My name is Bruno Tavares , I’m 24 years old and I live in Porto, Portugal. In my life I’ve tried to be like no other since I know myself. I’m a proactive, self-driven and enthusiastic person that loves to learn, innovate and challenges. I’m not afraid of changing, of new stuff or even competition because I try to be one step ahead of everyone else. To accomplish that I invest a lot on my formation and self knowledge. Yes, I like to learn by myself but getting formal formation it’s good too.

Right now I’m finishing MSc degree in Computer Science Engineering at Polytechnic Institute of Porto (a Portuguese prestigious Engineering School),  lecturer of Pos-Graduation “Brand Management” at IPAM Porto, a Microsoft Student Partner, IT Evangelist and a SEO Consultant.

My work

As a software engineer I like modeling relational Data Bases, programming, IT management, software architecture, IT organizational behaviors, IT trends, IT strategy IT marketing and consulting.

For now I don’t know every languages in the market, I just can say that I have experience on:

• Web developing with php, javascript, AJAX, HTML, Actionscript 2.0, Macromedia flash, CSS, XML (and XML-based), ASP.NET, AJAX.NET, ADO.NET, webservices;
• Low level programming with C/C++. Parallel programming, direct memory access, information structures and temporal complexity issues;
• I love C# and .Net Framework. Things like parallel extensions, XNA, Mobile, Speech, etc … are extraordinary for developers. Visual Studio is a perfect IDE;
• Love RDBMS as Oracle with PL/SQL, MS SQLserver with T-SQL, MySQL for web, PostgreSQL when I need high efficiency at open source or low cost projects and MS access to play. I’ve used xBase 2.0 (originary technology of FoxPro, clip, etc… ) as a DBMS for a academic work. Of course I know about SQL language (DML, DDL, DCL and TCL);
• Operating System as Linux (Debian derivates) and MS Windows;
• I’ve been work with several IT tools like Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia Freehand, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe illustrator, Turbo C, Netbeans, Borland, Visual Studio, Zend studio, DOC++, KDeveloper, Anjunta, emacs, bluefish, quanta plus, Aptana, IT remedy, OMCDB of Critical Software, Autosys, HP Open view, Veritas Backup, etc;
• Work with several frameworks and libraries like .Net 2, Zend Platform, Dojo, Joomla, Wordpress, C/C++ STL library, xBase, network Berkeley API, Java SE, Bison parser generator , flex lexical and many other libraries that I used in Linux developing;
• I had a webserver for hosting webpages and e-mail that I administrate but is just for fun;
• XNA is a graphic engine of Microsoft that run over .Net 2.0 that I use to create my silly games;

Software Engineering:

• UML 2;
• Quality of software;
• software life cycle;
• agile methods;
• software design and architecture with focus on service-oriented;
• IT economics trends;
• software architecture service-oriented (SOA/EBS/IBS);

As a IT consultant I’m like the relationships with the customer, the high vision level of the software, process, workflow, etc…

As a lecturer I liked to teach Digital marketing and online branding.

On Marketing I like SEO, online advertising, online objective and subjective indicators, online market trends, online brand management, online promotion (visibility and notoriety);

As an IT Evangelist I like the outcome. Being we people that I don’t know and give them something fresh and new is extraordinary. I like to stand up and talk about technology.

As a Microsoft Student Partner I like understanding a huge company as Microsoft, like to perform seminars, talks, like to help student to reach higher, like my MSP friends, like be helped by Microsoft to do things that I never dreamed on.

As you can see, I have knowledge in many different stuff at many different areas.

Professional Experience

All my work experience happened while I was attending my degree therefore my overall grade isn’t very good but I have work experience. My biggest work experience was at Vodafone Portugal for five years. They were my mentors in what I called the professional culture that every single person has to have somehow. I was very lucky on having the best schools on this area and having a bottom-up experience. I started at call center, as a customer support assistant that helped costumer at several matters like hardware cells configuration, selling as supporting our services, accounting and billing. At the end of this experience I was working with Vodafone agents and the top costumers. This was a major experience because I talked with over 10000 persons all over Portugal. But this wasn’t what I wanted to my future so I left Vodafone and went working at a light company called Casa das Lâmpadas (CL) in Porto that resells electronic components. At CL I was performing the reporting between OS400 and the company directors. I’ve stayed there for 15 days because I was called to work at Vodafone again as a technical support at DSI department. My responsabilities were:

• Service Desk with SEDC (South Europe Data Center) in Milan Italy. All major services are there;
• Motoring all systems: Decision Support Systems (DSS), EIS, Data warehouse, Siebel, SAP, etc… ;

This was my second major opportunity because I learned a lot of concepts and infrastructures that I didn’t have and being part of the biggest team of Vodafone Portugal. I worked with Veritas Backup, HP Open View, Autosys, Remedy, and lot of other applications.

