The CMU|Portugal Program

2015      2014      2013      2012      2011      2010      2009      2008      2007      2006      2005      2004

Moura directs at CMU the CMU-Portugal Program launched on October 2006 and funded by Fundação de Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal. Professor João Claro from Universidade do Porto directs the Program on the Portugal side. In the first 5 years, the Program was a 100 Million dollars program. The CMU-Portugal Program was extended a sixth year and was renewed to a more focused and smaller five year Phase II (about 26 Million dollars). The CMU-Portugal Program has an aggressive educational and research agenda that partners CMU with 9 Portuguese Universities and Research Institutions. In early 2012, end of Phase I, the Program had about 90 PhD students in 9 dual degree PhD Programs and had involved 150 students in 5 dual degree Professional Masters Programs. The program provided full tuition scholarships to selected successful candidates both for professional MSc and PhD programs and leads to dual degrees awarded by CMU and a partner University in Portugal. Eighty five companies were involved in Phase I, with about a dozen start-ups launched from activities of the Program. Good success stories include Feedzai and Veniam. Thirty research projects were funded in Phase I in areas of information and communications technologies teaming groups from at least two Portuguese Universities, one company, and one research group from CMU. In Phase II that started in January 2013, the Program was restructured to focus on Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives, research programs that ficused on high quality research but included a innovations component. Twelve ERIs have been selected and funded, see details on the CMU|Portugal website. In Phase II, we also introduced a program supporting early stage start-up companies, the inRes Program (in Residence) that has supported so far eight startups that go through an intensive 6 week immersion in an entrepreneurial environment, fine tuning their business plan, customer sales pitch, and VC presentation. The CMU|Portugal Program is under the Information and Communications Technologies Institute (ICTI) that Moura directs at CMU and Claro in Portugal.