving the leadership of JSD Madeira, he was elected Deputy Secretary General of PSD Madeira, between 1992 and 1995. In September 1994, he became Mayor of Funchal, being re-elected in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2009, always with an absolute majority. Between 1994 and 2002, he was President of the Association of Municipalities of the Autonomous Region of Madeira and member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Municipalities. In December 2014, he ran for the second time for leadership of PSD Madeira, winning with 64% of the votes, in the second round of direct elections. On March 29, 2015 he won the regional legislative elections with an absolute majority, thus becoming the successor of Alberto João Jardim as the third president of the Regional Government of Madeira. He was re-elected on September 22, 2019.
Pedro Ramos
Regional Secretary for Health and Civil Protection
Pedro Ramos was born in São Martinho, Funchal, in 1960. He was Director of the Emergency Department at Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça from 2009 to June 2016. He was Clinical Director of the Health Service of the Madeira Region from June to December 28, 2016. He was Director of the Madeira Clinical Simulation Center from 2012 to 2016. Throughout his clinical career, he acquired competence in the area of Emergency Medicine and Trauma, having developed intense training at regional, national and international levels. He was Coordinator of the Trauma Chapter of the Portuguese Society of Surgery. He was Vice President of the Military and Disaster Section of the European Society for Trauma and Surgical Emergency. International instructor in the following training areas: TEAM; ATLS; STD; magnetic resonance; ETC. On December 29, 2016, he began his duties as Regional Secretary for Health, in the XII Government of the Madeira Region. On October 15, 2019, he assumes the functions of Regional Secretariat for Health and Civil Protection, in the XIII Government of the Madeira Region.
Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar
Member of the European Parliament
Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar is from Madeira, has a degree in Sociology from the University of Minho, a postgraduate degree in Marketing and Communication and an Executive Master Management in Digital Transformation from Católica Lisbon Business & Economics. Her professional career includes IPSS-Crescer sem Risco, as a Sociologist between 2006 and 2008 and as a Communication and Marketing Consultant at the PortoBay Hotels & Resorts Group between 2008 and 2011. She was a Deputy to the Assembly of the Republic, between 2011-2014, being part of the Comissão de Economia e Obras Públicas and Comissão de Assuntos Europeus. She is currently serving her second term as a Member of the European Parliament (2014 to 2019 and 2019 to 2024). She was elected the Best MEP of the Year 2016, in the area of Tourism, out of a universe of 751 parliamentarians. She leads the Tourism Task Force, the European Parliament's Tourism working group. She is vice-president of SME Europe, an organization for the defense of small and medium-sized European companies, and she is also vice-president of the Regiões Ultraperiféricas working group in the Comité das Pescas do SEArica, which is a working group dedicated to Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Zones.
Pedro Calado
Mayor of Funchal
Pedro Calado was Vice-President of the Regional Government of Madeira, between 2017 and 2021, Vice-President of the Municipality of Funchal, between 2012 and 2013, having previously held the position of Councilor, with responsibility for finance (2005 to 2012) . He has a degree in Statistics and Information Management (NOVA University), a postgraduate degree in Management (Nova School of Business & Economics) and a bachelor's degree in Business Management (Instituto Superior de Gestão Santarém). Management, politics and motorsport are the areas for which he is best known, but Pedro Calado also has credits in the financial sector and companies in the civil construction, hotel, civil aviation and private jet sectors. He was General Manager of a company linked to the financial, consulting and accounting sector, a Banking professional in the area of Corporate Risk Management, and Financial Auditor in the corporate sector.
Christoph Klein
Policy Officer at European Commission
Christoph L. Klein is a life scientist, holding a Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology and an MBA. After working as a medical research scientist he took in 1993 a faculty position at the University of Mainz, Institute of Pathology, leading the Department of Experimental Pathology. Research focused on medical devices, digital health and pathobiological mechanistic studies including visiting scientist stays at Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the USA. He was teaching Physiological Chemistry from 1998 to 2001 and performed research in neuronal networks. In 2001, Christoph Klein joined the European Commission as official working at Directorate General (DG) Joint Research Centre, on health measurement systems in Geel (Belgium), and on health and consumer protection in Ispra (Italy). At DG Employment he was managing the Scientific Committee on occupational health and safety. In 2017, Dr. Klein joined DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology (CNECT) on Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity dealing with the digital transformation of health and care, G20 and international cooperation.
