inRes 2015 CMU Portugal Program National Director João Claro – Interview at Económico TV
Interview with CMU Portugal Program National Director João Claro on the New Businesses (Novos Negócios) segment of Económico TV. João Claro announces the inRes 2015 program call and talks about the experience of the previous edition of the early stage acceleration program for Portuguese entrepreneurial teams.
Watch the video with the interview in Portuguese at Económico TV (March 24, 2015)
Mariano Gago: The Portuguese Science Minister with the Longest Tenure
 |
 |
Prof. José Mariano Gago, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education between 1995 and 2002, and between 2005 and 2011, died on April 17th, in Lisbon. |
Prof. Mariano Gago graduated in Electrical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), in Lisbon, in 1971 and received a Ph.D. in Physics from the École Polytechnique – Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, in 1976. After a research appointment at CERN, in Geneva, between 1976 and 1978, he became a Professor at IST, and founded and chaired the Portuguese Laboratory for Particle Physics (LIP).
It was under the leadership of Prof. Mariano Gago that the international partnerships with U.S. universities were launched, aiming at contributing to the internationalization of Portuguese universities and research organizations, increasing cooperation between Portuguese institutions, increasing access to high-tech R&D equipment, and promoting cultural change in the Portuguese R&D sector.
Read the full articles at Jornal de Notícias Online, Açores 9 Online, ACEPI Online, Diário Digital Online, Porto Canal Online, RTP Online, SOL Online, Sapo Online (April 17, 2015)
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT): “Critical to future economic growth”
More than 200 members of the academic and business communities attended the first annual conference of the Carnegie Mellon|Portugal Partnership “Economy 3.0: Re-boot and Re-connect.”
The First Annual Carnegie Mellon|Portugal Partnership Conference, sponsored by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and held at the Palácio da Bolsa in Porto on June 22nd, enjoyed the presence of the Prime Minister of Portugal, the Minister of Science Technology and Higher Education, the State Secretary for Science, Technology and Higher Education, and the President of FCT. The Carnegie Mellon|Portugal Partnership Conference’s welcome address was given by José Marques dos Santos, Rector of the University of Porto, who announced that the change of management of universities will promote their autonomy. The University of Porto was among the first to attain the status of Foundation in Portugal.
João Barros, National Director of ICTI@Portugal, emphasized the importance of a wide scientific debate about the role of ICT in shaping a new economic model following the current financial crisis. To this end, the leadership of the Partnership prepared a provisional strategic plan that is currently under discussion among scientists and industry professionals in Portugal and at Carnegie Mellon. This document shall be the basis for a new call for research project proposals that will open in the coming weeks. In the strategic plan, ICT focus areas are proposed in which Portugal can develop comparative advantages. These areas include: Next Generation Networks for High-Quality Trusted Services; Software Engineering for Large Scale Dependable Systems; Cyber-Physical Systems for Ambient Intelligence and Human-Centric Community; and Applied Mathematics. Public Policy and Entrepreneurship in High-Growth Areas appear as important complementary fields. Professor Barros noted that “Portugal already has, in these areas, research groups with international impact and dynamic companies with the capacity to transform the results of basic research in high-tech products with added value.” Examples include Portugal Telecom, Nokia Siemens Networks, Novabase, as well as BioDevices, Critical Software, Ndrive or OutSystems. At the end of the speech, João Barros affirmed that it is important to create space for a new generation of leaders, both in academia and in business, and ended by stating that: “This is the time for us to make a difference.” The keynote speaker at the Conference was Marvin Sirbu, Professor of Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
Professor Sirbu’s speech was a response to the question, “How can ICT help?’ His answer touched upon major problems of our times such as global warming, energy efficiency and self reliance, environmental preservation, infrastructure lifetime, aging population and global competition, showing the many areas that ICT impacts.
__________________
“The Carnegie Mellon|Portugal partnership aims to create new models for interdisciplinary and international collaboration, new academic centers of excellence, and also new models for academy / industry collaboration.” Marvin Sirbu
_________________
For Marvin Sirbu to go from invention to innovation is a very important step because “it is not enough to do good science & engineering.” The key is that “ideas must be translated into products and services.” For this to occur, “we need a better understanding of the ecology of innovation.”
Mariano Gago, Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, said that science in Portugal is characterized by a “culture of seriousness.” This is the area in which young professionals are most internationalized” because “their worth comes from the recognition of the best, and that must happen on the world stage.” The opening session of Annual Conference ended with José Sócrates, Prime-Minister of Portugal, who emphasized the importance of this partnership for the development of the country. He said that science “was the only sector that always had an increase in public investment.”
The investment in science, which was 1.2 percent of GDP, was the only item of the state budget that always had a positive and significant progress in terms of national public investment.” In his view, the international partnerships gives the universities the opportunity to compete in the global arena of knowledge.
