Vinko Lesic received his PhD degree in 2014 from University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia (UNIZG-FER). Today, he is an Associate Professor within Laboratory for Renewable Energy Systems (LARES – https://www.lares.fer.hr) at the Department of Control and Computer Engineering of UNIZG-FER. His focus is on control algorithms, optimisation and artificial intelligence in renewable energy and sustainability topics or more particularly convex optimisation and machine learning methods for buildings and transport energy efficiency, microgrid operation, and agriculture.

His patented PhD research he shaped into the technology transfer project with a multinational aerospace R&D company. Since then, he has been leading 7 scientific-research and development and 4 technology transfer projects, and an own research group of 20 scientists. He shares his scientific commercialisation experience through mentoring in local and international programmes for technology innovations. He co-authored more over 60 journal and conference papers and 5 patents. Currently, he is a member of Scientific and Professional Council of Innovation Centre Nikola Tesla (ICENT) and a founder of start-ups accelerator program Imagine, Create, Innovate.

He is a distinguished volunteer in IEEE association, currently serving the role of Vice Chair of IEEE Region 8 Member Activities, coordinating programs on knowledge transfer and international networking of over 80,000 scientists and engineers from Europe, Africa and Middle East. He co-founded a program of IEEE Region 8 Entrepreneurship Initiative, aimed at design thinking, startups formation and acceleration, which examined over 500 technical innovations from 30 countries

https://www.fer.unizg.hr/en/vinko.lesic