Annita Kalpaka
Scientific Policy Officer in Joint Research Center (JRC) Seville of the European Commission, Digital Economy
Annita Kalpaka is a Scientific Policy Officer in the area of Digital Economy at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. She has a multidisciplinary academic profile combining graduate studies in Electrical & Computers Engineering (Athens), and 2 MSc level degrees in European Studies (Athens) and International Public Governance (ENA & University of Strasbourg). In earlier stages of her career, she has worked in high-tech multinational companies in Greece and abroad and in the implementation of e-government in the Greek public administration. She joined the EC in 2015 in DG REGIO providing thematic expertise and promoting the role of digital within smart specialisation strategies. Since 2017 in JRC Seville, she is working at the crossroads between research and policy making focusing on digital transformation of the economy and society. Areas of expertise: support in the design and implementation of the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH), qualitative analysis, digital maturity assessment of SMEs and public sector organisations, how to measure impact assessment of digital transformation initiatives and the synergies between the DIHs/EDIHs and the regional innovation ecosystems including Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3/S4).
Matthias Kuom
Policy Officer - Seconded National Expert at European Commission
Matthias Kuom is currently Seconded National Expert to the European Commission, Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, in the unit CNECT.A.4 "Digital Transformation of Industrial Ecosystems". Here he works on topics such as digital platforms for industry and implementation of Digital Innovation Hubs within the Digital Europe Programme.
Laurent Bontoux
Senior Foresight for Policy Expert at European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Dr. Laurent Bontoux holds a food technology engineering degree from ENSIA (Paris) and a DEA from the Technological University in Compiègne as well as a MS and PhD in environmental engineering from the University of California at Berkeley (USA). Laurent started his professional career ensuring the environmental safety of household products at Procter & Gamble in Brussels. After joining the European Commission, he was mostly dealing with science to inform policy making, especially regarding risk assessment. At DG JRC he worked on issues such as environmental technologies foresight, environment & health issues (e.g. wastewater reuse, endocrine disruptors) and life-cycle assessment. At DG SANCO he managed the independent Scientific Committee for Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) and dealt with nanotechnologies, antimicrobial resistance and the health effects of electromagnetic fields. He also worked at DG RTD in the Environment & Health area. Laurent is now heavily involved in bringing future oriented systemic thinking into EU policy making in a pragmatic way.
Sílvio Fernandes
Rector at University of Madeira
Sílvio Fernandes holds a degree in Classical Languages and Literature, a variant of Classical and Portuguese Studies, from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, a master's degree in Classical Literatures, specialization in Latin Literature, from the same Faculty, and a PhD in Letters, specializing in Humanistic Studies, by the University of Madeira. Sílvio Fernandes was until now vice-rector of the Madeira Academy and responsible for the areas of human resources, external relations, communication and culture.
Ricardo Jardim Gonçalves
Director of UNINOVA - Institute for the Development of New Technologies, Full Professor of School of Sciences and Technology, University NOVA of Lisbon - FCT NOVA
Ricardo Jardim-Goncalves is Full Professor at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (FCT NOVA). He is also Research Coordinator at UNINOVA - Instituto de Desenvolvimento de Novas Tecnologia. His research activities have been focused on Interoperability of Complex Systems. He has been researching in European Commission funded projects during the last 30 years, with more than 300 papers published in conferences, journals and books. Member of the board of UNINOVA, 1st in the ranking of H2020 Research and Development project funds management. Also, he directes GRIS (GRupo para a investigação em Interoperabilidade de Sistemas) at UNINOVA (Instituto para o Desenvolvimento de Novas Tecnologias), CTS (Centro para as Tecnologias e Sistemas). He is Expert for the European Commission and project leader in ISO TC184/SC4. Ricardo is graduated in Computer Science, with MSc in Operational Research and Systems Engineering, and has a PhD degree and Habilitation in Industrial Information Systems by the NOVA University of Lisbon.
