Alexandra Oliveira (Data Scientist at Retail Consult)

Keynote

      Artificial Intelligence in Retail and Intelligent Batch Processing System.

From elevating consumer experience to planning and managing retailers' operations, artificial intelligence (AI) is innovatively boosting all retail experience! This session aims to provide an overview of the current challenges of AI applied to the particularities of the retail area, as well as to explore more deeply an application in operational management: optimization of batch processing. To meet these objectives, the problem of developing an intelligent process scheduling system that uses the results of predicting the processes characteristics as well as dynamic multicriteria optimization techniques such as meta-heuristics and/or restricted programming will be discussed to find an optimal timing of batch processes in real time.

Biography

      Alexandra Oliveira is a Data Scientist at Retail Consult and an integrator researcher at the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Sciences at the University of Porto. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the consortium of the Faculty of Sciences, Economics, Engineering, and Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar of the University of Porto. She was also, for more than 10 years, professor in the field of Biomathematics, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics of the School of Health of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. She has more than 10 years of experience in data science, developing solutions in different fields such as health and well-being, measurement and risk level management applied to food inspections. Worked with the creation of questionnaires and data analysis, developing appropriate methodologies for the extraction of valuable knowledge from databases.  

      Carlos Vaz de Carvalho (Professor at DEI, ISEP & Sub Director at GILT)

Keynote

      Why are we so passionate about gaming?

Games are structured contexts, with clearly defined rules in which players must overcome challenges and face opponents (real or non-player characters) to achieve victory. Games offer incredibly immersive environments where users engage in “learning by doing,” receiving immediate feedback on their unsuccessful actions (therefore also learning by error) and getting instant gratification after successful attempts which contributes to their sense of accomplishment and increased self-esteem. By playing, users can improve their skills and competencies in decision making, strategy, teamwork, social skills, leadership, collaboration, etc. Is this why we like so much to play games? In this talk I’ll try to answer this question by presenting aspects of Game research that currently brings together expertise from very different areas such as cognition, psychology, neurosciences, sociology, multimedia and information technology, interaction and simulation, etc.

Biography

      Carlos Vaz de Carvalho holds a PhD (2001) in Technologies and Information Systems from University of Minho. He has been a professor of Higher Education for 30 years, currently in the category of Coordinating Professor of the Informatics Engineering Department of the Engineering School of the Porto Polytechnic (ISEP). From 2005 to 2014 he was director of the GILT Research Group (Games, Interaction and Learning Technologies) taking over from that moment on as Vice-Director of the group. He supervised 7 Doctoral and 48 Master's theses in this area. Throughout his career, he has authored more than 250 publications and communications on this topic, including 10 books (as author and editor) and more than 150 of these publications have SCOPUS and/or ISI/Clarivate indexes. It is also worth noting the participation in more than 45 national and European projects, assuming the coordination of 12. It should be noted that, due to the nature of the topics covered, these projects have always had a mixed scientific-technological and pedagogical nature. He is an expert/evaluator for several national and European programs currently performing these roles in the Horizon Europe, EUROSTARS and FCT programmes. Director of the company Virtual Campus Lda., since October 2014, responsible for the Internationalization and Serious Games areas.

      Henrique Cravo (Head of Digital Transformation at CELFOCUS)

      Margarida Afonso (Programme Manager, OM&Integration at CELFOCUS)

Keynote

      Digital Overlay: Enabling and Accelerating Digital Transformation in Organizations

Enabling a Digital Transformation is not only a matter of activating great and fancy technologies, is also how those technologies will land and work on the existing ecosystems. Performing a Digital Transformation impacts the existing technology, organization, and people skills. In this session, Margarida and Henrique will share how the Digital Overlay approach can accelerate the new technologies adoption and simplify complex transformations, so many times jeopardized by the existing legacy systems and business risks.

Biography

      Henrique is the Head of Digital Transformation in CELFOCUS, a global company with footprint in 24 countries and business solutions that cover 300M customers. Henrique has more than 20 years’ experience in IT industry covering Energy, Telecom and Financial Services industries. His international track-record includes Tier 1 players across 6 countries. Henrique’s approach to Digital, is based on breaking the legacy systems limitations through Cognitive and Machine Learning activation. For him, technology debt is only a variable, not a blocker to evolve.

      Margarida is a Programme Manager and responsible for the OM&Integration Oporto's team from CELFOCUS. Margarida has more than 20 years of experience in leading transformation programmes and multicultural teams distributed across the world, especially in the Retail and Telco Industries. She is invited teacher at ISEP introducing future engineers to the concepts and practices of Agile and Scrum. She believes that the right balance and management of technology, processes and people is the foundation of successful change in organizations.

      Nuno Escudeiro (Professor at ISEP and Coordinator of Universidade Europeia ATHENA)

Keynote

      Transformation of European Higher Education: the ATHENA Model

Since 2019, the European Commission has been promoting one of its most ambitious initiatives in the field of Higher Education, which consists of creating educational networks between universities across the EU, allowing students to obtain a degree, combining studies in several EU countries and contributing to the international competitiveness of European universities. The "European Universities" are expected to significantly increase mobility and foster high quality and excellence in education and research. Between 2019 and 2020, the Commission selected 41 applications from European Universities. P.PORTO coordinates one of these 41 European universities: ATHENA. ATHENA European University aims for high quality international higher education standards, permanently aligned with market needs, guaranteeing the highest employability standards for its graduates, while promoting an effective triangulation between education, research and development Social. ATHENA's educational model, which we will discuss here, is one of its main pillars, which brings together several components in a holistic vision of innovative education, at the service of the community, with a view to promoting the digitization of a sustainable and inclusive society.

Biography

      Nuno Escudeiro is an Adjunct Professor at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Department of Informatics. Nuno is an Integrated Researcher at GILT and has developed research in two distinct areas, Automatic Learning and Internationalization of Higher Education. Nuno has a PhD in Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, a Master's in Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems, Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto and a degree in Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University from Lisbon. Nuno Escudeiro has coordinated and participated in several research and development projects and has assumed leadership positions in several organizations in the field of European Higher Education: Coordinator of the European University ATHENA; Vice President of the European Association of Erasmus Coordinators (EAEC); Vice President of the European Association of Career Guidance (EACG); Coordinator of the BlendEd course, project/internship in mixed mobility; Coordinator of the Praxis network – European Center for Project / Internship Excellence; Coordinator of the EAEC European Coordination Office Portugal; Member of the advisory committee of INNOTECS - International Network of Technical Schools; Member of the Sector Skills Alliance EO4GEO Advisory Committee.