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Bio: Hugo Ferreira

I am a Licenciate in Informatics and Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, and currently working in a permanent position as Software Engineer at ParadigmaXis, S.A.

Before starting my university studies I took a technical course at the professional high-school Fontes Pereira de Melo. During my early university years I engaged in several extracurricular activities, namely the “Linux and Networks Course”, where I integrated a team of students and lecturers, contributing to the design and support literature and giving classes for first-year students. In 1999 I was invited to join the FEUP’s student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), later being elected chairman in 2000. In this position, directly sponsored by the ACM, we organized several conferences and events in several areas of computer science and engineering. In 2001 I initiated my professional activities as freelancer, developing software solutions namely in the medical and sports area.

In 2003, I applied for ParadigmaXis, S.A. in the context of a trainee placement integrated in the last year of my degree. During that period I was given the chance to participate in the International project Multilateral Interoperability Programme and consequently developed my Licenciate thesis in this area. In April 2004 I finished my thesis based on a working prototype of a Framework for Development of Command and Control Systems [1]. I was invited to stay at the company to finish the prototype and to engage in further military projects, during which I have acquired knowledge in areas such as Data Replication, Object-Relational Mapping and Distributed Systems, using techniques such as Dynamic Code Generation and Introspection, Adaptive Model Driven Architectures and Aspect Oriented Programming.

ParadigmaXis has given me an environment where the freedom for research and creativity are not only encouraged, but given as a requirement for the development of high-quality technological systems, due to the very nature of the projects we develop but also to the agile development methodologies practiced, namely Extreme Programming and Agile Model Driven Development. This has been allowed me to fulfill my passion for research while maintaining compatibility with my professional responsibilities. By performing further roles as Analyst, Architect and Team Leader I’ve been acquiring experience in a wide variety areas of computing, with a strong focus on pure Software Engineering and Object-Oriented Development, and technologies like Microsoft .NET Framework, Mono, Python, XML/XSLT, REST Architectures and several others…

In 2007 I’ve been accepted in the 2007/08 edition of the MAP-i Doctoral Programme in Computer Science, a joint PhD by three top Portuguese Universities Universidade do Minho, Universidade de Aveiro and Universidade do Porto (MAP), which will start later this September.