ACT hires 1st chief innovation officer

IOWA CITY -- Miguel Encarnação has joined ACT in Iowa City as the organization's first chief innovation officer.

Encarnação, most recently director and partnership leader of emerging technology innovation at Humana Inc. in Lousville, joins ACT with a background that combines experience in academic and corporate settings in Europe and the United States.

He completed his formal education in Germany with bachelor and master of science degrees from the Darmstadt University of Technology and a PhD degree from the University of Tübingen.  All of the degrees were focused on computer science and human-computer interaction.

Encarnação also has taught at universities in Germany and the United States. He founded the IMEDIA Academy, an accredited non-profit vocational school of higher education supported by a consortium of eight international universities, focused on trans-disciplinary learning in interactive digital media design, development and commercialization.

Jon Whitmore, ACT chief executive officer, said Encarnação is in the process of creating an in-house ACT Innovation Studio to tap the innovative spirit of people throughout the organization and to move ideas from inception to value-added applications.

"He will help build a culture of innovation from the bottom up, thus opening up the doors of opportunity for creating new products, tools and processes at ACT," Whitmore said.