Koen Vanthournout received his Master degree in Electrical Engineering (1999) from Groep T Hogeschool in Leuven, Belgium, and his Master degree in Artificial Intelligence (2000) from KU Leuven, Belgium. He obtained a PhD in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven in 2006. In 2020 he obtained the Postgraduate certificate School of Thinking from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a senior embedded software engineer for Icos Visions Systems/KLA-Tencor, after which he joined VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, and EnergyVille. In 2017, he co-founded ENION, a service provider for custom battery systems for SME’s, after which he returned to VITO and EnergyVille. He is currently working on smart grids, demand response, and the management of distribution grids.