Busy summer for the UT Austin|Portugal Program

Since 2007, the IC² Institute has been the hub of an ambitious long-term partnership with the country of Portugal aimed at building its capacity for research, education, and technology commercialization.

The UT Austin|Portugal CoLab supports joint research projects and collaborative graduate programs between UT Austin and Portuguese institutions in the fields of Advanced Computing, Digital Media, Mathematics, and Emerging Technologies. Its technology commercialization program, UTEN Portugal, supports early- and mid-stage Portuguese companies which wish to reach international markets and US sources of capital.

Since the program’s renewal in 2013, activity has been in high gear. Here is a rundown of some of the events taking place this summer.

On June 1, the call will open for the UTEN Global Startup Program. Up to ten Portuguese companies will be selected to receive customized incubation, acceleration, and business development services through the IC² Institute and the Austin Technology Incubator.

Also running through June is the UT Austin|Portugal R&D call. The call, issued by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, supports joint research projects between Portuguese institutions and UT Austin in amounts of up to €200,000.

Digital Media Summer Institute

In May through July, the Digital Media Summer Institute will bring UT Austin faculty to Lisbon and Porto to teach free, graduate-level short courses on four high-demand topics: Usability and User-Centered Design; Teaching and Learning with the Internet; Game Design and Development; and Research Methods.

This week, legendary game designer and developer Warren Spector will visit Lisbon to meet with students and give two talks on video game development. Spector has partnered with UT Austin to develop a unique program in the management of video game development, the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy.

Warren Spector

Also this week, Prof. Brian Korgel of the UT Austin Department of Chemical Engineering will be in Lisbon to speak on the UT Austin|Portugal Program’s new initiative in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Later this month, the Mathematics Program Annual Conference will meet in Lisbon on the topic of Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations.

In June, the Digital Media Entrepreneurial Boot Camp will offer an intensive crash course in essential startup skills for students and professionals in the digital media field.

Later in June, the CoLab Advanced Computing program will hold an International Summer School on Parallel High Performance Computing Using Accelerators.

Whew! To keep up with activities in the UT Austin|Portugal Program, please visit the CoLab website or subscribe to the CoLab Square newsletter.

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Skills

Posted on

May 13, 2014