Rui Miguel Costa received, this past April 5, in Budapest, IEEE’s Larry K. Wilson Regional Student Activities Award, “For an extraordinary accomplishment called: IEEE IST Academic”.
It was awarded in 2013 by IEEE’s region 8, which comprehends all countries in Europe, Africa, and Middle East.
IEEE-IST Academic was founded by Rui, at the Taguspark campus of Instituto Superior Técnico. The launch was on May 21, 2012.
In July 2012, at the region 8 student branch congress in Madrid, Rui proposed a global project, of which IEEE-IST Academic was a pilot. The project received a Seed Grant from IEEE Foundation’s New Initiatives Program and was officially launched in September 2013. IEEE Academic is an international project, with college students and professors creating free educational materials together.
It was created by students and it is mostly student-driven: students record and edit videos, take care of logistics, coordinate across local groups, maintain the website, and train new people. Working side-by-side with professors, they are creating new contents (that will be freely available to everyone, everywhere) and trying to create new tools to support teaching. Dozens of local groups from over 15 countries are involved, with more countries joining by the month.
In May 13 and 14, IEEE Academic will be at Collision Conf, in Downtown Las Vegas, as part of Collide, that selects 150 of the world’s most promising startups.
