Where are you now?

Every month INESC TEC sends highly qualified individuals into the market. These individuals often then go on to occupy important positions in some of the best national and international companies or they opt to form spin-offs. As the best way to perform technology transfer is through individuals, this section is dedicated to collaborators that trained at INESC TEC and now star in other companies and institutions.

Bruno Santos, Venture Catalysts, Managing partner

• Year when you began working at INESC TEC and when you left: 2011-2012

• Unit(s) at INESC TEC where you worked: Innovation and Technology Transfer Unit (UITT)

After I left INESC TEC in mid-2012 I started working at Venture Catalysts. Venture Catalysts is a company focused on commercialising technology through entrepreneurship. I worked at INESC TEC as a consultant implementing Innovation, Research and Development Management Systems and supporting Start-ups, and at Venture Catalysts I took on the risks and followed my own advice. I went from being an Advisor to playing the role of a Maker.

I would like to mention all the friends and colleagues with whom I learned a lot in the open and honest conversations we had. When I started working at INESC TEC I had just created Venture Catalysts together with four friends. My time at INESC TEC allowed me to better understand the work of a reference Institute that works as an Interface between University and Companies. This complemented our experience as Researchers, Start-Up Managers, Portuguese and Multinational company staff, Venture Capitalists and Banking that allowed us to perfectly understand the Start-Up ecosystem and focus on an unmet market need.

In my opinion INESC TEC didn’t change in its most important aspect as it continues to be an Interface Institute of reference in Portugal. I also feel it is changing for the better in two fields: Internationalisation, confirming that is an important Institute in Portugal and abroad, and Networking, boosting its fabulous network of brilliant current and former collaborators.

Yannick Phulpin, EDF R&D, Researcher

• Year when you began working at INESC TEC and when you left: 2011

• Unit(s) at INESC TEC where you worked: Power Systems Unit (USE)

I left INESC TEC to join EDF R&D in Clamart, near Paris. I am with the Department of Energy System Economics, performing research on power distribution and smart grid applications. My duties include representing EDF in various European instances (SEDC, Smart Grid Task Force), advising several directions of the EDF group, and developing new tools for economic analysis of smart grid solutions in energy systems.  My activities are in line with the tasks I completed at INESC Porto. They involve the same area of expertise, but target a more operational community of decision-makers at industry and regulatory level.

I am particularly grateful to INESC Porto for the excellent framework it offered for our collaboration. During my stay in Porto, I built a solid experience in EU-project elaboration and management and had the opportunity to understand how first-class research institutes work, and how their research and innovation strategy must be developed. Although those aspects are not directly under my responsibility at EDF, this experience is a great advantage to evolve in larger structures.

As the USE teams have been relatively stable recently, I guess the most significant change is the extension of the building. It must be exciting and challenging to settle existing units in new facilities.  I would have liked to share this moment. On a more personal note, I would love to see how projects that I initiated have gone and what achievements they lead to.