IV Edition of the ‘Summer Internship Programme’ challenges dozens of future engineers

During the month of July, INESC TEC’s Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM) promoted the fourth edition of the Summer Internship’s initiative. Students from various Portuguese faculties and universities had the opportunity to develop and deepen knowledge in the fields of telecommunications and multimedia.

There were 22 vacancies open, for which 69 undergraduate and master students applied. The selected students, from the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) and Faculty of Sciences (FCUP), of the University of Porto, as well as from the School of Engineering of Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP) and the School of Engineering of the University of Minho, had the opportunity to carry out a short-term R&D project framed around a research team of CTM.

The proposals, supervised by some CTM researchers, were organised according to three main areas of research: Optical and Electronic Technologies, Wireless Networks and Information Processing and Pattern Recognition.

The purpose of this initiative, which has been going on for four consecutive years, is “to promote scientific research in the telecommunications and multimedia fields and to promote INESC TEC as a host institution for the development of Master’s and PhD’s theses”, stated Pedro Carvalho, the CTM researcher responsible for the organisation of this year’s initiative.

Other CTM researchers joined the organising committee: Ana Sequeira, Cândido Duarte, Hélder Castro e Hélder Fontes.

Either in person or remotely, the initiative had a positive mark!

Unlike previous editions, the CTM’s Summer Internship 2020 took place mostly online. One-off cases, which required access to laboratory resources, had a face-to-face component. However, there was no lack of remote support from the advisors, through different web platforms (Zoom, Skype, MS Teams) and email.

According to Pedro Carvalho, although this physical distance made it difficult for the interns to integrate into the CTM teams, and to start working in groups, “the challenges were overcome, thanks to the effort and availability of the CTM researchers, as well as to the willingness and energy of the interns who wanted to get the most out of work”.

In the end, the feedback was positive, considering the results of a survey completed by the participating students, where they highlighted the benefit and interest of the topics covered, as well as the support of the advisors and the work developed by their group.

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and FCT.