Speaker Biography
Diogo Vasconcelos
Distinguished Fellow, Internet Business Solutions Group
Cisco Systems Inc.
Before joining Cisco in 2007, Diogo was the principal Economic Advisor to the Portuguese President, Cavaco Silva and organized the President’s Globalization Council. He also led his widely studied digital campaign and “digital presidency”. Diogo was founder and president of UMIC, the Portuguese Knowledge Society Agency, from 2002 to 2005.
He was responsible for Information Society, e-Government and Broadband, as well as for the implementation of major initiatives like Virtual Campus, Online Knowledge Library, Citizens Portal, e-Procurement in Public Administration, Broadband Schools, Digital Regions & Cities, Electronic Voting, Digital Inclusion and the New Entrepreneurs’ Programme amongst others. He also represented Portugal in the European Council of Ministers, on the eEurope Advisory Group, OECD eGovernment Group and on the World Summit on Information Society. He was also member of the board of the Portuguese Innovation Agency.
Before his appointment to UMIC, he was elected member of the Parliament. He was Vice-President of PSD, under Jose Manuel Durao Barroso’s leadership, and its spokesperson for Information Society in which role he helped to create the idea and early shape of the “Lisbon Agenda.”
Prior to that Diogo founded a multimedia company and published the first magazines in his country on both the internet and entrepreneurship & innovation. He sat on the board of several incubators and was co-founder of Portugal’s first independent venture capital company and the National Business Angels Association and launched the Entrepreneurs Academy. When younger he was co-organizer of East Timor Peace Mission and co-founder of “Cais” (magazine distributed by homeless).
Diogo has also worked as a consultant and strategic advisor on entrepreneurship and innovation financing, wireless broadband cities, and European RFID policy (for the European Commission). On November 2006, Diogo co-organized the European Venture Summit and has Chairman of the Communications Congress.
He has a Law degree and post-graduate degrees in Communications Law, Management and Political Science. In 2006, Diogo received from the former President one of his country’s highest honors for his work on innovation and entrepreneurship, the “Commander of the Order of Prince D. Henrique”.
Diogo is member of the board of Catholic University of Porto. Diogo is married and lives in London.
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