Final Year of the MPP Flagship Projects: The seven flagship projects met for another follow-up meeting
This week, March 6th, our seven flagship projects met at DST Group for another follow-up meeting. For the first time, the meeting took place outside the academic environment to reinforce the close interaction and collaboration between the industry and academia.
The main goal of this meeting was to know the last updates on the projects in order to guarantee that they are moving forward, and to promote a collaborative environment between the participants. The meeting was open to the MPP community and focused on the technical and scientific aspects of project results. In attendance, we had 35 participants which included the project’s principal investigators and some team members; the Portuguese area Leaders, and MPP PhD students. They had the opportunity to share ideas, explore synergies and possible future collaborations.
Joining the meeting and for the welcome notes, we had José Teixeira, Chair of the board of directors of DST Group; and the MPP Directors, Pedro Arezes and Doug Hart. Pedro Arezes thanked the presence of all the participants and DST for welcoming MIT Portugal. He shared a brief note regarding the evaluation meeting with the External Review Committee, which took place on March 3rd and emphasize the importance of the projects outputs showcase the collaborative nature of these projects.
For this meeting, the projects were represented by:
– NEWSAT: Gustavo Dias (Stratosphere)
– TRANSFORMER 4.0: Cristiano Coutinho (EFACEC) and Donna Rhodes (MIT – remote)
– C-TECH: Ricardo Gomes (Técnico, Lisbon)
– K2D: Eduardo Pereira (UMinho) and John Leonard (MIT – remote)
– OPERATOR: Ana Correia Barros (Fraunhofer Portugal)
– AEROS: Hélder Silva (Edisoft)
– SNOB-5G: Duarte Faria (Instituto Telecomunicações) and Muriel Medard (MIT – remote)
They all presented a brief overview and the main results achieved. As these flagship projects (funded in 2020) near completion in their final year, it is evident that they remain congruent with the objectives set forth at their inception.
In closing the flagships’ presentation segment of the agenda, Doug Hart, co-director of the MPP program at MIT, expressed a hopeful sentiment, stating that “despite being the last year of these projects I hope that this collaboration will continue and that we will remain connected”. He also mentioned that the expects to have more students at MIT in the next phase of MPP.
At the end of the day, the goal of the meeting was successfully achieved and the discussion included the participation of all the project speakers and the audience. After some networking, the participants had the opportunity to learn more about DST work and culture with a small tour through DST facilities.
We would like to give a warm thank you to DSTelecom for hosting this meeting.
More details about the MPP projects here!