The University of Aveiro (UA) and Altice Labs formalise today the creation of AlticeLabs@UA, a research laboratory in the field of emerging Web services, IPTV technology, digital contents, applications usability and user experience, collaborative or social experience systems and IoT (Internet of Things) applications.
The laboratory is situated in the Department of Communication and Art (DecA) of the UA and will support projects promoted by professors, researchers and also academic projects framed within the postgraduate students’ curricular activities at the University of Aveiro, namely master students in Multimedia Communication and graduate students of the Licenciatura in New Communication Technologies.
This way AlticeLabs@UA strengthens the already existent partnership between the UA and the innovation centre of the Altice Group in the field of research and experimentation in emerging communication technologies and respective applications. This partnership is expected to result in disruptive innovation in areas of extreme relevance such as Interactive Television and Digital Media, User Experience and new ways of User Interaction.
AlticeLabs@UA continues the concept of SAPO Labs UA, a partnership between Portugal Telecom and the University of Aveiro since 2008.
The scientific and operational coordination of AlticeLabs@UA will be shared between the two entities promoting the laboratory and the responsible team includes professors Fernando Ramos and Jorge Abreu, from DeCA, and engineers Pedro Carvalho and Bernardo Cardoso on behalf of Altice Labs.
At the ceremony of the partnership agreement, the rector of University of Aveiro, Manuel Assunção, highlighted the “old and familiar relationship” that started with the Centre for Telecommunications Studies (CET), then with Portugal Telecom and now with Altice, which continues with the new laboratory “to find new pathways for the future”. “It’s one more joint initiative to contribute to the responsive capacity to the society’s major challenges in the information and communication technologies”, remembering other steps from the past like the handing over of SAPO, born at the University of Aveiro, and the existing partnership with the Telecommunications Institute.
Fernando Ramos, one of the responsibles for the scientific coordination by the University, thanked “the exemplary manner in which Altice Labs got involved in the negotiations” and believes that Alticelabs@UA “will allow to move towards new standards of sofistication in the research”.
Alcino Lavrador, general manager of Altice Labs, shared the same expectation and hopes new projects are born to feed the academic machine, bringing, from the industry side, what society is looking for.
“Signing this protocol with the University reassures Altice’s commitment with the scientific knowledge”, emphasizing that the new laboratory “is the first of several instruments of expanded cooperation” from the company with the academic world.