Isaac Ben-Israel
Chairman of Israel Space Agency and Head of Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (ICRC), Tel Aviv University
Isaac Ben-Israel was born in Israel (Tel-Aviv), 1949. He studied Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy at Tel-Aviv University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1988. He joined the Israel Air Force (IAF) after graduating high school (1967) and has served continuously up to his retirement (2002). During his service, Isaac Ben-Israel has held several posts in operations, intelligence and weapon development units of the IAF. He headed the IAF Operations Research Branch, Analysis and Assessment Division of IAF Intelligence, and was the Head of Military R&D in Israel Defence Forces and Ministry of Defence (1991-1997). In January 1998 he was promoted to Major General and appointed as Director of Defence R&D Directorate in IMOD. During his service he received twice the Israeli Defence Award. After retirement from the IDF Isaac Ben Israel joined the University of Tel-Aviv as a professor and was the head of Curiel Centre for International Studies (2002-2004), the head of the Program for Security Studies (2004-2007), Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Technological Analysis & Forecasting at Tel-Aviv University (ICTAF) (2010-2013), Deputy Director of the Hartog School of Government and Policy in Tel-Aviv University (2005-2015) and a member of Jaffe Centre for Strategic Studies (2002-2004). In 2002 he founded and headed the Yuval Ne'eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Ariel University Centre (2009-2011), and a member of the advisory council of Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology at the Technion (2000-2010). In 2002 he founded RAY-TOP (Technology Opportunities) Ltd, consulting governments and industries in technological and strategic issues. Professor Ben-Israel was a member of the 17th Knesset (Israeli Parliament) between June 2007 and February 2009. During this period he was a member of the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, the Finance Committee, the Science & Technology committee, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Sub Committee and the Chairman of the Israeli-Indian Parliamentary Friendship Association. In 2011 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead a task force that formulated Israel national Cyber policy. Following that he founded the National Cyber Headquarters in the PM Office. In 2014 he was appointed again by the PM to lead another task force which resulted in a government decision (February 2015) to set up a new National Cyber Authority. Isaac Ben Israel was a member of the board of directors of IAI (2000-2002), the board of the Israel Corp. (2004-2007) and the R&D advisory board of TEVA (2003-2007) and Chairman of the Technion Entrepreneurial Incubator (2007).
Graham Bell
Member of the Board of Europa Nostra
Is based in the UK but has been active in European cultural heritage for most of his career, initially as architect and subsequently as project manager and NGO leader and mentor. Currently he is Director of Cultura Trust (UK), president of the Hungarian Renaissance Foundation (which he set up in 2007), board member of Europa Nostra, president-elect of the Federation for European Architectural Heritage Skills, trustee of the Buzludzha Project Foundation (Bulgaria), and advisor to other European organisations. He was UK National Co-ordinator for 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage. In addition to representing Europa Nostra in IMPACTOUR, he has been involved in a range of European consortia projects from Erasmus+ to Horizon and FLIh5, often working with the Presidency of the Republic of Portugal. These activities have brought him to the attention of the European Commission, being a member of the Voices of Culture programme 'Skills, training & knowledge transfer in cultural heritage' and other advisory panels including on digital cultural heritage and the European Green Deal / Renovation Wave. He is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, for which one of his projects was selected by the Council of Europe as a good practice example for Strategy 21.
Marinos Ioannides
Director of UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage
Dr. Marinos Ioannides is since the 1st of January 2012 the director of the Digital Heritage Research lab (DHRLab) at the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in Limassol. The lab has been awarded several EU projects within its ten years’ debut (total budget for CUT: 10.1 MEuro). He received his MSc in Computer Science from the University of Stuttgart, Germany where his thesis was undertaken at the Hewlett Packard European Headquarters in safety and security of Multitasking Repository-systems. He continued at the same University for his PhD (Dr.-Eng) where he participated in several EU and national DFG research projects. His pioneering work on the 3D Volumetric Reconstruction of any objects from digitized scattered data during his PhD let him to receive from the State of Baden-Württemberg a three (3) Million Deutsche Mark personal grant and in 1993 the important IBM Award of two (2) Million Deutsche Mark. In 1995 he received for his achievements from the European Commission the prestigious EU KIT award and in 2010 he was awarded from the Spanish Association of Virtual Archaeology the prestigious Tartessos prize for his accomplishments in 3D-documentation in Cultural Heritage. In 2017, Marinos received the unique UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH), which is the only Chair in the World in the area of Education, Science and Technology, as well as in 2018 the EU Innovation Award at the Innovators in Cultural Heritage Fair in Brussels. In the same year he received from the European Commission the European Research Area (ERA) Chair award on Digital Cultural Heritage with a 2.5 MEuro financial support in order to establish with his team in Cyprus a regional centre of Excellence on Digital Cultural Heritage and run a unique online Master course on digital cultural heritage by 2024. In 2019 the European Commission/Research Executive Agency declared his project Marie S. Curie Action Project (MSCA ITN-DCH) as one of the best five projects under the category: “Life Changing Innovation projects” in the last decade (2009-2019) in the EU. In 2020 the Unesco Chair on DCH won the high competitive tender EU VIGIE2020/654 in the area of Cultural Heritage for the preparation of a Study on quality in 3D digitisation of tangible objects. The European Commission declared the Study results as exceptional and published them as an official EU Document. Marinos Ioannides is since 2006 the Chair of the biannual European-Mediterranean conference (EuroMed) on digital cultural heritage. The conference proceedings are published exclusively by the prestigious Springer-Nature in the Lecture Notes on Computer Science. As of 2010, the EuroMed proceedings belong to the top 10 bestselling ebooks of Springer-Nature with more than 2.5 Million copies sold until August 2022. He is an advisor to the Deputy Ministry of Culture in Cyprus and represents the CY Government in all thematic areas related to digital cultural heritage in the EU and beyond. For his key achievements in the area of digital cultural heritage, Marinos has been elected as Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, in 2021.
