News: Event News

CMU Portugal: Call for Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives is Open
The Call will be open from July 17 to October 16, 2013
How to Apply: https://cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=4788
The presentation slides shown during the public sessions can be downloaded here.

The CMU Portugal Call for Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives is now open. Funded by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), the Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives (ERIs) are projects in science, engineering, management and policy that link both fundamental and applied research to technological innovation and economic development, explicitly focusing on important real world problems entailing significant scientific challenges.

ERIs integrate activities in research, innovation, advanced education and training of human resources, with industry collaboration and emphasis on the commercialization of technology for real world impact.

The mission of the ERIs is to stimulate and promote Portuguese innovation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), by acting as international innovation engines, embedded in international knowledge and business networks, to train creative innovators, generate new ideas, and translate them into products, processes and services.

Approximately € 6 million are expected to be available to support four to seven ERIs, starting in early 2014. From the total funding, € 3 million will be available to support resources and activities in Portuguese research institutions. The other half of the total funding will be available to support complementary activities at Carnegie Mellon University. An ERI consortium must include at least two partner Portuguese institutions and at least a company, as well as a research team from Carnegie Mellon University. A typical proposal should cover efforts for a period of up to four years.

We are organizing a series of meetings in Portuguese universities, as well as at Carnegie Mellon University, to present and discuss the goals, structure, and financial support for the ERIs. The target audience for these meetings includes faculty members, researchers, doctoral students, senior staff of innovation and entrepreneurship support organizations, business executives, and startup managers. Typically, the directors of the CMU Portugal Program will present the concept and goals for the ERIs, followed by a Q&A moment.

Calendar for these events:
July 23, 2013
14:30 – 16:00 – Faculdade de Engenharia of the Universidade do Porto (INESC TEC Auditorium)

July 24, 2013
12:00 – 13:30 – Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Library)
15:00 – 16:30 – Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (Amphitheatrum EA2, at the North Tower)

July 25, 2013
10:30 – 12:00 – Universidade de Coimbra ( Amphitheatrum B.1 – 4º floor at DEI, FCTUC)
14:30 – 16:00 – Universidade de Aveiro (Sala do Senado, Rectory Building)

July 26, 2013
10:30 – 12:00 – Universidade do Minho (meeting room of the scientific commission of the School of Engineering, Campus de Azurém – Guimarães)
tbd – Universidade da Madeira

July 31, 2013
1:00 pm – Carnegie Mellon University (Hamerschlag Hall, Room 1107 )

August 26, 2013 (Cancelled – new date to be announced)
tbd – Faculdade de Ciências of the Universidade do Porto (new date tba)

August 28, 2013
4:30 – 5:30 pm – Carnegie Mellon University (Gates Hillman Center, Room 4405)

In order to prepare the logistics for the event, please register at here . We are planning to organize more meetings during September 2013.
Please feel free to contact us if you think that we can be of any help, using the email eris@cmuportugal.org .

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The information on this page does not replace or override any requirements set forth in the Regulations or the Announcement of the Call for Proposals .

CMU Portugal Program: Call for Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives We are pleased to announce that the CMU Portugal Call for Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives (ERIs), funded by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), is now open. Approximately € 6 million, half in Portugal and half at CMU, are expected to be available to support four to seven ERIs, for up to 4 years. The Call will remain open from July 17 to 5pm (GMT), of October 16, 2013.
Important Documents:
Announcement of the Call by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (only in Portuguese)
Terms of Reference for the Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives 2013 Call for Proposals
Application Guidelines for the Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives Call

The Phase II of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program emphasizes advanced education and research that can lead to significant entrepreneurial impact. The activities of the program are for the most part configured in Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives (ERIs). ERIs are projects in science, engineering, management and policy that link both fundamental and applied research to technological innovation and economic development. This bridging is pursued by explicitly focusing on important real world problems entailing significant scientific challenges. ERIs consist in integrated activities in research, innovation, advanced education and training of human resources, with industry collaboration and emphasis on the commercialization of technology for real world impact.

ERIs seek to stimulate and promote Portuguese innovation in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as such, and as enabling technologies in nearly all application sectors, in a global context where markets, industries, resources, and talent are internationally distributed. These projects seek to advance technology and engineering, develop talented innovators in Portugal and increase the competitiveness of the Portuguese ICT industry in today’s globalized economy. Ultimately, they seek to foster a culture that integrates discovery, innovation and internationalization by acting as international engines of innovation and growth.

