Experts Panel

Paulo Sobral
Paulo Sobral – EGP-UPBS		 20+ years managing businesses and investments in multicultural environments. He loves the smell of teams, growing, and fighting for their fast paced market goals.
Born in 1965. Coaching teams since 1980. “Licenciado” in Economics (1987) and MBA (1990) from Universidade do Porto. MSc in Management of Technology from MIT (2000). Taugth Statistics at Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto (1987/91), and Investment Projects at Universidade Lusiada – Porto (1991/94). Teaching, tutoring and consulting at EGP-UPBS (University of Porto Business School – executive and graduate education), since 2003: risk management, technology management and commercialization, entrepreneurship.

Fernando Sousa – IBM		 Fernando Sousa, ITSM at Companhia IBM Portuguesa, SA, is responsible for market development around IBM Technology Services in Portugal.

With 20+ years experience in IT Business, Fernando Sousa began in Quatro, a portuguese software house, where he filled several managing positions and also acted as Country Manager for Spain. In 2005 he joined IBM Spain to develop Technology Services offerings for Telco & Media Spanish market, and since 2007 he assumed market development responsibilities around Technology Services for Portuguese Cross Sectors market, including Finance, Telco, Goverment, Utilities and Transportation. In IBM, he integrates several internal world wide discussion groups around technical offerings and vertical markets.

Luis Silva – Human Code		 Having worked as a technology and business consultant for the last fifteen years under the umbrella of well established companies in the Information Technology areas such as Novabase, Accenture and Microsoft, Luís Marques da Silva matured the idea that this industry is on the verge of another revolution – cloud computing – that will enable a new generation of garage entrepreneurs to turn some incredible ideas into reality and allow “legacy companies” to seek greater efficiencies and focus on better products and services.

Being at heart an entrepreneur, Luís has been a founder of different companies in areas as varied as health care, mobile computing , technology consulting and human resources. His current focus is developing the right company for the “Cloud”.

Maria Spínola		 Maria Spínola is an Edu-Marketing Copywriter and Consultant specialized in software and high-tech industries, and external ICT research analyst at IDC Portugal.

Her primary role is to gather, analyze and digest information that helps CIO, IT managers and other senior executives to make IT decisions, and help technology companies close the communication gap between them and their clients. She is also responsible for the Twitter account at IDC Portugal.

Before joining IDC in 2009, she worked for more than 15 years as a software engineer in enterprise information technology companies.
She has a degree in software engineering and a post-graduate diploma in marketing and innovation in retail and distribution from the Portuguese Catholic University.
She is passionate about new and innovative technologies related to IT platforms and their application in business contexts, and B2B Marketing.

In 2009 she wrote the White Paper: An Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risks of Cloud Computing – A Pragmatic, Effective and Hype-Free Approach For Strategic Enterprise Decision Making

Rafael Pedrosa
Porto Polytechnic / OTIC		 Rafael works in the IPP’s Technology Transfer Office – OTIC.IPP. Beyond other responsibilities, he analyzes and evaluates investment projects from different areas of knowledge. His action also implies the entrepreneurship promotion, by advising and monitoring the potential entrepreneurs in preparing business plans.

Filipe Castro
UPIN – University of Porto Innovation		 Filipe Castro graduated in Sociology of Organisations at University of Minho in 2000. He had been worked in social and economical development issues, moving forward to open his professional scope. His wide approach to different jobs and organizations lead him to exercise different skills, such as human resources and training manager, cultural and tourism projects director, vocational trainer and lead manager. As entrepreneur he failed the creation of a web based company during 2002/03 project, a business project that aimed to provide web based software to manage company’s processes. He also created and managed a cultural cooperative in Braga, Velha-a-Branca – Estaleiro Cultural, that still exists to foster new cultural projects within the regional community.
As a coordinator of the public participation process, he supported the elaboration of “Based-studies of the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development of the Azores” (PReDSA), a project leaded by the University of Minho. Together with other stakeholders, Filipe Castro also funded and managed the cooperative NAVE – Services for enterprise management, during 2005, that was his first professional deal with entrepreneurial issues.
Since 2006, Filipe Castro is been working in the technology transfer office of the U.Porto, giving support to the creation and development of new technological-based companies. His current activities are moving forward to associate technology commercialization efforts with technology-based spin-offs. Filipe Castro is been involved with the UTEN Portugal for Professionalizing and Advancing S&T Commercialization in Portugal fostering with his colleagues form the UPIN Office the way University of Porto is doing its R&D commercialization efforts. Filipe Castro is also finishing his studies within the Master Program in Innovation in and Technological Entrepreneurship at the Engineering Faculty of the U.Porto.

Ricardo Luz – Fnaba		 President of Invicta Angels – Associação de Business Angels do Porto, Vice-President of FNABA – Federação Nacional de Associações de Business Angels, vice-President of Associação de Antigos Alunos da Faculdade Economia do Porto and Promotor of “Movimento Regionalista Norte Sim!”.
Founder of Gestluz Consultores, Designarte Imagem e Comunicação and Fluidinova – Engenharia de Fluidos, S.A.
Has a degree in Economics from Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto, a post graduate in Politics Journalism and a MsC of Design for Sustainability from Cranfield University, UK

Afonso Rangel – ANJE		 Is the CEO of PI – Portugal Informático, a company that he launched in 1994. Throughout these 16 years he lead some of the larget IT projects in Portugal. He his also the Vice-President of Anje (Portuguese Young entrepreneur association) Audit.
He has a degree in Systems Engineering.