The aim is to increase the number of scientists working in Portugal to “six researchers for every 1,000,” thus matching the European average. On the other hand, it was shown that between 2005 and 2007 the number of companies engaged in research and development has doubled. The Portuguese Prime-Minister still had time to give one more relevant figure: “Portugal is one of the European countries that have the largest number of women in research – about 44 percent of scientists are women.”
inRes 2015 CMU Portugal Program National Director João Claro at RTP
João Claro, the National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, is the guest of the Manhã Informativa news segment at RTP, to do the press review of the Portuguese daily newspapers. João Claro starts by commenting on the state of public health system in Portugal, apropos of the World Health Day. The National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program then points out the outcomes of the Embraer’s investment in the country. Lastly, João Claro talks about the current entrepreneurship initiatives in the countries and announces the opening of the inRes 2015 call for applications.
Watch the full news segment here (April 04, 2015)
Sentilant: Portuguese App Helps Users to Drive Better and Save Fuel
Promoting a safer and a more economical driving style is the goal of Drivian, the first product of Sentilant, a spin-off from the University of Coimbra (UC) incubated at the Instituto Pedro Nunes. The mobile application is free and allows the driver to receive sound alerts in real time to correct their performance.
Sentilant is a spinoff from the Universidade de Coimbra, created in the scope of the CMU Portugal Program, was co-founded in May 2013 by Bruno Cabral and Jorge Granjal, faculty members of the Universidade de Coimbra. The company is currently headquartered at Instituto Pedro Nunes, in Coimbra.
Read the full article at Jornal de Notícias (April 13, 2015)
Dual Degree Master Programs
ICTI offers, supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), some of the top professional masters programs in information and communication technologies. Upon program completion, students receive a degree from Carnegie Mellon and the partner university in Portugal. With dual-international graduate credentials, graduates are in an excellent position to build their careers.
Although program instruction is based both in Portugal and at Carnegie Mellon, all instruction is in English – it is not mandatory for students to speak Portuguese.
Scholarships and fellowships are available on a competitive basis for many of the programs. Find out more information in the Admission and application process (pdf file).
Below is a list of the programs available through the Carnegie Mellon|Portugal partnership. Each link will guide you to an overview of its respective program, which will contain a link to the program’s home page. Prospective students apply directly to the program they are interested in. For additional questions, please view our FAQ page or email us at icti-info@andrew.cmu.edu.
____
Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives 2013 more
Research Opportunities more
Success Stories more
Económico TV features Followprice and Patient Innovation
The Big Business (Grandes Negócios) segment of Económico TV features Followprice and Patient Innovation as some of the recently established ventures in Portugal. With excerpts of past interviews and presentations from Vasco Moreira for Followprice and Pedro Oliveira for Patient Innovation.
Watch the video with the interview in Portuguese at Económico TV (at 31:30) (March 12, 2015)
Veniam’Works Set to Expand Citywide WiFi Networks into US Cities
The Portuguese startup Venian’Works is looking to expand its vehicle connecting network to US cities, after receiving the Series A venture capital fund. Venian already established a grid of over 600 buses and taxis in Porto. The technology allows buses to be connected to a wireless network shared by all vehicles and to Porto Digital’s optical fibre network.
Veniam’Works is a spin-off company of the Instituto de Telecomunicações and the Universities of Aveiro and Porto, created by João Barros, former Director of the CMU-Portugal programme and Susana Sargento, faculty of the University of Aveiro.
Read the full article at FCT’s website (March 17, 2015), Tech Times (March 18, 2015) and I Like This Portugal (March 01, 2015)
Startups linked to CMU Portugal Program at CeBIT 2015
Streambolico (http://streambolico.com/) and Xhockware (http://www.xhockware.com/), two startups related to the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, were at the world’s largest and most international computer expo – CeBIT (http://www.cebit.de/home). Both startups were at the Portugal Ventures Pavilion.
| Streambolico introduced FaaS™ at the expo, a high speed file transfer solution for mobile devices enabling 4x faster mobile file transfers. In addition to FaaS™, they presented CrowdWiFi™ Streaming, an appliance for high density video streaming that allows video streaming over WiFi to hundreds of simultaneous users per WiFi hotspot.Streambolico has been linked to the CMU Portugal Program because of its co-founder, João Barros, who is a former director of the Program. Xhockware was at the CeBIT mainly to present the product YouBeep (http://www.youbeep.com/), a new mobile shopping and checkout solution that aims to end the waiting lines at checkout and enhance the shopping experience. This startup benefited from the inRes Program – 2014 Edition (https://cmuportugal.org/tiercontent.aspx?id=5127), a very early stage acceleration program for entrepreneurial teams working in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in Portugal, offered by the CMU Portugal Program. |
CeBIT is considered a barometer of the state of the art in information technology. This year, the expo happened between 16 th and 20 th march and, according to the expo’s website, it had more than 350 startups bringing new creative impulses to CeBIT (http://www.cebit.de/en/news-trends/after-show-report/our-performance-in-figures/).
