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News: In the Media

In the Media: Interview with Ricardo Vilaça (AIDA Project) – “90 Segundos de Ciência”

Ricardo Vilaça, researcher at INESC TEC and Universidade do Minho, was interviewed by 90 Segundos de Ciência about the CMU Portugal Large Scale Collaborative project AIDA. This research project, designed to revolutionize 5G Risk management, is  led by the company Mobileum in collaboration with INESC TEC, Universidade do Minho and the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University.

The project aims at improving a platform used by Mobileum for integral risk management in companies. This platform ensures revenue, corporate conditions and fraud control for companies. Thanks to the newest version of the platform, developed by AIDA, companies will be able to collect and monitor data in an highly flexible way, with real-time guarantees, security and reliability.

Today, the platform is fully deployed in physically collocated servers, either on-premises or in the cloud. With AIDA, data collection, monitoring, and even actuation phases should be prepared to run in diverse hardware architectures outside the platform’s owner’s physical or even administrative control.

More about the project at the AIDA website: https://aida.inesctec.pt/

Click to listen.

Waste production in Lisbon falls sharply during the 1st Covid lockdown due to the abrupt decrease in tourism

A team of researchers from NOVA IMS concluded, in a study carried out under the CMU Portugal Large Scale Project BEE2WasteCrypto, that during the 1st lockdown related to COVID-19, there was a severe drop in the production of waste in Lisbon, for both mixed and recycled waste, essentially due to the fall of tourism.

The restrictions on mobility and economic activities imposed by governments due to COVID-19 and the adoption of remote work affected waste production and recycling patterns and contributed significantly to a change of scenery. Miguel de Castro Neto, Associate Dean at NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS) and Principal investigator of the BEE2WasteCrypto project at NOVA Cidade – Urban Analytics Lab, is one of the co-authors of the Paper Impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on waste production behavior in Lisbon. The recent study focused on waste production in the Lisbon area, considering the approximately 544 thousand inhabitants and 100 km2 of the urban area, between 2017 and the end of 2020.

According to the researcher and the conclusions of the NOVA Cidade – Urban Analytics Lab team, which he leads, “the study showed that COVID-19 led to a decline in the volume of waste collected and that the main cause was the decrease in tourism. On the other hand, we also noticed that in Lisbon the changes were directly related to the type of waste and the spatial distribution of its production within the city. Residential areas with the highest population density were those with a smaller decrease in waste production, while areas with high tourism rates had a greater decline.”

The first state of emergency and consequent lockdown in Portugal declared on March 19, 2020 lasted until May 2, 2020. During that period, the city of Lisbon suspended door-to-door recycling collection until June 1, 2020, and the mixed waste collection was reduced to a maximum of three times per week, which affected 37% of the waste collection circuits, which had a frequency of collection up to 7 times per week.

The restrictions imposed in the context of COVID-19 had an impact not only on the volume of waste produced, but also on its distribution, which brought new challenges for policy-makers and those responsible for urban planning on where to invest efforts while complying with the health recommendations of the Portuguese Directorate-General for Health (DGS). 

According to Miguel Neto “the insights obtained under this study on production and distribution waste can help city officials to develop more targeted and adequate policies for each area, depending on their contextual characteristics in pandemic scenarios or other scenarios that substantially change city dynamics. The goal is to develop tools to analyze data support urban management and planning and integrate into cities’ urban intelligence platforms.”

In the period studied after the end of the confinement, the conclusion is that the production levels of recycled waste increased, but did not return to pre-pandemic levels.

This study was carried out under the BEE2WasteCrypto project developed within the scope of the CMU Portugal Program, in a collaboration between the company Future Compta (project promoter), NOVA Information Management School (NOVA IMS), Instituto Superior Técnico, the company 3drivers and Carnegie Mellon University. The main goal of the project is to develop a differentiating and intuitive IT tool which, based on high resolution data on waste production, allows Regional Waste Management Utilities (RWMUs) to design and manage optimal decentralized solutions for each region, as well as promoting more sustainable waste production and separation behaviors. Using blockchain technology and a cryptocurrency wallet, it will be possible to implement PAYT-type incentive mechanisms to encourage good citizen practices, on which the success of any waste management strategy depends.