An international innovation engine is in fact a symbiotic relationship between researchers and industry partners, embedded in international knowledge and business networks, to create new ideas and to translate them into products, processes and services.

In essence, this solicitation calls upon efforts aimed at developing and linking capabilities and resources from fundamental research to technology commercialization, strongly supported in talent development. In order to achieve this, ERIs will:
1. Advance science-based discovery and link it to technological innovation.
2. Form cross-disciplinary international teams of researchers and industry professionals, capable of addressing complex real world problems, and operating effectively in a world of global research and innovation.
3. Provide opportunities for cross-national training of human resources, in the form of dual degrees, to develop capabilities to create and exploit knowledge for technological innovation in a global economy in ways that can address important real world problems while having the potential to impact positively the Portuguese economy.
4. Use instruments that facilitate experimentation (prototyping, proof-of-concept or proof-of- market) and collaboration, as required by the entrepreneurial and collaborative nature of ERIs. Testbeds and experiments with companies are examples of such instruments.
5. Interact with companies, markets, and end users during all stages of activity and provide effective ways to measure the impact of the activities on all these constituencies.
6. Involve industry, in a variety of modes, such as solving problems, developing capabilities, generating best practices, creating competitive solutions, creating complementary technologies, providing insights on performance improvement.
7. Develop a culture that combines research, education, and innovation, at an international scale, to create and sustain an international innovation engine to realize the ERI’s vision.
Please feel free to contact us if you think that we can be of any help, using the email eris@cmuportugal.org .

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We are organizing a series of meetings in Portuguese universities, as well as at Carnegie Mellon University, to present and discuss the goals, structure, and financial support for the ERIs. The target audience for these meetings includes faculty members, researchers, doctoral students, senior staff of innovation and entrepreneurship support organizations, business executives, and startup managers. Typically, the directors of the CMU Portugal Program will present the concept and goals for the ERIs, followed by a Q&A moment. For more information please visit: https://cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=4786 .

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The information on this page does not replace or override any requirements set forth in the Regulations or the Announcement of the Call for Proposals .

Statistical Challenges in eCommerce Research Symposium (SCECR 2013)
Date: June 27-28, 2013
Place: Lisbon, Portugal
Url: http://scecr.org/

The ninth Annual Symposium on Statistical Challenges in eCommerce Research (SCECR 2013) will take place at the Business School of the Portuguese Catholic University, in Lisbon Portugal, on June 27 and 28.

Over the past several years, we have witnessed the emergence of a wide range of information technology-enabled business models from basic online retailing to crowdsourcing. In parallel, entire industries have changed due to information technology, from media industries, such as music, publishing and film where digital goods have significantly altered patterns of consumption, to service industries where consumer interactions through review sites and social networks can enable a shift in power between consumers and producers.

This evolution of the networked economy, enabled via information systems, has provided opportunities for researchers, especially as it pertains to the increased availability of data. Such data have been used to answer a variety of important and emerging questions addressing the social and economic impact of information technology enabled business models. These opportunities, however, raise many data-related problems and challenges. The purpose of this conference is to gather an interdisciplinary group of people whose common interest lies in using these data, and solving the statistical challenges associated with them.

E3 Forum 2013
Date: June 26, 2013
Place: Pavilhão do Conhecimento – Ciência Viva – Parque das Nações, Lisbon, Portugal
Website: http://e3forum.org/

The E3 Forum is preparing its 3rd edition, which will happen on 26th June, 2013.

E3 Forum is an international conference entirely promoted by PhD candidates from the MIT Portugal Program. E3 stands for Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship, the key fields where a young graduate will seek a professional career and which are the focus themes of this initiative. E3 Forum welcomes members from Academia, Companies, Educators, Entrepreneurs and Innovators, MSc or PhD students and any other attendees that may be interested in joining the conference. In its third edition, E3 Forum will build a dynamic and interactional environment, featuring Inspiring Talks, Debate Sessions, Parallel Seminars, Working Sessions and Poster Competition, promoting the networking among all the participants.

E3 Forum is accepting innovative contributions for a Poster Competition to be held during the conference day. Although presentation happens via a poster format, participants are allowed and encouraged to bring other supporting materials such as prototypes. Contributions for poster competition can be submitted in three categories:

– “Most Innovative Product/Technology”;

– “Best Go-to-Market Strategy” ;

– “Scientific Breakthrough”.