Six months later I had to leave Vodafone because I had to choose between going to Lisbon or finishing my degree. That was a difficult decision but necessary one! When I was working in Vodafone, in parallel, I was working with CEASE on a European Program that helps companies to increase the productivity with IT. I was a IT Consultant at CEASE for helping 16 companies in several areas like Internet promotion (SEO/SEF and notoriety), making websites, helping understanding the IT market and many other stuff. This program finished at June 2007 and now I’m having some invitations to work in some R&D projects. I’m not going to say anything for now!

In SEO/SEF and notoriety I have preformed campaigns with good results and gave a workshop at NERLEI (Enterprise Association of Leiria in Leiria, Portugal) with the theme Estratégias Comerciais na Internet - Commercial strategies on Internet - that gave SEO background to several Internet projects. I’m following some and receiving very good output of them.

Since I’m working I have in parallel a dedicated server at Layeredtech for hosting web pages that gave me the experience on administrating linux servers.

This year I was invited to be a lecturer on IPAM Executive Plan/Pos-Graduation “Brand Management” where I lecture “Branding on Web”. The main goals are:

To know and promote a consistent relationship between communication, branding and new technologies on multiple aspects of the information society. In the end the students:

• Will have knowledge and practice on new technologies for communication and brand: from institutional sites to campaign sites, the messenger, to the blog, or micro blogging, by phone the digital entertainment…
• Will know how to brief and evaluate proposals for sites institutional and consumption in light of the objectives of continuity or off with its technology partners;
• Will know the means and devices available to current and future of branding;
• Will be able to identify and assess new opportunities in the digital world;
• Will be able to design and evaluate a strategy of branding, knowing the means to match goals with foundation in branding online sustained;
• Will be able to advertise online;

 I love to give talks here is the list:

• Speaker at ESTG-IPVC on a talk about Interactivity with Microsoft XNA (06/2008)
• Speaker at Lusófona University on a XNA Hands-on 2D/3D (05/2008)
• Speaker at Microsoft PopUp!s arround portuguese universities speaking about XNA and Digital Marketing (04/2008 - 06/2008)
• Speaker at  Computer Science Department of Coimbra University with the talk “Artificial Life with XNA”  (04/2008)
• Speaker at Techdays2008 on a “Hands on Labs - XNA 2.0″ (03/2008)
• Speaker at ISEP Seminar XNA Hands-on 2D/3D (03/2008)
• Speaker at ISEP QTDEI ” XNA for Game Developing (03/2008)
• Speaker at ISEP “XNA Overview” (11/2008)
• Speaker at FCUP ImagineCup2008 (11/2007)
• Speaker at Nerlei with the talk “Comercial Strategies on Internet” (03/2006)

Let’s see what I’m going to do from now on. I’m always moving forward!

My personal life

In my personal life I’m a father of a 6 years old girl and a husband of a beautiful wife! I’m very, very happy with them! Some people think that I did wrong on having a formed family at this age, but I don’t think so because we are very happy and all of us understand and support each other career. That’s what makes us unique as a family! We are all focus on the same purpose and very supportive with each other.
Between studying and my projects, somehow, I managed to get some time for me and my family. With that time I like to play with my daughter, traveling, cycling, listen to music (all the time), going to cinema, watching TV series and dating with my wife! That’s rights we’re still dating after six years of marriage…

How could I forget my cat? Yes, I have a cat that I picked on the street, and now she a sweet little cat that bites me a lot. I love cats!!!

At some point in my teens I discovered music and learned to play the Clarinet by myself at first, but in the end I was having classes. For now I let my Clarinet to gain rust because I don’t have many time for it. But someday I’ll play it again.

What I expect from my future

I expect to be, above all, happy and healthy. At my career I expect to grow as a software engineer or a consultant, learning a lot and being part of innovating software. I expect to give a lot of talks and help people to improve their knowledge in IT