<> Dear Otto and TC6 Members, <>
After our last meeting in Coimbra and with the excellent contact given by Augusto Casaca (thanks again, Augusto) I contacted the Rector of the /Instituto Superior de Transportes e Comunicações (ISUTC)/, in Maputo (Mozambique) (http://www.transcom.co.mz/isutc/investigacao.html), in order to explore the opportunity of new activities for WG 6.9.
In a first attempt I suggested him the possibility of organizing some kind of events there, as for instance, some postgraduate courses in the area of networking that could be organized in the framework of continuous training offered by the University, or a set of seminars/tutorials.
I convey to him that my idea is not to organize the better for TC6 but the most profitable for them. So in my opinion, first we must hear from ISUTC. Because they are who better know their needs and lacks. So, enclosed is the answer of the Rector. He gives us an accurate idea of their reality and suggests us some possibilities of cooperation. He also suggests the possibility of sending a “fact finding mission” to explore the situation.
(My comment to this: the mission could be the opportunity to offer them some tutorials of their interest)
But, I do not know about the capacity of TC6 of assuming possible agreements neither about our final intentions.
So, I would like to hear from you before sending an answer to the Rector. I promise to write him by mid-July.
My best regards
<>Ana
___________________________________________________- Dear Prof. Ana Pont Sanjuan After Prof. Ferraz de Oliveira's recent visit to Maputo, and following the exchanges of views with him, I would like to convey to you our interest in setting up some sort of cooperation with IFIP or, through IFIP, with other institutions or individuals (I am not exactlly sure of how it works, but I'm sure I will learn in the future). As you are certainly aware, ISUTC is a fairly small HEI (less than 500 students at present, growing slowly up to a desirable size of some 7 ou 8 hundred in the next few years). We are poised on the transport and communications sector and our main concern is the technological side of it. Apart from a degree course ("Licenciatura" - 4 years) on Management and Finance, attended by some 28% of our students, we run 3 Engineering Licenciaturas (5 years), the most popular of which is "Licenciatura em Engenharia Informática e de Telecomunicações" - LEIT. It goes without saying that, given our underdevelopment situation, it is not an easy task to gather a sound and reliable group of lecturers to reach the kind of standards that we would like to have. Due to our small size, we cannot afford to have many permanent satff, so most of our teaching staff are partime, recruited from the local enterprises. Not allways is this a good solution, but it is the only within our reach. We have some input from Cuba, through a Convenio-Marco with "Universidad Central de Las Villas", which has been a good contribution. Reaching worldwide acceptable standards seems a dream in our present circumstances. Therefore, we content ourselves with aiming at producing graduates that are some 10% or 15% better than those from our fellow/competitor local instituions. If we can achieve this, it is already a victory (it is too early to say if this is happening; our first graduates finished just over one year ago and we do not have sufficiente feedback yet). Inputs of the kind Prof. Ferraz de Oliveira mentioned would be welcome. I think we could gain from receiving the assistance of experts in various fields, still to be better identified. Some suggestions mentioned in the e-mail exchange between you and him sound interesting to us. I refer, namely, to short duration courses (for ourselves and/or for the public), lecturing one or other of our semester courses (normally lasting 15 weeks) in a block arrangement of 2 or 3 weeks, etc. Being the only institution concerned with this kind of activity for transport and communications, we are very well positioned locally with regard to the main public and private operators, regulatory and governmental bodies in this field. Just to give you an example, our University Council (meeting twice a year) includes the Chairmen of Mozambique Telecom (TDM), Mozambique Airlines (LAM), ADM (airports), INCM (the national telecom regulatory body), CFM (railways), the actual Minister of Industry and Commerce (because he was previously Vice Minister of Tr.&Com. and member of our faculty), and several others. In the site http://www.transcom.co.mz/isutc/formacao_continua.html that you have already visited, you find the names of various of these and other institutions for which we have already run tailor-made courses for top management, technical staff, etc. One such course was on " Liberalization in Telecommunications" (2 weeks full time), given twice, first to INCM and then to TDM. However, the cost of such actions (heavily based on experts invited commercially from Europe), renders them difficult to sell! I mention this because I think that we could provide much more of this kind of services to local management, engineers, technitians, if their cost were alleviated by some sort of non-commmercial inputs; there is a good potential of interested people and organizations, and we could have a fairly easy access to them. For years now I have been thinking of holding a Master's Degree course (2 year, first year filled with several block-modules, followed by a second year for dissertation). Of course we do not consider ourselves to be sufficiently establsished to dare awarding such a degree on our own, so we would have to associate with a well reputed institution from abroad, also because we do not have the capacity and expertise to do it alone. For this purpose, I favour the field of ICT, Telecommunications, where I am sure there would be a substantial number of professional willing to undergo such training and enroll in such a course. One other thing that could be very helpful would be some sort of support for post-graduation studies of our staff (mind you, we are short of people to submit to such training, but this is in part due to the fact that we do not have the resources to be able to compete with other HEI; they manage to recruit some potentially brilliant youngsters with the promise of a Master's or Doctoral's course; we have lost some good candidates because of this). This could go as far as providing ful-fledged scholarships, if there are resources. Presently I have one coleague doing his PhD with Universidade do Minho - Portugal (he is staged here and goes there once a year), plus two doing Master's degrees. This has been possible on the basis of a government soft loan that covers part of the expenses. However, all the three of them are doing this on top of their regular lecturing and managerial duties, which is not easy for anybody. I have mentioned these possibilities just to give you an idea of things that could be useful to us. However, a better knowledge of what IFIP is capable or likes to do would certainly bring up other ideas. I believe it would be useful if you could send us a "fact finding mission", for a few days or a week. We could show what we have, speak our ideas, hear their suggestions, put them in touch with other local organizations. Important to us is also the question of financial arrangements (who pays what?). Perhaps, after such encounter, we might be in a better position to start thinking of an actual plan. Please let me know if there is something in particular that you would like me to expand on, or to clarify. Or send me some more information on this matter. Best regards André Carvalho Reitor do ISUTC