Vinko Lesic

Vinko Lesic

Vinko is an Associate Professor within Laboratory for Renewable Energy Systems at University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. His patented PhD research he shaped into the technology transfer project with a multinational aerospace R&D company. Since then, he has been leading 12 scientific-research and development and an own research group of 20 scientists. He shares his scientific commercialisation experience through mentoring in local and international programs for technology innovations. He co-authored over 80 journal and conference papers and 5 patents. 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, urban infrastructures and agriculture as climate-impacted sectors.

He is an active volunteer in IEEE association and past Vice Chair of IEEE Region 8 Member Activities (2023-24) where he coordinated programs on knowledge transfer and international networking for 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 800 technical innovations from 40 countries. He has also initiated an international hackathon on climate challenges and AI in Enhanced Weather Forecasting, which is now reaching the global stage. Today, he is supporting IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board in establishing a hackathon in generative AI for sustainable development.