News

On the 25th of November, Nuno Sebastião, representing the company Feedzai (http://www.feedzai.com/),  was the first speaker featured in the MIT Portugal Program’s Windows on Companies (WoC) sessions.  Addressing MPP faculty and PhD students at the IST campus at Almaeda, he presented the view of a small company which has only two years of activity, but that is growing rapidly, thanks to an innovative approach to business and the high concentration of know-how of his employees, who have both a rich academic background and experience in the IT sector.  Feedzai specializes in high performance processing of large-scale, high-throughput data loads to produce intelligence in real time, and became well known througha project aimedat  heart patients in Portuguese hospitals . They have diversified their target markets to the banking sector, telecommunications, and production (manufacturing?)- but also to the energy sector, which was the main focus of the MPP presentation . Examples associated with electric grid monitoring, real time energy consumption in houses, and wind farm monitoring were shown to give students an overview of the company activities and the significant potential in the Portuguese energy sector.

Around Knowledge’s BIPS Project Wins Venture Competition Grand Finale

• Winning team receives €200,000 in financial support
• Execution of business strategy of the project will enable the team to double award

An indoor shopper positioning system that records shopping patterns in real time –titled BIPS, developed by Around Knowledge-- took the top award in the ISCTE-IUL MIT Portugal Venture Competition on October 27, 2010.  The winner was announced by State Secretary of Ministry of Science and Technology, Manuel Heitor, during the official ceremony held at ISCTE-IUL.  Waynergy was selected Audience Favorite.  This international competition for entrepreneurship and innovation was hosted by ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute in partnership with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the MIT Deshpande Center for Innovation, MIT Sloan Business School and Caixa Capital (Grupo Caixa Geral de Depósitos).  “This is an exciting opportunity to showcase entrepreneurial spirit in Portugal,” says Manuel Heitor, Secretary of State for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Government of Portugal, “and is in full accordance with the economic development goals of our international partnerships.”

This article profiles EDAM Leaders for Technical Industries (LTI) doctoral student Jean-Loup Loyer. 

Could you tell us about your academic background?  

I graduated from a French engineering school in aeronautics – called ISAE/Supaéro and located in Toulouse – followed by an exchange year in Imperial College, London.

Please describe your previous professional experience.

During my studies, I was eager to discover new sectors. Therefore I undertook internships as an engineer in a laboratory of theoretical physics and then in a biotech start-up. This last assignment was particularly fulfilling since it gave me an introduction to entrepreneurship.  Then, as graduation arrived, I searched for engineering jobs in the French aeronautics sector. However, I was lucky enough to have two great professional opportunities. First, I studied American and European lunar space programs within the French embassy in Washington D.C. Then, I worked three years in the Office of the French Prime Minister on technology-related issues, contributing to working groups and writing public reports or memos on various subjects like telework, the automotive sector, or innovation policies. 

On Monday, Nov. 15, 2010, nine MPP visiting students presented posters of their research as part of the MIT Engineering Systems Division annual PhD student poster session.  The students represented the bioengineering, EDAM, transportation, and energy research areas of MPP.

Poster sessions are a valuable way for students to gain experience discussing their research.  Andre Fialho, bioengineering PhD student at IST, stated “As my first poster session experience, I found it really useful in several ways. I was able to present the general topic of my work and of the project that I am part of to several people who seemed very interested.”  Another Bioengineering student from IST, Federico Cismondi, further commented that “Some people, familiar with your research, ask more specific and challenging questions, sometimes even criticizing what you have done. This is very positive since, in order to answer the questions properly, you need to have a deep knowledge about that field and a very mature understanding of the methods used. It is also important when you receive different points of view, since they could help on coming up with new ideas or approaches.”