João Carreira

João Carreira is a Portuguese engineer, academic, technology entrepreneur and business leader who has co-founded Critical Software in Portugal and has grown it into a global group of technology companies.

Joao’s entrepreneurial career dates to 1998 when, as a Ph.D student, he co-founded Critical Software along with Gonçalo Quadros and Diamantino Costa to develop mission-critical Software systems for the Aerospace sector. The company became an international reference in the field with reputed customers such as NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, ESA, Agusta Westland Helicopters, among others. Joao subsequently led the company into new international software technology markets in sectors such as Telecom, Defense, Unified Communications, and Education. The group opened offices in several countries including the UK, Angola, Mozambique, Brasil, and Italy and launched its venture capital arm in 2011, Critical Ventures. Critical has received numerous international awards such as the European IT Excellence Awards 2011.

Joao was born in Coimbra but lived his childwood and teenage years in the city of Evora in the south of Portugal. He obtained his Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Coimbra in Portugal, and a Masters in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas at Austin. His academic research work focused on Distributed Computing and Fault-Tolerance at Coimbra, the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands, and the EPCC. He authored more than 30 scientific papers including the IEEE Computer and the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering among others.

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