CGI Space - Lusófona Innovation Lab

PLAY - Projects Lab Alliance for You, is the creative and technological incubator created by and at Universidade Lusófona for entrepreneurial projects. It emerged as a platform to support the development of new projects, businesses and the creation of companies and is oriented not only to the Lusófona Teaching community but also to the general public. Through its own incubation methodology, PLAY has a close view and constant mentorship with entrepreneurs, allowing a context of continued acceleration for the ideas or businesses incubated. The organization provides rooms and co-working spaces so that you can enjoy the benefits of being in a university context, being able to take advantage of meeting rooms, auditoriums for events and work rooms, and now gains new laboratories in partnership with CGI Portugal. CGI ranks among independent IT and business consulting firms, targeting strategic IT and business consulting, systems integration, IT service and business process management, and intellectual property solutions.

According to José Pratas, responsible for innovation and partnerships at CGI Portugal: “This project is born from what are the times in which we live in uncertainty and digital transformation.”, stating that “Innovation is no longer a option, it is an obligation of all companies and all business areas.”.

The project is fundamental for companies to get closer to universities, being a differentiating factor of Lusófona itself wanting students to work as a team, getting closer to companies. This collaboration ends up preparing and helping students to be closer to the reality they will find when they finish their cycle of studies at the University and what the reality of the business market is.

For Professor Rui Ribeiro, it is important to encourage “not only the theoretical, scientific and academic concept, which are the foundations of what a degree is, but to give students real experiences.”. Students have a direct relationship with companies, both from the practical point of view of what they are developing, such as games, things more connected to artificial intelligence, mobile applications, but also feeling that what they have learned and what they they still have to learn, it makes a practical sense.

The company has several automatic tasks, but what the students are looking for with the project is “to monitor this automation of companies”, as explained by the student of the Degree in Informatics, José Sobral. “If the tasks are done well, everything is fine, if they are not done well, it is necessary to be a human who redoes the task or puts the task to be done well.”