Portugal Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education Manuel Heitor is keen to work with India. “We hope to build a strong relationship between India and Portugal by linking the country’s best engineering schools and students with India,” he told DH.
He showed keen interest in a Memorandum of Understanding with IIT-Madras. “My goal is to promote cooperation in science and technology under a potential IIT-Portugal joint venture following our existing programmes with MIT and Carnegie Mellon University,” he said. Last year, he visited MIT and met students and faculty affiliated with the MIT Portugal programme.
“International exchange of students and researchers help in building a new mindset for future generations who need to rely more and more on science and international relations,” he said.
Thiru Srinivasan, senior industry relations officer at IIT-Madras, said, “Over the last three days at PBD here, many delegates, especially NRIs, showed keen interest in projects that we are working on. Not many know that we incubate startups and there is more scope for investments there.”