Four Awards will be issued on the day of the competition; one for each of the different categories and a fourth prize, the People’s Choice. Further details about E3 2013’s poster competition are available on the webpage.

Registrations and update program will soon be available at the website.

Project Review Meeting 2013
Date: June 18-20, 2013
Place: Pavilhão do Conhecimento, Lisbon, Portugal
Organized by: Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, funded by FCT

As has happened in previous years, the annual project review consists of an overview presentation by the Principal Investigators of the research projects carried out in the scope of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Representatives of all the partners involved in the project are welcome to participate in the meeting.

The Committee members are:
Professor Adam Wolisz, Technische Universitaet Berlin (TUB) – chair
Professor Carles Sierra, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) Spanish National Research Council
Professor Gilles Barthe, Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (IMDEA)
Professor H.S. Jamadagni, Indian Institute of Science (IIS)
Professor Ulises Cortés, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)

Agenda

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19TH, 2013

9:00am – 5:30pm Project Review Meetings

Panel I

ADAAS: Assuring Dependability in Architecture-based Adaptive Systems
Principal Investigators: Rogério Lemos (UC) and David Garlan (CMU)

ATTEST: AlgoriThms and Tools for reasoning about dEpendable SysTems
Principal Investigators: João Marques Silva (IST/UTL) and Edmund M. Clarke (CMU)

Affidavit – Automating the Proof of Quality Attributes for Large Scale Software Architectures
Principal Investigators: Mário Zenha-Rela (UC) and David Garlan (CMU)

TRONE – Trustworthy and Resilient Operations in a Network Environment
Principal Investigators: António Casimiro (FCUL) and Priya Narasimhan (CMU)

MAIS-S: Multiagent Intelligent Surveillance System
Principal Investigators: Francisco Melo (IST/UTL) and Manuela M. Veloso (CMU)

PT-STAR: Speech Translation Advanced Research to and from Portuguese
Principal Investigators: Luisa Coheur (IST/UTL) and Alan Black (CMU)

REAP-PT: Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) Reading Practice (REAP.PT)
Principal Investigators: Nuno Mamede (IST/UTL) and Maxine Eskenazi (CMU)

Panel II

The Role of ‘User Innovators’ in the Development of Telecom Products and Services
Principal Investigators: Pedro Oliveira (UCP) and Francisco Veloso (CMU)

Innovation and the Global Economy: An Investigation of Critical Challenges for Intellectual Property, Strategy and Policy in IT and Beyond
Principal Investigators: Fernando Branco (UCP) and Lee Branstetter (CMU)

Novel information processing methodologies for intelligent sensor networks
Principal Investigators: João Xavier (IST/UTL) and Bruno Sinopoli (CMU)

NeTS: Next Generation Network Operations and Management
Principal Investigators: Ricardo Morla (FEUP) and Hyong Kim (CMU)

Toward Dynamic Monitoring and Decision (DYMONDS) – Based Smart Distribution Systems
Principal Investigators: Luis Marcelino Ferreira (IST/UTL) and Marija Ilic (CMU)

Degenerative Elliptic and Parabolic Equations and its Applications to Front Propagation
Principal Investigators: Diogo Gomes (IST/UTL),Dejan Slepcev (CMU) and David Kinderlehrer (CMU)

Thin structures, Homogenization and Multi Phase Problems
Principal Investigators: Luísa Mascarenhas (FCUL), Giovani Leoni (CMU) and Irene Fonseca (CMU)

Stochastic Analysis and Numerical Approximations in Mathematical Finance (SANAF)
Principal Investigators: Cláudia Philippart (IST/UTL) and Dmitrry Kramkov (CMU)

5:30pm – 7:30pm Project Review 1st discussion REPORT

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013

9:00am – 3:15pm Project Review Meetings

Panel I

INTERFACES – Certified Interfaces for Integrity and Security in Extensible Web-based Applications
Principal Investigators: Luis Caires (FCT/UNL) and Frank Pfenning (CMU)

SINAIS – Sustainable Interaction with social Networks, context Awareness and Innovative Services
Principal Investigators: Nuno Nunes (UMa) and Anind K. Dey (CMU)

SENODs – Cyber-Physical Systems Technologies for Energy-Optimized Data Centers
Principal Investigators: Eduardo Tovar (ISEP) and Raj Rajkumar (CMU)

