Portuguese technology in your life
Portugal is in the forefront in terms of IT and e-government. The “Innovation Union Scoreboard” IUS – 2010, of the European Commission shows that Portugal was the country that had the greatest increase regarding the Global Index for Innovation and positioned 15 amongst the 27 countries of the European Union.
In the European Union eGov Benchmark report of 2010, Portugal is the leading European country in the availability and sophistication of public services on-line.
A series of innovating and promising companies are emerging in Portugal and many international companies have nearshore’s Shared Services Centers and R&D departments in Portugal. Recently, Gartner consulting has included Portugal among the 11 developed countries that show greater potential to outsource services in the IT sector.
Portugal is a leading country in IT due to:
o International cooperation between Universities and R&D Institutes wich
makes a perfect environment for IT companies. Portugal has partnerships
with American and German universities and research Institutes for
development of educational and research programs in Portugal on several
areas such as:
- MIT – Massachussets Institute of Technology – MIT program with Portugal
focuses on Engineering systems cooperating with the Sloan School of
Management.
- University of Austin, Texas – focus areas on mathematics, digital media
and advanced computing.
- Carnegie-Mellon University – software engineering, information networking,
mathematics, information security, critical infrastructures and risk
assessment, technical change and innovation.
- Fraunhofer program Portugal – focus and R&D activities on information
technology and communication providing solutions for Ambient Assisted
Living.
o Public Policies focused in strengthening education:
- E-School – One of the remarkable projects with the aim to spread the Internet
and computer access to every school children and staff at a reduced cost. As
a result, more than one million Magellan laptop computers, manufactured in
Portugal, were already delivered in schools. The Chairman of Toshiba awarded
the e-School Program as “The Best European Award” in 2007 and Microsoft
called it as “The Portuguese Case Study”. Currently, Magellan is being
exported to countries like Venezuela, Cape Verde, Angola and Argentina.
o Human Resources highly qualified, motivated, flexible, incredible aptness
to innovation and high capabilities in terms of foreign languages.
o Portuguese are early adopters of technologies. Some examples: we were
the first to have a pre-paid mobile card, we have a nation-wide system of
automated tolls, our ATM service is the most functional service in Europe,
allowing to buy cinema tickets, train tickets, pay taxes, etc.
o
Significant investments in R&D, in next generation networks, in structural
reforms in education and in the promotion of strategic partnership with
international Research Institutes are improving the conditions in Portugal
to locate IT projects. The country is among the best locations in
Europe.