Paul De Raeve
Secretary General at European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN)
Paul De Raeve has been a registered nurse since 1984. He obtained a master's degree in nursing science at the Free University of Brussels, a Master degree in Statistics from the Catholic University of Brussels, and a PhD degree from the Kings College University of London. Paul holds an Adjunct Professorship at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore (US) since 2018. On Work experience, Paul was appointed as staff manager at the Free University hospital of Brussels, part-time delegated to the Belgium Ministry of Health and Environment. He was responsible for developing a national comparable data warehouse for nursing, introducing qualitative indicators within the hospital financing system and providing data for the political decision-making process. In 2002, Paul De Raeve was appointed as General Secretary of the European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) and in 2015 EFN members asked him to establish and develop the European Nursing Research Foundation (ENRF). EFN EU lobby activities relate to the promotion and protection of nurses and the nursing profession with particular reference to the EU political agenda, especially the European Social Pillar priorities, including the digitalisation of the health and social care ecosystem. Working towards this mission includes ensuring that nursing is central in the development, implementation and evaluation of the European Health and Social Policy in the field of education, workforce, and quality and safety.
Maya Doneva
Secretary General of European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD)
Maya Doneva is the Secretary General of EASPD - The European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities. Maya's professional biography consists of many puzzle pieces - being a trainer, international consultant, and lecturer on the topics of community-centered social provision, social innovation, youth empowerment and active citizenship. Maya is the founder of one of the first social enterprises in Bulgaria - The Social Teahouse Network- supporting young people who grew up in social state care institutions with long term mentorship and their first employment experience. Between 2017 and early 2021 Maya was the executive director of one of the biggest social service organizations in the Balkans- Karin dom, where she was leading the team of professionals directly working with children and developing pilot initiatives on family mediated intervention and early childhood intervention. Since the beginning of Autumn'21 Maya has the responsibility to lead the European association and the membership of social service provision in more than 47 countries.
Francisco Taboada
President of the Administration Council of Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira (EEM)
Francisco Taboada holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Oporto University, and has been teaching Computer Programming at Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, in Business Management degrees. Started his technical professional career at the Studies and Planning Department of Madeira Electricity Board and after as Adviser of the Board. Has been President of the Board of Porto Santo Island Developing Society, implementing several structuring projects on the island. Led public utilities as President of the Board of the Madeira Roads Utility Company RAMEDM, and later was the Regional Director of Madeira Roads at Regional Government. Francisco has a long career as Adviser in Electrical and Energy Systems and is currently President of the Administration Council of Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira (EEM), the regional electricity utilities.
