ALTEC conference takes place for the first time in Portugal together with 2013 UTEN Conference
The 15th edition of the Conference on Latin Ibero-American Management of Technology - ALTEC 2013 took place at the Alfândega in Porto. This event occured simultaneously with the 2013 UTEN Annual Conference (University Technology Enterprise Network - Portugal). This was the first time that this event took place in Portugal, and was jointly organised by INESC TEC (Associate Laboratory coordinated by INESC Porto) and the Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research, IN+, IST Lisbon, in partnership with the Centre for Science and Technology Policy, University of São Paulo. Manuel Heitor (IN+, IST) and José Manuel Mendonça (UTEN Portugal, INESC TEC, FEUP) were respectively Chair and Co-Chair of the ALTEC conference.
Over the four days of the conference, about 800 experts from Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, and also from Portuguese speaking countries in Africa, as is the case of Angola, discussed “the role of science and technology policies and management when developing the socio-economic resilience, competitiveness and systematic progress of our societies”, particularly in the Latin Ibero-american countries, explains Manuel Heitor.
“We wanted to encourage new forms of international cooperation in science and technology that focus on social and economic development in the Latin Ibero-american region, but also in Africa”, he added.
S&T policies and industrial development targeting especially the oil and gas sector in the South Atlantic and in Africa were addressed in the workshop "SOUTH Oil&Gas 2030" (29 October), which was attended by representatives of the ANP – Agência Nacional de Petróleo of Brazil, the ONIP - Organização Nacional da Indústria do Petróleo (Brazil), GALP Energia and Partex Oil&Gas. New challenges and opportunities associated with industrial initiatives and scientific and technological development in the aerospace industry were discussed, with a particular emphasis on the areas and markets where Embraer plays an active role in the context of cooperation between organisations in Latin America and Europe.
The Conference also included several specialised workshops to discuss challenges and opportunities for the development of innovative urban projects, with an emphasis on the Latin Ibero-american context.
Several internationally recognised academics and technicians participated in this event, including the Director of UNESCO's Science Policy, Lídia Brito, the Vice President of BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento do Brasil), João Carlos Ferraz, the Director of the CNPq Brazil for the area of engineering, Guilherme Melo, the Director of R&D at the ANP in Brazil, Elias de Souza, and the Director of Regional Policy and Action Programmes for Innovation in the European Union, Mikel Landabaso, among others.
The 2013 ALTEC conference was organised simultaneously with the 2013 UTEN Annual Conference (University Technology Enterprise Network – Portugal) where participants discussed new forms of technology commercialisation and internationalisation of technology-based business projects in global markets. As part of the 2013 UTEN Conference, professor Aurora Teixeira “presented a survey on the activity of Portuguese academic technology transfer offices and spin-offs established in 2013”, explains José Manuel Mendonça, Scientific Director of UTEN Portugal.
The UTEN annual conference included a session for new technology-based companies to be accompanied by the UT Austin-Portugal program, which took place on 29 October at the Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia da Universidade do Porto (UPTEC). Other than UTEN and UT Austin-Portugal, other international partnerships of the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology), as is the case of the MIT Portugal and CMU Portugal, were also involved in activities at the conference.
The 2013 ALTEC was also the venue chosen to launch two books: “Sustainable Urban Metabolism” by Paulo Ferrão and John E. Fernandez (29 October), and “Ante la crisis: estratégias empresariales de innovación en México y España”, by Leonel Corona (October 30). A new forum titled “Great thinkers and thoughts: science, technology and development” was also launched. In this this first meeting, the Portuguese translation of the most important work by Michael Polanyi (“Personal Knowledge”) was presented, as well as a selection of essays (“Science and Technology”) by Michael Polanyi covering over thirty years of his contributions on science and technology from 1936 to 1972. Both works were translated and arranged by Eduardo Beira.
In the last day of the conference, foreign participants had the opportunity to visit INESC TEC and its Laboratories of Microgrids and Electric Vehicles, Industrial and Underwater Robotics and Optoelectronics. At CEIIA, which also hosted the workshop “The Future of Cities, the Cities of the Future”, participants got to know the Smart Connected Cities Center. Finally, UPTEC (University of Porto) presented its technology business incubation activity in the areas of Technology, Creative Industries and Sea. It is important to highlight that a very high percentage of Latin Ibero-americans registered to visit these R&D centres in the north of Portugal.
The considerable involvement of INESC TEC researchers in this event should also be stressed as these played an active role as co-chairs in various sessions, presented papers and participated in workshops or parallel sessions.
About ALTEC:
The Latin Ibero-american Technology Management Association – ALTEC, founded in October 1984, is a civil private law, non-profit organisation, with international operations, which was created with the purpose of uniting people and companies active in technology management. The goal was to promote cooperation activities in this area, incorporating a significant group of professionals interested in innovation and technology policies and management. Previous editions of the Conference on Latin Ibero-American Management of Technology were held in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Spain and Peru.
