Luis de la Cal is a PhD candidate in Computer Science and Technologies for Smart Cities at UPM (Technical University of Madrid), having started it after completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Software Engineering and a Master’s in Software for Distributed and Embedded Systems at the same faculty. During his undergraduate studies, he was awarded for having the best academic record in both his first year and the entire degree. He also participated in various activities as a mentor and president of the university association “Core Dumped Development.”

In 2021, he took part in the national entrepreneurship competition, Vodafone Campus Lab, where his team won first place, competing against 44 teams from 36 Spanish universities. Professionally, he has been involved in the creation and adaptation of collective intelligence portals and the development of an open augmented reality application related to accessibility in collaboration with the ONCE Foundation.

Currently, he works as a predoctoral student at UPM’s Mathematical Modeling and Biocomputation Laboratory. In 2022, he was awarded a scholarship for a three-month research stay at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the CCI research laboratory, with which he continues to maintain active collaboration in the field of using plants as biosensors.