Limelight

THE LIMELIGHT SERIES

From 2019, each month BIP will start interviewing all the collaborators that were nominated for “Limelight”, thus highlighting the merit of all that are selected by the Coordination of the Centres or Service Managers for being in the “Limelight” in the previous month. Congratulations to the nominees!

SPEAKING WITH ANDRÉ COELHO, JOSÉ PINTO, PEDRO FERREIRA, VASCO CORREIA and INÊS CARVALHO (CTM)

1 – How did this team emerged?

First of all, we would like to make some guidelines regarding Open Day CTM. It is an annual event, promoted by INESC TEC’s Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM), which aims at informing external people about its research activities. Traditionally, the target audience of Open Day CTM are the companies with whom CTM collaborates. However, in 2017, the target audience were the students of the University of Porto, namely those from the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) and the Faculty of Sciences (FCUP), and students from the Polytechnic of Porto, namely the School of Engineering of Porto (ISEP). The goal was to motivate them for future collaborations with CTM, namely for the completion of their Master’s or PhD theses.

For the Open Day CTM 2019, the coordination of CTM decided that, similarly to what occurred in 2017, the event would also be dedicated to students. In this regard, an organising committee was designated, composed of collaborators of CTM. Firstly, Inês Carvalho was invited to lead the organising committee of the event, and at that time it was decided that the same committee would be composed of four other collaborators, one of each of the areas of CTM. It was up to the people responsible to each area the nomination of the element that would then be responsible for representing that same field. This way, the organising committee had the presence of André Coelho of the Wireless Networks, José Pedro Pinto representing the Multimedia and Communication Technologies, Pedro Ferreira from the Information Processing and Pattern Recognition area and Vasco Correia from the Optical and Electronic Technologies.

2 – Your nomination is related to the organisation of the Open Day of CTM. How was the preparation of this event as a team?

It was a very rewarding work, which continued for approximately five months. The first task was to determine the format of the event. By taking advantage of the 2017 edition, we tried to organise activities that could show what is done by CTM and that could simultaneously be appealing for the students. This way, we thought about creating an event that would run for several days and that would be composed of several different workshops, in which each one would be dedicated to one of the areas of CTM and also about a competition related to the themes of those workshops. In order to ease the participation in this competition, it was decided that it would be composed of four independent subchallenges directly related to the theme of each workshop. We also decided that it would be open to students from any school year, and that it should happen as sooner as possible within the second semester, in order to avoid periods with an overload of work for the students.

Even though every element of the committee was responsible for the organisation of the workshop in the area that he represented, we all worked very closely and we usually got in synch with face-to-face meetings. Together as a team, we established the schedules of the activities of the event, serialisation criteria of the participants, rules, prizes to be awarded to winners of the subchallenges, registration forms and the logistic details associated to an event of this magnitude, including room reservations, coffee-breaks and the guarantee that every participant and people responsible for each workshop would have the necessary conditions at their disposal. In parallel, we constantly worked in conjunction with INESC TEC’s Communication Service (SCOM), in order to establish the format of disclosure and promotion of the event, including the public website, dissemination messages, roll-ups, posters and social networks. For the success of these tasks, the experience, the competence and the availability of SCOM was essential.  

Since each of us works at different areas of CTM, our research activities aren’t done in direct collaboration. This way, this experience was also an opportunity for us to get a closer look on the work developed by each of us, framed within the respective area of CTM. The committee being so multidisciplinary was without a doubt essential for the success of the Open Day CTM 2019.

3 – We will end this interview by asking you to comment on your nomination by the CTM Coordination:

“The CTM Coordination nominates the organising committee of the Open Day CTM 2019, composed of the collaborators André Coelho, José Pinto, Pedro Ferreira, Vasco Correia and led by the Professor Inês Carvalho for Limelight. This edition was oriented towards students, inviting them to participate in several workshops in CTM’s themes of action, including wireless communication networks, electronics, and information and multimedia processing. In the last day, students had the opportunity to participate in a number of challenges, adding the practical experience to the knowledge acquired in the workshops. The excellence of the organisation contributed to strengthen the positive image of INESC TEC among the students, motivating them for future collaborations.”

It is a privilege to receive this distinction. We thank the coordination of CTM for believing in us and that we would be up to the challenge. The experience could not have been more rewarding and will stay with us our entire lives. As a team, we learned how to take advantage of the best in each of us in order to achieve our goals, always having a great sense of compromise and mutual help.

In terms of balance, we can say that the goals for the Open Day CTM 2019 were accomplished. On overall figures, we had the participation of about 60 students, while 55 of them had their first experience with an event of INESC TEC. The adherence to the activities was reasonable, especially if we consider that the academic semester was already in a stage where students had to deliver academic works and evaluations.

The opinions of the participants, expressed through anonymised surveys, couldn’t have been more encouraging, praising the relevance of the contents that were addressed, the dedication and the ability to transfer knowledge on the part of the people responsible for each workshop, besides the good organisation of the event in general. Many participants also expressed their wishes that the event was extended for a longer period of time, in order for them to have the opportunity to learn more contents.

Finally, we would like to thank everyone that contributed to the success of the Open Day CTM 2019. First of all, we would like to thank the CTM’s coordination, namely Professor Jaime Cardoso, Renata Rodrigues, and Sandra Pinto from INESC TEC’s Communication Service. We would also like to thank the Faculties and the Polytechnics that are INESC TEC’s privileged partners, especially FEUP for enabling us with one of their rooms and for the permission to use their grass field for one of the subchallenges. We would like to wrap it up with a special thank you to the people that composed the teams responsible for the workshops, namely: André Oliveira, Baltasar Aroso, Eduardo Almeida, Eduardo Castro, Luís Vilaça, Francisco Gonçalves, Hélder Fontes, João Pinto, Matthew Davies, Paulo Silva, Ricardo Araújo and Vítor Lamela.