UT Austin Portugal Program brings the “father” of the supercomputer to Portugal

On 20 September, the annual conference of the UT Austin Portugal Program, located at INESC TEC‘s headquarters, brought 110 experts to Braga. Robert A. Peterson of the University of Texas at Austin was the keynote speaker of the event, who was the great promoter of the initiative that gave Portugal the first supercomputer, which was named BOB, in honour of Peterson, the Principal Researcher of the UT Austin Portugal Programme at that US university between 2007 and 2017.

At the opening session of the event – and preceding the intervention of Professor Robert A. Peterson – José Manuel Mendonça, National Director of the UT Austin Portugal Program, John Ekerdt, Principal Investigator of the UT Austin Portugal Program, Rui Vieira de Castro, Rector of the University of Minho, Nuno Feixa Rodrigues, Member of the Board of Directors of the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) and Manuel Heitor, Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES) delivered speeches to an audience that filled the auditorium of the School of Economics and Management of the University of Minho.

During the afternoon, two thematic masterclasses were held, focusing on Quantum Computing and Nanomaterials themes in the context of smart textiles, which brought experts from UT Austin, Portugal and Germany closer to the national scientific and business community.   The Conference also had a poster session, which were previously selected and were related to R&D projects related to the five areas of expertise of the UT Austin Portugal Program (Advanced Computing, Medical Physics, Nanotechnologies, Space-Earth Interactions and Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship) and which was defined as a privileged networking moment.

José Manuel Mendonça and Rui Oliveira, President and Member of the Board of INESC TEC respectively, are in charge of the administration of the project in Portugal since 2018, while Andreia Passos is responsible for the executive management.

The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with UP-FEUP and UM.