India – Portugal Technology Summit reinforced INL role in this bilateral scientific partnership

The INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory had a relevant presence in the India-Portugal Technology Summit, last 7-9 of December and was mentioned by the Portuguese Science Minister, Manuel Heitor, as one of the good examples of the “excellent scientific cooperation between Portugal and India, which has been increasing over the last three years” since Portugal is one of INL member-states. 

The INL Director-General was one of the rapporteurs and considered this conference to be a quite insightful opportunity to discuss “technologies that are addressing the Global Challenges intending to create a quality of life for all people on Earth”. Lars Montelius also noted that “the Indian Innovation Ecosystem doubled the last year, supported by a large and well-educated crowd of entrepreneurs that created 50 000 startups the last few years in India – out of these 33  turned into unicorns”, meaning each one is now worth more than 1 billion dollars.

Bejoys Jacob, an INL Researcher of Indian origin who gave a talk at this event, considered “it was an exciting opportunity for me as an early-stage researcher to share the stage with a few of the key players in fields which have a direct impact on the policies of ICT in both countries”. Bejoys Jacob also had the opportunity to share his work at the ultrafast bio- and nanophotonics group on the European commission’s H2020 FET project ChipAI, which aims to develop neuromorphic photonics enabled technology for a revolutionary circuit architecture for high-speed computing “that will change the society we live in”. The cognitive systems are also among important changes to explore “with Artificial Intelligence assisted robots that decide how to solve the tasks in front of them, instead of just programming them to perform repeated actions”.

Another Indian researcher developing his work at INL on sensors and energy harvesting, Vinaya Basavarajappa, also highlighted the relevance of this conference “that gathered eminent scientists from both countries”, where he made a presentation about the advantages of the use of sensors for a greener and financially balanced economy.

This conference focused on topics such as Agritech, Watertech, Healthtech, Cleantech, IT and Emerging Technologies, Innovation & Startups, and Space – Ocean Interactions.