Graduated (1971) in Electrical Engineering (EE) – Telecommunications –, in 1977 he got a Ph.D degree in EE, as well as M.Sc. degrees in Engineering-Economic Systems/Management Science & Engineering and in Statistics, all from Stanford University, California, USA. He was a Full Researcher at the National Laboratory for Scientific Computing, Brazil, where he was the Deputy Director and Head of the Research Department for a period of 12 years until 1997. On leave as an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, he holds today the position of National Secretary for Information Technology Policy at the Ministry for Science and Technology (MCT) of Brazil since December 2005. He also held the positions of National Secretary for Technology Development and Innovations at MCT (August 2005-December 2005) and of Director of Industry, Science and Technology in Telecommunications at the Ministry of Telecommunications (July 2004-August 2005), where he coordinated the steering committee for the implantation of digital TV in Brazil. He is the Coordinator of the Steering Committee for Internet in Brazil (CGI.br) and president of the administration boards of RNP (National Research Network of Brazil) and of CEITEC –National Center for Advanced Electronic Technology, the first integrated circuit manufacturer in Brazil. He also is a member of the board of curators of CPqD, the largest research center in Latin America in Telecommunications. He is married with a medical doctor and has two sons and one granddaughter.