Web Security and Privacy (WESP): Weaving Together Technology Innovation with Human and Policy Considerations
Principal Investigators: Evangelos Karapanos (UMa) and Norman Sadeh (CMU)

Aeminium – Freeing Programmers from the Shackles of Sequentially
Principal Investigators: Bruno Cabral (UC) and Jonathan Aldrich (CMU)

Panel II

Technology, Management and Policy for the Telecommunications Industry
Principal Investigators: Pedro Ferreira (IST/UTL) and Marvin Sirbu (CMU)

Human Capital, Knowledge Based Firms, and the Entrepreneurial Life-Cycle
Principal Investigators: Rui Baptista (IST/UTL) and Steven Klepper (CMU)

DRIVE-IN: Distributed Routing and Infotainment through Vehicular Inter-Networking
Principal Investigators: Michel Ferreira (FCUP) and Ozan Tonguz

SELF-PVP: Self-organizing power management for photo-voltaic power plants
Principal Investigators: Vítor Grade Tavares (FEUP) and Shawn Blanton (CMU)

Vital Responder – Monitoring Stress Among First Responder Professionals
Principal Investigators: João Paulo Cunha (FEUP) and Priya Narasimhan (CMU)

3:15pm – 6:00pm Project Review Report and WRAP-UP

Open Call for the Pitch Coaching Session “Product Idea” Date: June 20, 2013
Place: Pavilhão do Conhecimento, Lisbon, Portugal
Organized by: Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, funded by FCT
Agenda: https://cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=4658
Registration Form: http://tinyurl.com/k649lco
Deadline to submit a proposal: June 14, 2013 (extended deadline)
The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop, which will be held on June 20, 2013, at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento, in Lisbon, will have a Pitch Coaching Session. The session is mostly oriented to students and faculty members with an interest in getting feedback about commercialization pathways for their research.

The goal of the session is to have students and faculty members explaining a product or service idea, based on their research, and how it will satisfy customer needs. The focus is not on describing the technology and the research, but instead on the application, i.e., the product/service and its market. At the end of each 5 minutes presentation, a panel with the speakers that will be in the remaining workshop sessions will provide feedback according to their experiences and backgrounds.

The deadline to submit a proposal is June 14, 2013. The directors of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program will analyze all the proposals, and feedback will be provided by email until June 17, 2013.

To submit a proposal, please send an email to event@cmuportugal.org containing:
a) Personal Information: First name; Last name; Affiliation; Email
b) Presentation Proposal with 6 slides.
IMPORTANT: Provide the best information that you currently have for the following topics. You do not need to have a complete answer for all of them.
1. Title
2. What is your product/service? Why is it innovative?
3. Who is your customer? How does your product/service create value to your customer?
4. What is the market, its size and growth?
5. Who is your competition? How does your product/service compare to the competition?
6. How do you intend to develop IP protection?

If you have any questions, please send an email to event@cmuportugal.org

REN Prize 2013 Conference “Sustainable and Innovative Energy Systems”
Date: May 29, 2013
Time: 9:30 – 12:30
Place: Auditório Fundação Champalimaud, Lisboa
Url: http://conferencias.economico.pt/eventos/premio-ren-2013_166.html

The National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program was invited to participate in the Conference “Sustainable and Innovative Energy Systems,” which will be held on May 29th, 2013, in Lisbon. Organized by REN, the Portuguese company that manages the main energy transmission infrastructures, of both electricity and natural gas, the aim of this event is to present the new rules and jury for the REN Prize 2013. The REN Prize is Portugal’s oldest scientific prize. The initiative has been honoring the best master’s theses in the fields of electricity and natural gas systems and grids since 1995.

