AI
Though a mature economy in many regards, healthy government support and a broadly nimble environment make Portugal an excellent base for AI in the next two decades.
WeDo Technologies was founded in 2001, and our first customer outside of Portugal was in Brazil. Today, 95% of our business is outside of Portugal. We have customers in around 20 countries and offices in 10. WeDo Technologies has 600 employees from 20 nationalities. We work mainly for the telecommunications market, and our customers are companies in this field. We have around 200 customers worldwide whom we work with to increase their revenues and fight fraud. While we also have customers outside the sector, most of our work is in telecoms. We have tested our software on other industry verticals, such as 7-Eleven, Best Buy, and Sberbank, and have been able to deliver highly successful projects with a strong return on investment. We wanted to prove that our software can be used in other markets, for which we already received market validation. Going forward, this can be a promising growth avenue.
On the global level, SAS has 14,000 employees in more than 100 countries. We are an analytics leader, and though it is a challenge for us to keep analytics popular, we have been doing this since 1976. Contrary to popular belief, SAS has been using AI for 40 years. Although there was not enough data or computer processing capacity to make it possible in the past, the algorithms we use today were mostly written four decades ago. A factor that continues to make SAS a great place to work is that it is still a private company. As a multinational, we do have pressures and quarters, but we are able to think long term without pressure from shareholders to obtain dividends. Therefore, SAS has been able to have the patience to wait for returns and freedom in decision-making. We grew our main operations in finance, banking, and insurance, the latter of which makes up half of our business. And when the democratization of analytics began, we started broadening our solutions to other markets.
Google has been in Portugal for almost 15 years and has traditionally reflected the size of the Portuguese economy and the opportunities available. That said, we are proud of having expanding significantly in the recent past. Two important milestones in our journey in Portugal were the acquisition of Digisfer, a Portuguese startup incorporated through Google Street View, in 2015 and the launch of Atelier Digital, Google's digital skills training program, which has now trained over 35,000 people in Portugal. The company's milestone for summer 2018 was an international service center in Oeiras announced in conjunction with the Portuguese prime minister. Google looks at Portugal not just through the lens of the domestic market, but primarily as an international hub for talent and a service distribution center for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Some of our best brains in the field of AI originate from Portugal.
AI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Focus: Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries
Making an Impact
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
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Don’t Mind the Disruption
Having won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Lisbon hosted the 2018 event. The relevance? Well, the contest began back in 1956 as a showcase not only of song, but of then-nascent live television broadcast technology. Today, Portugal is on the cutting edge of new technological developments.
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João Pedro Soeiro de Matos Fernandes , Minister , Environment and Energy Transition
The Ministry for the Environment and Energy Transition is focusing on decarbonizing the economy, valuing the territory and its habitats, and striving for a more circular use of the country's resources.
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António Braz Costa , General Manager, Portuguese Technological Centre for the Textile & Clothing Industries (CITEVE)
CITEVE has transformed the industry by promoting value addition, adopting the latest technologies, and ensuring the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
read articleFocus: New airport
Right Time to Seize Missed Opportunities
Portugal has seen its air traffic figures increase by as much as 80% in the last five years. As a result, its transportation infrastructure, and Lisbon's airport in particular, cannot cope with the rising numbers. A new airport project that will turn a military base into a commercial airport is now under discussion to bring much-needed relief to air traffic.
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Germano de Sousa , President, Grupo Germano de Sousa
Grupo Germano de Sousa's success can best be summed up by its understanding that science and medicine only really progress when technological development is combined with a deeper respect for human values and professional ethics.
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Isabel Capeloa Gil , Rector, Universidade Católica
Having pioneered the introduction of multiple subject areas to Portugal's tertiary education scene, Universidade Católica is aspiring to establish the country's first private medical school and introduce cutting-edge digital transformation.
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Carlos Guillén Gestoso , President, Escola Universitária de Ciências Empresariais, Saúde, Tecnologias e Engenharia & President, Atlantica University
Atlantica University differentiates through its company-university model and an MBA program in partnership with the University of California, Berkley, among other initiatives, to produce practical theoreticians.
read articleFocus: Public teaching staff
An Age-old Problem
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
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Pedro Queiroz , General Manager, Federation of the Portuguese Agri-Food Industry (FIPA)
Portugal's economic recovery has seen its F&B sector emerge with annual turnovers of EUR16 billion, thanks to FIPA's undeterred focus on stable policies, excellent nutrition standards, and sustainability.
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