Elsa Fernandes
Vice-rector at University of Madeira
Elsa Fernandes received a Degree in Mathematics Teaching and Master's and PhD in Mathematics Didactics. She started her journey in the field of Educational Robotics with the project DROIDE - Robots as Mediators of Learning, in 2005. Between 2009 and 2013 she coordinated this research project, which was the strong impetus for the creation of innovative learning environments. She currently coordinates the ITEC training project, which annually trains around one hundred trainees. In the last 4 years she has dedicated her research to technology-enriched learning in the initial and continuing education of teachers of the future. Since May 2017 she has been Vice-Rector of the University of Madeira for Research, Internationalization, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Tal Soffer
Director of Technology and Society Foresight Unit and the Web Supported Academic Instruction Center, Tel Aviv University
Tal Soffer is a senior faculty member in the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. Director of two academic units: Technology and Society Foresight (TSF) and the Center for Web-Supported Academic Instruction - Virtual TAU. She has an extensive research experience of more than 20 years, in the field of Technology Foresight and its relations with societal implications: Education and cyber technologies specialization in online learning, community learning and Life Long Learning; privacy and cyber technologies; future of work and leisure and it's relation to occupations and skills. She has been involved in vast of Israeli and EU research projects as principal investigator and coordinator.
Oscar Lázaro
Managing Director of Innovalia Association
Dr Oscar Lázaro is the Managing Director of Innovalia Association. Dr Oscar Lázaro has more than 15 years of experience in the ICT field and is leading research and product development activities of Innovalia for Smart Cities and Factories of the Future domains. Oscar Lazaro is also Visiting Professor at the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of the University of Strathclyde in the area of wireless & mobile communications. He is since 2013 chairman of the Digital Business Innovation (DBI) cluster and a permanent representative of Innovalia in the European Factories of the Future Research Association (EFFRA) and Future Internet (FI-PPP) Steering Boards. Dr Oscar Lazaro has successfully led research initiatives of the highest caliber at national and European level, e.g. iTETRIS, FASyS, FITMAN, ComVantage. He has taken part in various projects advisory boards, GeoNet, SECRICOM, IMAGINE, LinkedDesign. He has received various recognitions for the excellence of his research, has more than 50 publications in internationally referred journals and conferences. Dr Oscar Lazaro also collaborates with the European Research Council (ERC), as external expert for the evaluation of ICT proposals in the IDEAS Advanced Grants Programme, as scientific expert for ANR & FCT agencies in France and Portugal, as expert for the Eurostars SME programme and as business development assistant for the Business Innovation Office of the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Dr Oscar Lazaro is and has been involved in various road-mapping activities in the ICT for Manufacturing field in projects Road4Fame, Next Generation Computing (NGC), Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) or BigDataValueEU.
Paula Cabaço
President of Administração dos Portos da Região Autónoma da Madeira (APRAM)
Paula Cabaço is the new Chairman of President of Administração dos Portos da Região Autónoma da Madeira - APRAM. She was born in Luanda and graduated from the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, from the Technical University of Lisbon. She has postgraduate degrees in Marketing and Public Management and an advanced course in Public Management. She was Regional Secretary for Tourism and Culture from 20 October until the end of the term of the previous Miguel Albuquerque government. Before that, she had held several public positions, with emphasis on that of President of the Board of Directors of the Instituto do Vinho, do Bordado e do Artesanato da Madeira, IP, IVBAM, where he gained public notoriety and recognition for the work carried out in the promotion and dissemination of Madeira Wine.
Rui Caldeira
President of the Administration Council of Arditi
Rui Caldeira is a Principal Research Scientist acting as Chair of the Board of the Madeira Agency for the Development of Science, Technology, and Innovation (ARDITI). He completed his PhD at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA, USA) in September 2002. Prior to that, he concluded a B.Sc. and Master degrees at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom, on Ocean and Applied Marine Sciences. He had post-doctoral experiences at the University of New South Wales, in Australia (2003), and at the "Instituto Superior Técnico" from the Lisbon Technical University (2006). In 2009, he was contracted in a competitive FCT Fellowship by CIIMAR (U. Porto). Besides having more than 50 scientific articles published in the peer-reviewed literature as well as over 100 participations in international conferences, Rui's main contribution focused on the study of island-induced wakes. He's considered by some a "world expert" in this topic and he is currently participating in several active projects in USA, France, Spain, and Brazil. He is often consulted to review scientific journal articles and proposals from the National Science Foundation (USA) in this topic. He taught undergraduate and Master courses at UCLA, at the "University of Las Palmas of Gran Canaria", University of Porto, and at the "Universidade Técnica do Atlântico" (UTA, Cape Vert). Since 2015, Rui was elected the Director of the Oceanic Observatory of Madeira (OOM), currently funded to promote the digitalization of the ocean circumscribing the Madeira EEZ.
