President of Panama and Head of Microsoft Research Address Scientific Research Opportunities in Latin America
14/05/2008 19:05
PR Newswire
PANAMA CITY, May 14 /PRNewswire/ --
- Expansion of the programmes is aimed at strengthening region's research
community.
Microsoft Research today kicked off its fourth annual Latin American
Academic Summit, where the Panamanian President Martin Torrijos Espino
welcomed nearly 300 academic, government and industry research leaders from
18 Latin American countries to the City of Knowledge research park. The
attendees were brought together by Microsoft Research to discuss how
scientific research and development can stimulate social, economic and
scientific progress throughout the Latin American region. Rick Rashid, senior
vice president of Microsoft Research, delivered the keynote address, and
Gonzalo Rivas, chief of the Division of Science and Technology at the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provided comments.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)
"We thank Microsoft for having selected Panama to host the Latin American
Academic Summit at the City of Knowledge, a complex built atop an ancient
military base and dedicated to education, research and innovation, and now
home to several companies and international organizations in the new
economy," said Martin Torrijos, president of Panama. "This makes evident how
this country accepts the challenge of innovation on a global scale, and we
invite Microsoft and other corporations to support Panama, Latin America and
the Caribbean in narrowing the gap in the creation of knowledge."
During a keynote address, Rashid, who is the head of Microsoft Research's
six global research labs, announced the company's second round of funding to
the Latin American and Caribbean Collaborative ICT Research Federation
(Virtual Institute). This funding of $150,000 (US) will help continue the
expansion of research opportunities across the region. Rashid also
demonstrated Microsoft Corp's new WorldWide Telescope, an innovative
collaborative tool that brings real celestial bodies to a user's desktop. The
technology became available yesterday as a free resource to the astronomy and
education communities.
"For the last five years, Microsoft Research has invested in increasing
the capacity, visibility and quality of Latin American academic research
through initiatives such as the Virtual Institute, an internship and
fellowship programme, and support to several innovative research projects,"
Rashid said. "We believe that investing in computing and academic research
will deliver much-needed, long-term social and economic benefits to the
region."
Joining Microsoft in its support of the Virtual Institute was the IDB,
which concluded the morning session by announcing $150,000 (US) in funding
for the Virtual Institute, bringing the total to $300,000 (US).
"The Inter-American Development Bank shares Microsoft Research's
commitment to address the research capacity across the region," IDB's Rivas
said. "We are pleased to announce our contribution of $150,000 to support the
Latin American and Caribbean Collaborative ICT Research Federation and other
efforts designed to support a collaborative environment to enable
cross-country research and education solutions."
Today's announcements and Microsoft Research's annual Latin American
research event underscore future trends of computing research and highlight
the importance of collaborating with partners in the academic, education and
scientific communities to foster digital inclusion, develop economies and
support competitiveness in the region through increasing research capacity
for faculty and students.
Over the past several years, Microsoft has worked to identify local
trends and challenges in technology, and to establish deep relationships with
academic and governmental research communities. Since 2002, Microsoft
Research has invested approximately $5 million (US) through research grants,
technology learning labs, regional research summits, internships and
doctorate fellowships, and other regional initiatives. One tangible result of
this investment is the Virtual Institute. The company's initial contribution
to establish the institute in May 2007 was $1.1 million (US). The IDB and the
Organisation of American States were among the original organisations that
joined Microsoft Research in this research endeavour, which is designed to
stimulate Latin American academic collaborative research in information and
communication technologies as an enabler of economic and social development.
The institute's administrative hub has been established at Pontificia
Universidad Catolica De Chile (PUC-Chile) and Universidad de Chile in
Santiago, with spoke universities in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica
and Mexico. The research federation is interacting with 215 researchers from
29 universities in 11 countries in Latin America. Microsoft Research also
continues to support research projects ranging from advancing bioinformatics,
genome biology and biotechnology to digital inclusion through mobile and
wireless technologies.
Microsoft External Research collaborates with the world's foremost
researchers in academia, industry and government to move research in new
directions across nearly every field of computer science, engineering and
general science.
About Microsoft Research
Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic
and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals
are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of
writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies.
Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with
leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of
the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface
research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies,
operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft
Research currently employs more than 800 people in six labs located in
Redmond, Washington; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Silicon Valley, California;
Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research
collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the
teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and
broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found
at http://www.research.microsoft.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise
their full potential.
About Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
Microsoft has operated in EMEA since 1982. In the region Microsoft
employs more than 16,000 people in over 64 subsidiaries, delivering products
and services in more than 139 countries and territories.
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Andrea Sommer of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, +1-503-443-7446, asommer@waggeneredstrom.com, for Microsoft Corp; or EMEA Response Centre for Microsoft Corp, emearesponse@waggeneredstrom.com ; NOTE TO EDITORS: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft in EMEA, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/emea or the EMEA Press Centre at http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at the time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact the appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/contactus.mspx. If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft Corp, please visit the Microsoft web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass on Microsoft's corporate information pages. ; Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO, AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org, PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
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