Altice Labs joins the University of Aveiro in the ECIU Universities initiative

The kick-off session of ECIU Universities 2020 took place on the 16^th of March, sponsored by the University of Aveiro (UA) and focused on the challenge “Tech and the City” created by Filipe Cabral Pinto and Fausto de Carvalho, from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department of Altice Labs. The aim of this challenge is to get ideas for innovative and disruptive solutions that enhance the connection of inhabitants and tourists to the city of Aveiro through the use of technology, having received 25 applications from national and international students.

The ECIU University is one of the first European Universities recognized and funded by the European Union. Its purpose is to create a new educational model at an European level, bringing together students, teachers and researchers who will cooperate with cities and companies to solve real challenges of everyday life in the cities.

The UA is part of this initiative, along with other 11 innovative universities in Europe and, for this year’s edition, Altice Labs was invited to create a challenge and think of a set of micro-modules that could make sense to boost throughout this edition, providing the 14 selected and enrolled students with relevant knowledge to design, throughout the 13 weeks of this program, the solution to the proposed problem.

In this first session, led by Professor António Neves, from the University of Aveiro, who made the presentation of the program, Pedro Carvalho, from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department of Altice Labs, made the institutional presentation of the company, while Ana Patrícia Monteiro and Fausto de Carvalho, both also from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department of Altice Labs, ensured the explanation of the challenge and the dynamics associated to it.

Thus, in addition to the continuous mentoring that the aforementioned team will do throughout the program, with weekly checkpoints, Altice Labs will also participate in the dynamization of 3 micro-modules whose themes are: Data Science for Smart Cities (to be promoted by Filipe Cabral Pinto), 5G networks (to be promoted by Francisco Fontes from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department of Altice Labs) and, finally, Data Ethics and GDPR (to be promoted by Paula Cravo, from the Technology and Innovation Strategy department of Altice Labs, together with Fernando Batista, DPO of UA). The remaining micro-modules of this program will be streamlined by UA and will focus on business models and IoT.