Gerald Franzl received the academic degrees Dr. techn. (eq. PhD) and Dipl.-Ing. (eq. M.Sc.) in Electrical Engineering from TU Wien Austria, in 2015 and 2002, respectively. From February 2016 until October 2019, he was employed at a small IT company as R&D Engineer contributing to the nationally funded project IES Austria (www.iesaustria.at) on establishing a cooperation scheme that fosters vendor agnostic interoperability for smart energy systems and services based on jointly specified, use-case specific integration profiles. Since February 2020, he has been employed at TU Wien and Danube University Krems, contributing to the R&D projects SONDER and cFlex respectively, on designing, establishing and best operating regional and local energy communities. In 2008, he achieved certification to Junior Project Manager (IPMA Level_D); in 2015, to Process Analyst (PcA); in 2016, to EBC*L Certified Manager and ISTQB r Certified Tester (foundation level); and in 2017, to Digital Transfer Manager (DTM).