Link to the paper on ‘Waste Managent Journal’

News in the Media: Visão; Observador; Diário de Notícias; Sapo.pt; CM Jornal; Saúde Mais 

In the Media: Interview with Ana Paiva – “90 Segundos de Ciência”

Ana Paiva, Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico and GAIPS Group Coordinator from INESC ID, is currently leading the CMU Portugal Exploratory Research Project (ERP) “AGENTS – Automatic generation of humor for social robots”,  which started under CMU Portugal 2019 ERP Call. The researcher was interviewed by 90 Segundos de Ciência about her research that is working to give robots the ability to generate humor and improve their interaction with humans.

The project proposes to bring a human touch to robotic systems, giving them the social capacity to express humor.

“But why humor? Because of the physical,  psychological and mental benefits that humor brings. We believe that giving a robot the ability to detect and express humor has a positive effect on interaction with people, and therefore we want to explore this possibility”, explains Ana Paiva to 90 Segundos de Ciência.

However, humor which is a phenomenon so natural in everyday human interactions, is difficult to capture by robots and is a real challenge for engineering.

The AGENTS project plans develop algorithms, that will enable robots to detect and generate responses and interactions based on humor. Once this ability is created in the robot, a scenario is planned for the robot to interact with people through the use of a simple game. During the game, Ana Paiva’s team will analyse the effect that the robot has on the human through physiological signals, their own answers and through the way people interact with the robot.

The project is supported through the CMU Portugal Program and combines competences of research teams from INESC-ID in the area of ​​Artificial Intelligence and Social Robotics, from ISCTE-IUL and from the Language Technologies Institute (LTI) at CMU.

In the Media: Interview with José M.F. Moura in Expresso

“Não estou rico”. A história incrível de José Fonseca de Moura e de uma indemnização recordista por violação de patentes.

In the Media: Interview in Expresso with CMU Portugal Director at Carnegie Mellon University José M.F. Moura with an overview of his career and main achievements including the record settlement of $750 Million with Marvell on the infringement of two of his patents.

 

Técnica desenvolvida em Coimbra permite produzir circuitos elásticos e têxteis eletrónicos em larga escala e a baixo custo

Uma equipa de investigadores da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra (FCTUC) desenvolveu uma nova técnica de produção de circuitos elásticos, o que permite imprimir adesivos eletrónicos para monitorizar a saúde de doentes, criar pele artificial ou desenvolver dispositivos vestíveis que registam a performance de atletas, em larga escala e a baixo custo.

In the Media: SAFEFOREST project highlighted in Expresso

The CMU Portugal large Scale Collaborative project SAFEFOREST, led by Ingeniarius in collaboration with Silvapor, ISR Coimbra , Associação para o Desenvolvimento da Aerodinâmica Industrial (ADAI) and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University was highlighted in Expresso, one of the leading Portuguese newspapers. 

The article “Conheça o Ranger, o robô que uma equipa de portugueses quer pôr a limpar matas sem intervenção humana” (“Meet Ranger, the robot that intends to clear forests without human intervention”) introduced the robot Ranger developed by Ingeniarius  that is developing under the SafeForest project  an advanced robotic system for the prevention of wildland and wildland-urban interface (WWUI) fires. 

One of the main goals of this research project is to drastically reduce the costs associated with the maintenance of forests with the help of advanced monitoring and robotic system to improve the maintenance of forests and contribute to reducing the wildfire hazard potential.

According to Micael Couceiro, Ingeniarius CEO “there are many projects for the development of robots to put out fires, but there are very few with the objective of developing robots to prevent these fires”. The goal is to have “by the end of 2021, the first prototype ready. And by the end of 2023 we should have the first prototypes of drones completed”.

