Biography
Miguel de Castro Neto is Dean of the NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS) at the Nova University of Lisbon. He is an Associate Professor at NOVA IMS, where he founded and runs NOVA Cidade - Urban Analytics Lab, dedicated to smart cities and urban analytics. He also founded the NOVA Business Intelligence & Analytics Lab in partnership with BI4All and Microsoft and was the co-founder of the NOVA Data-Driven Public Policy Lab. He is the scientific director of the Smart Campus Living Lab at the Nova University of Lisbon, an Advisory Member of the Order of Engineers, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lisboa e-Nova, Lisbon Energy Agency and a member of the Platform for Sustainable Growth and member of the Executive Committee of the European Digital Innovation Hub AI4PA - Artificial Intelligence for Public Administration. He was Secretary of State for Spatial Planning and Nature Conservation in the XIX and XX Constitutional Governments of the Portuguese Republic. During this period, he was responsible for Territorial Planning Reform, as reflected in the publication "An integrated vision for the territory", edited by the Directorate General of the Territory in 2015 under his coordination. Having also been responsible, namely, for city policies, including the strategy "Sustainable Cities 2020" and the national initiative "Analytical Cities - Accelerating the development of Smart Cities in Portugal", as well as the creation of iGeo, an open geographic data portal (www.igeo.pt). In the context of Nature Conservation, the highlight goes to the creation and launch of the brand Natural.PT (www.natural.pt) and the reintroduction of the Iberian Lynx in Portugal after its extinction in the national territory.
Throughout his career, he was founder and Vice-President of the Data Science Portuguese Association, Chairman of the Board of Curators of the Terras Sem Sombra Festival, Chairman of the Technical and Scientific Council of Vissaium XXI - Association for the Development of Viseu and Non-Executive Director of the Municipal Company Parques Tejo. Smart Cities Personality of the Year (Green Business Week 2017, AIP Foundation). He is a member of the 224 Technical Commission "Sustainable Cities and Communities" of the ISSO, having participated in juries of national awards in the area of smart and sustainable cities, such as the annual competition "Municipalities of the Year Portugal" promoted by the Cities Mission Unit of the University of Minho, the National Sustainability Award annual competition, in the category "Well-being and Sustainable Cities" and the "Cities and Territories of the Future" Award of the APDC.
He holds a PhD in Agronomic Engineering from the Higher Institute of Agronomy of the Technical University of Lisbon in the area of information systems applied to the agricultural sector. He has an Extension Course of the Master's Degree in Statistics and Information Management at the Higher Institute of Statistics and Information Management of the Nova University of Lisbon, in the area of Information Management, a Master's in Agricultural Economics from the University of Évora and a degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Évora. He has developed his research and teaching work in the area of Business Intelligence and Smart Cities, with emphasis on the creation of the specialization in Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence of the Master's Degree program in Information Management (ranked as the "Best Master's degree Program in Business Intelligence and Strategy in the World by Eduniversal" for the fifth consecutive year) at the NOVA Information Management School, where he teaches the Business Intelligence curricular units.