Cátia Ferreira
Executive member of the Board at Serviço de Saúde da Região Autónoma da Madeira (SESARAM)
Cátia Ferreira is the youngest Executive Board Member of SESARAM. The Board is entitled of managing around 6000 people, a budget of nearly 260 million euros, 3 hospitals and 47 primary care business units. As a member of the Board, she is entrusted to implement technological innovation, processes dematerialization and digital transformation (at clinical and non-clinical areas), guarantee a fully operational medical equipment park in-house, develop the business performance monitoring system, pursue environmental sustainability, upgrade the efficiency on purchasing processes and assets management.
Andreia Collard
Regional Informatics Director at Governo Regional da Madeira
Andreia Rosa Collard is the Director of Information Technology for the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal, is licensed in law with specialization in International Law and Intellectual Property, post graduating in Compliance and European and Economic Criminal Law by the University of Coimbra is certified in International Trade in Arms Regulations and is a registered Privacy Professional by the International Association of Privacy Professionals. The Vice-Presidency and Parliamentary Affairs Division of the Regional Government, is responsible for the regional Digital Transition, working with the various public entities including Health, Education and Tourism in the use of new technologies for the public system.
Gernot Marx
Full Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and Chair at RWTH Aachen University
Prof. Dr. Gernot Marx, MD, FRCA is full Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and Chair at the University RWTH Aachen, Germany. He is Head of the Department of Intensive Care Medicine and Intermediate Care at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen. He is chairman of the board of the German Society of Telemedicine. He is full board member of the German Society of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and full board member of the interdisciplinary German Society of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. Gernot Marx is coordinator of PCP/PPI EU project THALEA. He is involved in the german initiative of Mecial Informatics as well as EU funded project SMART4Health. Gernot Marx leads the largest German telemedicine project for intensive care and infectiology patients “TELnet@NRW”. His research interest is focused on sepsis, AI and telemedicine.
René von Schomberg
Senior Research Fellow at University of Aachen
René von Schomberg is Guest Professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. He holds PhDs from the University of Twente, the Netherlands (in Science and Technology Studies) and the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany (in Philosophy). He was a European Union Fellow and Guest-Professor at George Mason University, USA, from 2007-2008 and has been with the European Commission from 1998 - 1 January 2022. He is a well-known opinion leader on Responsible Research and Innovation and Open Science. He is also a leading expert in the field of “Decision making under scientific uncertainty” and on the role of scientific advice in policy. Additionally, he is well known for his work on the Precautionary Principle and for work in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. He runs a blog with resources on Responsible Innovation, Ethics, Open Science and Foresight and the Precautionary Principle.
Meike Reimann
Senior Project Manager at Steinbeis Europa Zentrum
Meike Reimann is a senior project manager at Steinbeis Europa Zentrum in Karlsruhe, Germany, responsible for European projects in the area of digitization and Industry 4.0. Currently she coordinates the Smart4Europe2 CSA, supporting the Smart Anything Everywhere Initiative and is active in DigiFed (SAE) and AI REGIO (I4MS). Meike has been deeply involved in the Digitizing European Industry Initiative and the Digital Innovations Hubs Ecosystem for over 7 years. She has a long-term experience in technology foresight and roadmapping as well as giving innovation support to start-ups and SMEs.
Vivian Kiousi
Senior Business Innovation Manager, Head of Transport Lab RID Department at INTRASOFT International
Mrs. Akrivi Vivian Kiousi (female) has joined Netcompany-Intrasoft previously INTRASOFT International S.A., in May 2001 and acts as a Senior Innovation Manager heading the Transport Lab of the Research & Innovation Development Department of the company. For twenty four years in research, Mrs. Kiousi has gained experience in the fields of: Transport, Energy, Big Data, Internet based Technologies, Community Portals, Promotion and Dissemination Strategies. Mrs. Kiousi was and is currently involved in several relevant European and R&D Projects of different scale including Project Coordination, Project Management, Impact and Communications management. She is a PhD candidate on behavioural and economical frameworks for multimodal and mobility as a service (MaaS) transportation schemes. She holds two masters (MSc), in Cognitive Science and AI; and Telecommunications awarded by the school of Computing and the Electronic and Electrical School of Engineering respectively at the University of Birmingham. In addition, Mrs. Kiousi holds BSc Degrees in Psychology and History of Art (double major) and studied also Physics. She is a certified CMMI L2 auditor . She is the Task force leader of the Mobility and Logistics subgroup of BDVA, ITS EU Cluster member, part of the GR/CY CIVINET Scientific Committee and also Chair of Working Group 3 of the Digital Ocean Forum.
