Macau will create two Sino-Lusophone centers to support the setting up of “advanced technology projects” by Portuguese-speaking countries in the Greater Bay Area, including scholarships and collaborations with universities and companies.
Macau chief executive, Ho Iat Seng, had announced during the presentation of the Lines of Government Action for 2023, the establishment of a Sino-Lusophone Science and Technology Center, and last week, during the sectoral debate for the area of Economy and Finance, the Government added that there are two such spaces.
“A center in the Deep Cooperation Zone and another to be created in Macau”, noted the director of Economic Services, Anton Tai Kin Ip, referring to the cooperation area between the province of Guangdong and Macau, in Hengqin.
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Tai Kin Ip said that the ultimate goal is to allow “advanced technology projects from Portuguese-speaking countries to enter the Greater Bay Area market”.
In addition, he added, “scholarships will be awarded and [there will be] links between universities and companies”.
The Secretary for Economy and Finance of Macau, Lei Wai Nong, underlined that, in 2023, the year of the 20th anniversary of the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries (Forum Macau), the Macau administration also hopes to start preparatory work for the holding of the 6th Ministerial Conference of Forum Macau, which was not held in 2019 due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Portugal´s University of Évora and Macau University of Science and Technology start partnership
In Portugal, a new cooperation agreement for the establishment of a joint laboratory in computer science was established by the University of Coimbra (UC) and the Polytechnic University of Macau (MPU).
In a press release, UC said that the partnership defines the terms for the establishment of the “MPU-UC Joint Research Laboratory in Advanced Technologies for Smart Cities”, in Faculty of Applied Sciences of the MPU, in Macau.
The protocol was signed by the rector of the UC, Amílcar Falcão, and by the rector of the MPU, Im Sio Kei, in a ceremony held in a hybrid format, from the Senate Room.
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“The objective of the laboratory is to carry out joint research projects in the areas of computing, artificial intelligence and information and communication technologies, with an impact on the development of smart cities – also promoting international academic partnerships between the UC and the MPU and supporting the training of young people. researchers from both sides”, summarized the Portuguese university.
“In addition to the double degree of recognition of the doctoral courses in Informatics of the two institutions, the professors and researchers of the Department of Informatics Engineering of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the UC have collaborated in the training and guidance of the students of the doctoral program of the MPU and developed joint research projects”, it added.
The UC also recalled that, “recently, the first joint project was approved with funding from the Science & Technology Development Fund of Macau, of around two million patacas (240 thousand euros)”, in the area of Communications in Smart Cities, ‘Research on Secure and Energy Efficient Physical Layer Techniques for B5G Dense Environments'”.
