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Editorial
 
It seems that no matter where I go, I always hear the same lament: we are lacking human resources!

You may think I am talking about IT, and I could be, but the problem extends far beyond IT. In fact, IT is just one of many institutions whose capacity is conditioned by a lack of qualified people. If I were to question whether the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) research capacity is currently limited by funding or by human resources, I would have to opt for the latter. You may argue that this is simply the result of a particularly favorable political and economic conjuncture, but if you do, you have to agree that this has gone on for far too long and shows no signs that it will change any time soon. You may also say that there is nothing that funding cannot buy. But, please remember that you need about 15 years to train an EC engineer, and, even if you were willing to wait, you would quickly realize that you cannot make kids and teenagers interested in enrolling in these fields of study. Yes, let's face it: scientists are no longer role models for youngsters. We were replaced by football players and pop stars!

Although the problem may not be evenly felt in all disciplines, it is seriously being felt in ECE, across all technologically developed countries, in both academia and industry.

To fight this situation, politicians need to realize that generating qualified human resources to support our technology businesses is not only a question of preventing their relocation to foreign countries but a long-term investment in the nation’s sovereignty. But, scientists and teachers must also accept that they can do much better in addressing youngsters. We have to admit that our students' interests are different from our own – even from the ones we had when we were their age – and while it is true that they no longer exhibit skills in some traditional fields, they certainly have other skills that society as a whole needs to learn to exploit.

 
 
José Carlos Pedro
(IT Chairman)
Our highlights ...
André Martins was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to study artificial neural networks applied to natural language processing

We couldn't be prouder in announcing that our researcher André Martins was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant to study artificial neural networks applied to natural language processing. André is one of the three researchers that received this grant (ERCCoG 2023) in Portugal.

Keep reading >>
Fernando Pereira was awarded the EURASIP 2023 Meritorious Service Award
 
Fernando Pereira was awarded the 2023 Meritorious Service Award by the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP), "for Leadership and Activities as EURASIP Director for Technical Activities and for Continuous Commitment with EURASIP over the last twenty years".
 
IT, IPMA and IDL are collaborating on developing a new generation of submarine optical fibers to detect earthquakes and tsunamis. It will be the global submarine cable network called SMART - Science Monitoring and Reliable Telecommunication. 
 
Instituto de Telecomunicações integrates the CONNECT5 Consortium
 
IT is now officially a member of the Consortium CONNECT 5 - National Digital Innovation Network (DIH). CONNECT5 aims to become a national and European reference DIH, by providing advanced services in the areas of integrated connectivity systems and CPS.


 
City Catalyst project broadcasted on Exame Informática
 
City Catalyst for Sustainable Cities is a project led by Susana Sargento and Pedro Rito, both from IT and the University of Aveiro, and Filipe Cabral Pinto from IT and Altice Labs. Nowadays, cities are facing several distinct challenges due to the complex co-existence of citizens, elements from different segments, and transversal axes to urban areas.
 
HOW COOL IS YOUR SCIENCE?
New IT Science talks series 2023 

The New IT science talks series 2023 "How cool is your science?" brings to the public a very short audio (Mixcloud) pitch about ongoing IT projects. In this first episode, we interviewed André Martins.
More to come.
Stay tuned!

Ep. 1 - How cool is your science André Martins? 

André Martins, recently awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant, explains in the 1st episode of "How cool is your science?" what is about DECOLLAGE (DEep COgnition Learning for LAnguage GEneration), the sponsored project.

Listen here >>
WHAT'S NEXT?
For Quantum Information and Technologies

by Paulo André

The endeavor for the field of quantum information and technologies is to harness the unique properties of quantum mechanics to create new technology and devices, which can perform tasks that are not possible with classical systems. This includes the development of quantum computers, quantum sensors, quantum communication systems and the understanding of the fundamental principles of information processing with quantum systems...

Keep reading >>
#PhDshostedbyIT
 
André Guarda
Deep Learning-Based Point Cloud Geometry Coding

Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, by Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), November 2021, supervised by Fernando Pereira (IT – IST) and Nuno Rodrigues (IT – Politécnico de Leiria).

His Ph.D. thesis proposes some of the first deep learning-based approaches for Point Cloud (PC) geometry coding in the literature, with contributions towards increasing compression efficiency for varied PC content, providing scalability, and reducing computational complexity.

Watch the pitch >>
#WhereAreYouNow
 
Ricardo Monteiro

I first joined IT in 2010 through a part-time research initiation grant while I was doing my BSc in Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic of Leiria. During that school year, I learned about the world of video coding and met amazing professors such as Nuno Rodrigues and Sérgio Faria. 

Last year after completing my Ph.D. and almost 10 years associated with IT as a researcher, I joined Nvidia in Würselen, Germany. This job opportunity allowed me to combine two of my passions: video coding and computer hardware. Today after 1 year of living in Germany, I'm a Video Coding Developer Technology Engineer at Nvidia's Professional Visualization Group.

My job is to help Nvidia partners in Media and Entertainment, Telecommunication, and other industries to develop and improve their video coding solutions. During this last year, I had the opportunity to meet and learn from hundreds of other professionals at Nvidia and other world-leading companies even during such challenging times. Additionally, my job at Nvidia also allows me to pursue my own research interests. My current research involves combining the capabilities of hardware video codecs with deep learning to improve video coding performance.

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