AI4REALNET

Ricardo Bessa was born in 1983 in Viseu, and received his Licenciado (5-years) degree from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal (FEUP) in 2006 in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2008, he received the M.Sc. degree in Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP). He obtained his Ph.D. degree in the Doctoral Program in Sustainable Energy Systems (MIT Portugal) at FEUP in 2013. Currently, he is Coordinator of the Center for Power and Energy Systems at INESC TEC. He worked on several international projects such as the European Projects FP6 ANEMOS.plus, FP7 SuSTAINABLE, FP7 evolvDSO, Horizon 2020 UPGRID, Horizon 2020 InteGrid, H2020 Smart4RES, H2020 InterConnect, HORIZON ENERSHARE, and an international collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy. At the national level, he participated in the development of renewable energy forecasting systems and consultant services about energy storage and AI. Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy and received the ESIG Excellence Award in 2022. He is co-authors of more than 60 journal papers and 120 conference papers, and IEEE Senior Member.

Sara Neves works as a researcher at INESC TEC, focusing on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, and is an Invited Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Management, University of Porto. Her research primarily focuses on university entrepreneurship, knowledge valorisation, and digital transformation. She completed her PhD in Management at the University of Porto (2022), examining knowledge-based value creation in university entrepreneurship. She has extensive teaching experience across undergraduate and graduate programs, including Management of Technology, Marketing, Economics, and Statistics courses.