André Cabral
Portugal Country Manager at Philips
André Cabral has a solid career of more than 15 years, acquired in various positions of increasing responsibility, both in Sales and Marketing, and in the different business areas of the company; first as Commercial Director for Spain and Portugal of the Consumer Lifestyle business for Portugal, then as Commercial Director of Consumer Lifestyle for Portugal, as Marketing Director of Personal Health for Iberia and, later on and up to his current responsibility, Country Manager for Portugal. Throughout his professional career he has contributed to the development of Philips' different businesses, both in Portugal and Spain, always demonstrating a high level of responsibility and total commitment to the numerous transformation initiatives implemented in the Company. André Cabral has a degree in Business Administration and a Master in Marketing and Management from ISEG - Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão and another Master in Digital Business (DIBEX) from ISDI - Instituto Superior para el Desarrollo de Internet. He also attended the executive program in Digital Transformation at the Silicon Valley Innovation Center.
Boris Sucic
Researcher at Jozef Stefan Institute - Center for Energy Efficiency (CEU)
Energy management, environment management, support in decision making in energy and industry, modelling and optimisation of energy processes and holistic planning in energy represent the main fields of his work. He is the leader of energy manager training following the EUREM programme. He has written numerous science articles published in international and domestic journals and conferences and he is also an author of handbooks for various seminars and trainings. He has gained many practical experiences in the implementation of several domestic and international projects as a coordinator or a team member, especially in the field of energy efficiency, and in performing more than 100 energy audits in industry and buildings.
Thorbjørn Tønnesen Lied
Principal Software Development Engineer at Kongsberg Norcontrol
Thorbjørn Tønnesen Lied (male), Ph.D. Engineering, is a graduate from Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2000, in what is today known as Machine Learning. He has 20+ years of experience in the fields of applied science, research and software development. He joined KNC in 2017 as a Senior Software Developer, with a passion for algorithms, performance and optimisation. He has a special focus on cloud- and backend services, and is currently involved in several research projects in the company. Prior to joining KNC, his background includes Kongsberg Maritime, Fast Search & Transfer and Microsoft.
Nuno Mateus
Project Manager and R&D Engineer at EDP NEW
Project Manager at EDP NEW, Master in engineering of Energy and Environment (2012) and PhD in Energy and Sustainable Development from Faculty of Sciences of Lisbon University(2016), where he developed research work on modellings and dynamic simulation tools in buildings, specialized in the area of natural ventilation, HVAC systems and energy flexibility. From 2016 till 2018 he worked as a researcher and assistant professor at Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, focusing on areas of energetic flexibility and energetic systems for buildings. Afterwards, he collaborated at ADENE (2018-2021) as specialist in energy performance certification, H2020 projects and having coordinated the transposition of the latest EPBD (Energy Performance Buildings Directive) to Portugal. At the end of 2021, he joined EDP NEW as a Project Manager in the Energy Positive Communities area to coordinate the H2020 Smart2B project, which aims to increase the smartness of existing buildings.
João Martins
Professor at Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA) and Head of Energy Efficiency Group at UNINOVA
João Martins was born in Lisbon in 1967, and received a master's and a PhD degree in Electromechanical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, respectively in 1996 and 2003. Currently he is an Associate Professor with Habilatation at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. João is a senior member of IEEE and a senior researcher at UNINOVA-CTS, Portugal, where he coordinates the Energy Efficiency Group and integrates the Board of Directors. He is the co-author of more than 60 scientific articles in refereed journals and books and more than 180 articles in refereed conference proceedings. João Martins is an active member in various program committees of scientific conferences and serves as an associate editor of IEEE IES Industrial Electronics Magazine, IET Power Electronics and MDPI Energies. He was, and is, involved as member and/or project coordinator in several national and international energy efficiency related research projects. In addition, he is an evaluator of research proposals and projects for several national and European funding agencies. His research interests are mainly in energy efficiency, alternative energies and power quality, intelligent and energy efficient buildings, heritage buildings, energy awareness, smart grid renewables integration.