In the Media: Bee2WasteCrypto highlighted in Visão Podcast “Conversas Verdes” with an interview with Future Compta CEO

The CMU Portugal large Scale Collaborative project Bee2WasteCrypto, led by Future Compta with NOVA IMS, Instituto Superior Técnico and the company 3drivers was highlighted in the “Conversas Verdes” podcast promoted by Revista Visão.

The Bee2WasteCrypto project main goal is to use data science to deliver the best combination of technologies that maximizes value and contributes to a sustainable waste management strategy at a local level with a global scope.

In this interview, the project promoter and Future Compta CEO Paulo Fernandes explains how the project intends to use blockchain technology to reward citizens who sort their waste by using cryptocurrency.

Feedzai, the 1st startup launched under the CMU Portugal scope, became the 2nd Unicorn Company born under the partnership

Feedzai is the 4th Portuguese company to obtain the title of Unicorn after raising a $200 million growth investment by KKR, a leading global investment firm and joins Mambu becoming the 2nd Unicorn Company launched under the CMU Portugal Program. Feedzai, is now valued at well above $1 billion which confirms, according to the company, the support and confidence of Sapphire Ventures and Citi Ventures, who in 2017 invested $50 million in the biggest investment ever registered by a startup until the date.

This announcement is even more rewarding to the CMU Portugal Program considering the strong involvement of the company within the partnership:

  • First start-up to be created under the scope of the CMU Portugal Program, by Paulo Marques and Pedro Bizarro, faculty members of the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra (FCTUC) and Nuno Sebastião, Engineer at ESA at the time.
  • Large Scale Collaborative Project Promoter, leading the CMU Portugal project CAMELOT, launched in 2020 in a collaboration between groups at Carnegie Mellon University, Instituto Superior Técnico, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra. The project aims to improve the use of ML in terms of cloud resources, anonymized data, efficient data pipeline processing, and development of fair and explainable models.
  • Industrial Affiliated Partner, being committed to actively contribute to the Partnership’s advanced education and research programs, investing in R&D and building a highly skilled workforce dedicated to innovation activities.
  • Visiting Faculty at CMU, Paulo Marques and Pedro Bizarro were both CMU Portugal Visiting Faculty at CMU. Paulo was, in fact, the 1st visiting faculty involved with the CMU Portugal Program to spend one semester at CMU doing research. His experience led to the launch of the Visiting Faculty initiative that has been running since 2007. Paulo has been highly involved with the Program since day one, being the first faculty member from Coimbra to be certified as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon. He was also the first Director of the Master’s in Software Engineering from the Portugal side. Paulo continued his affiliation with the Program throughout the years and is now one of CMU Portugal’s Scientific Directors.

Feedzai is the market leader in fighting financial crime, providing today’s most advanced cloud-based risk management platform using advanced machine learning techniques. This investment comes a week after the company’s recent announcement of the award-winning ethical AI innovation Feedzai Fairband, the world’s most advanced AI fairness framework that allows financial institutions worldwide to make better and fairer decisions while protecting them from financial crime.

Now, with this new round of investment Nuno Sebastião, Co-Founder, Chairman and Feedzai CEO, states on the company’s announcement “we’re ecstatic at the “future-proof” capabilities this new investment will bring our team, products, and cloud platform” adding that “this investment assures the cutting-edge technology we’re known for, along with our expertise in fraud prevention and anti-money laundering, will continue and expand and develop well into the future.”

The success of the company born within the CMU Portugal Program framework and supported by FCT, is a clear acknowledgment of the Program’s outcomes and a proof of the impact that the partnership has in supporting strong and innovative ICT initiatives.

In addition to Feedzai, the Program has three other Portuguese Unicorn companies on its list of Industrial Affiliated Partners, namely Outsystems, Farfetch and Talkdesk. Mambu, a startup also founded under the Program’s scope, was also recently recognized as one of Germany’s Unicorn Companies, where it is based.

The CMU Portugal Program is proud to be part of such an innovation ecosystem, partnering with some of the best companies in the data-driven economy which allow us to keep at the forefront of research and technological development in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Feedzai announcement:
https://feedzai.com/blog/feedzai-raises-200-million-growth-investment-to-boost-cloud-platform/

FCT News article