Francesc Calvo Serra was born in Barcelona in 1982. He graduated from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC – www.upc.edu) in August 2006 obtaining a degree in Telecommunications engineering. In 2004 he was offered the option to pursue his studies in Germany, thanks to a double degree program between UPC and Universität Stuttgart. He lived in Stuttgart for two years and in August of 2006 obtained a Master of Science degree in Information Technology (www.infotech.uni-stuttgart.de/). During his studies in Germany, he had close contact with the industry and carried out an internship at the IBM Research and Development laboratory in Boeblingen (www.ibm.com/de/entwicklung/), working in the development of the last generation Cell microprocessor. As a result of this collaboration, later on he also proceeded with his master’s thesis in IBM. In 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the University of California, Irvine. His main areas of interest are Computer Networks and Distributed Systems. Francesc is a very active person: he likes to go mountain biking or running whenever he has the chance. Back in Barcelona, he played in a basketball team for more than ten years. During winter, skiing is his main interest and as most Catalan people, he is an ardent Barça supporter.
Marc Ferrer i Capdevila was born in Barcelona in 1981. He graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Camins, Canals i Ports de Barcelona (ETSECCPB) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), in Barcelona, Catalonia, obtaining the degree of Civil Engineer in 2006. His graduation project consisted on the design of a new road between Altafulla and Salomo. His graduation thesis was based in the study of the feasibility of the implementation of ground heat exchangers in Barcelona in collaboration with BARCELONA REGIONAL S.A. This work was later designated the best graduation thesis of 2006 in the ETSECCPB. During 2004-06, he worked as a trainee in the R+D department of ENDESA (www.endesa.es), performing dam failure analysis in Dam Emergency Plans. In 2005, he worked for three months as a trainee in FCC.S.A. (www.fcc.es) on the construction of the new harbor of Badalona. He was also awarded an Erasmus scholarship to spend 5 months at the University of Sheffield, where he completed the last year of his degree. In 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in Water Resources. He enjoys many sports like playing football, riding mountain-bikes, judo, volleyball, running and skiing. He is also interested in music and reading.
Javier López Prieto was born in Barcelona in 1979. He studied Physics at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and graduated from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2006 obtaining a degree in Telecommunications engineering. In 2004 he spent six months with the Robotics Laboratory at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Irvine. While there, he conducted research on an optimal control for an autonomous wheel-like robot. In July 2005, he and two partners were awarded the 3rd prize in the 5th contest of business ideas organized by the Innova Program at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. As a result they started Eimode, a start up company whose main activity was the optimal design of technological infrastructures. Eimode is still an active business managed by his partners. He has also been working in industry in companies like Benteler Iberica Holding, where he deployed an SNMP, free-software based technology to monitor all the technological resources of the company in Spain. In 2006, he joined InQALabs as a Quality Assurance Engineer where he worked in projects for Autodesk and Hewlett Packard. In July 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). His research interests are micro and nano-technologies.
Marcel López Rodríguez was born in Lleida in 1983. In 2006 he obtained his degree in Computer Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Cataluya. He also holds a Bachelor in Marketing from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (www.uoc.edu). While he was a sophomore in college, he worked in the English to Catalan translation of the computer productivity package Sun OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) in Softcatalà.org. In 2004, he was awarded a scholarship to work in the GRIHO (Human-Computer Research Group) research group of the Universitat de Lleida (www.udl.cat) where he did research in Human-Computer Interaction. During his senior college year (2005-2006), he started his final year project in the Statistics and Operations Research department (www-eio.upc.es) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya doing research in the implementation of optimization algorithms for low computing power devices. That same year he started working for Oracle Corporation (www.oracle.com) participating in the high potential student internship program of the company. He worked in the alliances and business channel unit in Barcelona. In the summer of 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at UCI with a concentration in Computer Graphics and Visualization. His research interests are computer graphics, algorithmics and marketing of technology products. He enjoys listening to music, watching and playing sports, dancing, reading, and playing computer games.
Raul Macule Gonzalez was born in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) in 1981. He graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicaió (ETSETB) of the Universitat Poliècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in June 2005, obtaining the degree of Telecommunications engineer, specialized in communications. During the academic year 2005-2006 he pursued a Master of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), where he specialized in Image Processing and Data Compression. The title of his MS thesis was ‘Compression of Ultrasonic Signals: DCT and DW’. In July 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). His research interest is medical imaging.
Roger Piqueras Jover was born in Barcelona in 1982. He graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicacions de Barcelona (ETSETB) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in 2006 and obtained the degree of Electrical Engineer with a specialization in communications. His graduation project was based on the study of Radio Resource Management Strategies for Heterogeneous Mobile Networks. He spent 9 months with the Radio Communication Research Group of the Department of Signal Theory and Communications of the Universitat Politèxscnica de Catalunya (UPC). While finishing his project, he wrote a paper about Dynamic pricing for decentralized RAT Selection in heterogeneous scenarios, which was selected for presentation during the 17th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’06) in Finland. In 2006, he was awarded a Balsells Fellowship to pursue graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in the area of mobile and wireless communications. He enjoys playing soccer, listening to music and going to concerts, cinema, traveling and making new friends from all around the world.
Javier Rodríguez De Luis was born in Alicante (Spain) in 1982. In 2000 he moved to Barcelona and entered the ‘Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicacions’ of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He graduated in 2006, obtaining the degree of Telecommunications Engineer. His research and main interests were focused in the antennas field and signal processing. He wrote his thesis about designing of MIMO antenna systems for wireless communications. In September 2006 he was awarded with the Balsells Fellowship. He moved to Irvine to pursue a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. He is currently a member of the laboratory of RFMems at the University of California Irvine (UCI), led by professor Franco de Flaviis dealing with RF MIMO systems and MEMS. During the time he spent in Barcelona he was active participant in multiple student associations (such as library manager) in his Residence for university students ‘Col.legi Major Penyafort i Montserrat’. His main hobbies are spending time and dining with friends and trying to do sports without success.