Zbigniew Michalewicz

Zbigniew Michalewicz is an entrepreneur, author and professor in the fields of mathematical optimisation and new technologies. He is the author of over 250 articles and 25 books which have been widely cited. He is the co-founder of NuTech Solutions, SolveIT Software, and Complexica where he currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer.

Early life and education
Michalewicz attended Warsaw University of Technology where he earned a Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics in 1974. In 1975, Michalewicz joined the faculty of the Institute of Computer Science at the Polish Academy of Sciences as a researcher. While there, he obtained a PhD in Computer Science in 1981; and a Doctor of Science (Habilitation) degree in Computer Science in 1997.

Professional career
In 1982, Michalewicz left Poland and moved to New Zealand with his wife Ewa and son Matthew Michalewicz. He took a position with Victoria University of Wellington, leaving behind all of his possessions in Poland with the exception of a few personal items. In an interview, he stated that he left Poland for many reasons including the difficult economy at that time and the lack of access to scientific publications to conduct research. He emigrated to Charlotte, North Carolina in July 1989, just prior to Hurricane Hugo. He began working for University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he received an offer of employment one year prior while he was still at the Victoria University. He taught at UNC Charlotte in the Department of Computer Science through 2004.

In 2004, Michalewicz accepted a position with the University of Adelaide as well as the Polish-Japanese School of Information Technology. Michalewicz is currently a professor at the University of Adelaide, the Polish-Japanese School of Information Technology, and the Institute of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Michalewicz also consulted on data mining and optimisation projects for companies and governmental agencies in the United States, Australia, and Poland. He served as the Chairman of the Technical Committee on Evolutionary Computation and also as the Executive Vice-President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Neural Network Council. He was the general chair of the First IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation held in Orlando in June 1994.

NuTech Solutions
Michalewicz co-founded NuTech Solutions, Inc. in 1999 with his son Matthew. NuTech offered technology solutions to predict business changes and helped companies prepare for these changes. In September 2003, Matthew left the company after resigning from the board of directors. Towards the end of 2004, he moved from Charlotte to Adelaide, Australia.

In 2005, Michalewicz sold his shares of NuTech back to the company to make way for new investments into the company. NuTech was acquired by Netezza Corporation in 2008 and in 2010, IBM Corporation acquired Netezza and became the licensor of the technology licensed by NuTech.

SolveIT Software
Michalewicz is the co-founder of SolveIT Software which was founded in 2005, a few months after his arrival in Australia. The other co-founders are Matthew Michalewicz, Martin Schmidt, and Constantin Chiriac. All were the co-authors of the book Adaptive Business Intelligence.

The company develops advanced planning and scheduling business optimisation software, which helps manage complex operations using artificial intelligence. Most of the products were initially developed around the key South Australian industries of wine and grain handling, and today SolveIt has a specialist mining division due to early adoption of the companies solutions within the mining market. The software helps companies accurately predict and plan their production, supply chain, shipping and currency hedging.

Complexica
Complexica, artificial intelligence software provider, was co-founded by Zbigniew and Matthew Michalewicz.

Select articles
Michalewicz has been published in numerous journals including the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation – TEC.



Awards and recognition
Michalewicz was awarded the title of Professor in 2002 by then Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was appointed as a Business Ambassador for South Australia in 2006 by then Premier Mike Rann. He was also named as a finalist for South Australia's Science Excellence Awards for the commercialisation success of Adapative Business Intelligence in 2008 as well as a 2010 DSI Instructional Innovation Award Competition Finalist.

He was the recipient of the prestigious Pearcey Award which recognises young entrepreneurs in the ICT space that have made significant contributions and taken entrepreneurial risks. He was given the award in 2011 for his founding of SolveIT Software.

Personal life
Michalewicz is married to Ewa Michalewicz, an artist who also did the cover work for Michalewicz's book How To Solve It. Michalewicz has a son, Matthew Michalewicz who is the co-author of some of Zbigniew Michalewicz's books, including Winning Credibility, Puzzle-Based Learning and Adaptive Business Intelligence. Matthew also co-founded SolveIT Software with his father Zbigniew.