Donald Sadoway, considered one of the most influential people in the world by TIME magazine, will give a keynote speech at the conference about issues related to the future of electrical energy storage. The renowned professor from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), considered one of the most brilliant scientists in the study of new technologies for energy, is coming to Portugal to present his recommendations, based on the research he has been conducting at MIT.
Agenda

9h30 Reception

09h40 Opening Session: Rui Cartaxo, CEO, REN

10h00 Presentation of the new regulation and the jury Prize 2013 REN
Jury President: João Peças Lopes, Professor, FEUP

10h30 – Keynote Speaker: Donald R. Sadoway, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Title:“The role of Energy Storage in Innovative Power Systems”

11h15 – Coffee Break

11h30 – Round Table
Donald R. Sadoway, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
João Bento, CEO, EFACEC
João Silva Marques, General Director, Siemens for the Energy Sector
João Claro, National Director, Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program
Moderator: Francisco Ferreira da Silva, Diário Económico

12h30 Closing Session

Building Global Innovators: Roadshow Session
Date: May 14, 2013
Time: 16:00
Place: Auditorium, INESC Porto

Registration: http://mitportugal-iei.org/index.php/en/component/jforms/17/150?view=form

The 4th Edition of the Building Global Innovators (BGI) is on the road, through the organization of interactive sessions to explain how it works, outcomes reached so far and the benefits of participating on the competition. The BGI is an international competition which aims to support innovation & entrepreneurship. It is open to projects from individuals, universities and polytechnics and other institutions, public or private.

At INESC Porto the panel session will focus on “Challenges in Launching New Technology-Based Businesses”.

Agenda
16h00 Opening Remarks
Mário Jorge Leitão (INESC Porto)
16h10 Panel Discussion:
Moderator: Alexandra Xavier, INESC Porto
Speakers:
Carlos Brito, Universidade do Porto
João Claro, Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program
Michael DaCosta Babb, Dueto SGPS
João Afonso, Musikki, Alumni BGI
Gonçalo Amorim, Building Global Innovators
17h00 Networking

The first edition of the Building Global Innovators Venture Competition happened in 2010, and in the last 3 editions received a total of 287 applications and enrolled over 1100 participants from 27 countries, spread across the 4 categories under competition: Health Technologies, Smart Cities, Information Technology and the Web, Consumer Products & Services.

The BGI aims to:
 Identify and reward projects at an seed/early stage with a clear global value proposition
 Enable a 10x to 20x pre-money valuation for competition finalist projects in initial 2 to 3 years of venture phase
 Connect the competition finalists – the global Innovators – to global Investors

3rd Lisbon Machine Learning School Date: July 24-31, 2013
Place: Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa
Website: http://lxmls.it.pt/2013/

Sponsors: Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Instituto de Telecomunicações, INESC ID, Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, Google, Amazon.com, Priberam, Beta-í

LxMLS 2013 will take place July 24-31 at Instituto Superior Técnico, a leading Engineering and Science school in Portugal. It is organized jointly by IST, the Instituto de Telecomunicações and the Spoken Language Systems Lab – L2F of INESC-ID. Click here for information about past editions (LxMLS 2011, LxMLS 2012) and to watch the videos of the lectures (2011, 2012).

In the third edition, the topic of the school is Learning With Big Data.

The school covers a range of machine learning (ML) Topics, from theory to practice, that are important in solving natural language processing (NLP) problems that arise in the analysis and use of Web data.

The target audience is:

• Researchers and graduate students in the fields of NLP and Computational Linguistics;
• Computer scientists who have interests in statistics and machine learning;
• Industry practitioners who desire a more in depth understanding of these subjects.

Features of LxMLS:

• No deep previous knowledge of ML or NLP is assumed;
• Recommended reading is provided in advance;
• Includes a strong practical component;
• A day zero is scheduled to review basic concepts and introduce the necessary tools for implementation exercises;
• Days will be divided into tutorials and practical sessions (view schedule);
• Both basic and advanced topics are covered;
• Instructors are leading researchers in machine learning.

Download the LxMLS 2013 poster here .

Speakers

Lecturers
Luis Pedro Coelho, Institute for Molecular Medicine | Portugal
Mário Figueiredo, Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa | Portugal
Koby Crammer, Technion, Israel Institute of Technogly | Israel
Slav Petrov, Google Inc. | USA
Noah Smith, Carnegie Mellon University | USA
Xavier Carreras, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya | Spain
Chris Dyer, Carnegie Mellon University | USA
Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh | UK
Kevin Knight, University of Southern California | USA
Sebastian Riedel, University College London | UK
Stefan Riezler, University of Heidelberg | Germany

Lab Instructors:
João Graça, FlashGroup | Portugal and Inesc-Id – L2F | Portugal
André Martins, Carnegie Mellon University | USA and Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade Técnica de Lisboa | Portugal
Miguel Almeida, Instituto de Telecomunicações | Portugal
Luis Pedro Coelho, Institute for Molecular Medicine | Portugal